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Inflation Busting Fragrances: it’s still perfectly possible to have great fragrances without spending crazy money. Isn’t it?


The price of fragrances is going up. Yet demand for and sales of expensive, high end, niche, boutique, and artisanal fragrances were still sky high last time I checked. On basenotes, most discussion seems to veer towards these newer, more expensive, more desirable, and more scarce fragrances on the whole. The threads with (by far) the most comments are discussing artisanal, indie, and the smaller boutique niche brands.

As a result, there isn’t always that much room left for the rest of the pack. But to my mind there are plenty of really great fragrances that are still in production, are easily affordable to the majority of people in the Anglosphere, and (crucially) smell really great. That last point is why most of us are are here, after all. Cheap fragrances are one thing, but great-smelling, well-performing fragrances are another thing entirely. Something seems to get lost when talking about affordability, or cheap fragrances; namely, the mind (or the discussion) veers towards the bargain bucket, the £10 ‘cheapie’, and (God forbid) the cheap and nasty clone imitation of the aforementioned expensive, desirable fragrances that garner so much attention.

This tendency to immediately go right down to the bottom of the price scale results in needless and painful sacrifices to one of the most important parts of fragrance: how it actually smells. Finding good or even great fragrances is easily done without spending a great amount of money. When you’re trying to spend as little money as possible, it becomes much harder.

So I thought it would be interesting to see if other people would like to join in and try to do precisely that: find fragrances that are affordable, smell great, and will slake the olfactive thirst of even the most dedicated perfume enthusiast. When I say afforable, I’m using 3 figures (i.e. under £100/$100) as the cut off point, but ideally I’d like to keep things a little lower than that (£30-60 seems ideal). Second hand and discounter market prices are good to use, in fact maybe even better than retail.

I’m going to list 10 but you can choose however many you like. As a guide, I’m going to try to meet a few demands – again, you can choose to do something similar or not, it’s up to you.

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  • The Colour Wheel
    Using Michael Edwards’ wheel to cover most/all of the different notes and genres.
  • Versatility
    Having both formal and informal fragrances, some that are more suited to casual wear and some that are better for work, events etc. Also leaving room for special occasion and/or more creative/niche scents. Also factoring in weather, time of year, day or evening. I’ll also try to provide a balance of some of the smaller details, like texture and so on, but this will be off the cuff/by instinct rather than anything specific.
  1. John Varvatos Artisan Pure
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    Really lovely stuff, this is sought after but still very much in production/available at a good price, despite treading on the toes of so many niche fragrances. A soapy, clean, laundry musk type of floral fragrance that evokes Kurkdjian and Prada fragrances of recent years. It keeps the orris, fruity citrus, and laundry musks balanced, making for an easily wearable and clean masculine scent.
    Price: £30-45
    Colours: White, Cream, Pale Yellow, Light Pinks/Purples
    Versatility: All weather, Daytime, Casual to Formal

  2. Ralph Lauren Polo Blue EDP
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    There are numerous blue, dark blue, and aquatic fragrances on the market. It’s harder to know what to exclude than what to pick, but I went for RL Polo Blue. Any of the flankers would do, but the EDP stood out to me as the best middle ground between the original Polo Blue and the subsequent fruity, ambroxan and amberwood, and marine trends that have occurred since its release.
    Price: £30-40
    Colours: Blues (!), Silver, Bitter Yellow/Green
    Versatility: Casual, Active, Possibly Clubbing

  3. Montblanc Legend EDP
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    I’ve come round to this style of bracing, silvery fougere after initially finding it offputting in Fierce. When done well it’s great, and this style can be found in more formal scents like Chanel’s Egoiste Platinum, as well as something much more sensual, like PdM’s Percival. Legend EDP is closer to the latter with a thick, rich gourmand-ish aspect, but very much like a mullet, it retains enough ‘business-friendly’ formality to remain versatile, masculine, and clean. Very much a ‘party fougere’ without losing sight of its origins like a Le Male or Sauvage, this is a great type of fragrance that covers a range of needs and wants.
    Price: £30-40
    Colours: Amber/Orange, Green, Silver, Reds, Some Purple
    Versatility: Casual, Active, Evening

  4. Lalique White In Black
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    Lalique might be an obvious choice but they’re an obvious house to go to for something like this for good reason. This is great stuff, it’s Layton but for 20% of the cost. Unlike out and out clones, this is not merely some hackjob but a mostly identical replication of Layton with its own twist (more woods, less apple). A blend of designer fragrances from the last 30 years, this is sweet, smoky, spicy, fruity, fresh, and universally loved by women. A wonderful romantic fragrance for men in their 30s and 40s in particular, though this is still suitable for all ages.
    Price: £40
    Colours: Warm Yellows, Red/Orange, Green, Silver
    Versatility: Casual to Smart Casual, Evening to Night, Intimate, Cooler Weather

  5. Floris Santal
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    Similar to the above option, this is a faithful and good-quality recreation of Gucci Envy. It sort of smells like sandalwood, but what you mostly get from this is a creamy and buttery sweet woody heart, supported by dry powdered spice like nutmeg, and a few supporting aromatic notes. Masculine, alluring, but dry enough to pass as socially acceptable in most situations. One of the more expensive offerings, this is quite similar to #10 in this list, so could easily be swapped out with another Floris fragrance, perhaps something like Eucris from Trumper, or one of the better Aventus clones to give you a similar balanced-dark woody fragrance.
    Price: £50-70
    Colours: Greens, Browns, Cream
    Versatility: Cooler Weather, Smart Casual to Formal

  6. CdG Incense (Zagorsk, Avignon, Kyoto, Jaisalmer, Ouarzazate)
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    I’m including all of the incense fragrances in this one; it’s very much a matter of preference which one of the 5 you/the prospective wearer enjoys the most. These were well ahead of their time seeing as niche houses are still imitating or improving upon the formulas that CdG put out 20 years ago. As these are all faithful recreations of sacred aromas, they go in to the category of special wear. This goes to show, though, that more creative scents are by no means impossible to find on a budget. Although they come in 50ml bottles, making the cost per ml quite high, at £65 they’re worthy of special status in a list like this.
    Price: £65
    Colours: Mostly Reds, Browns, Black, Pale Yellow, Bitter Greens
    Versatility: Special

  7. Houbigant Duc de Vervins
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    We’re now in to the true formal fragrances, starting with the fougeres. Much like the dark blues, there are so many affordable versions of the green, aromatic, fougere fragrance, but many have suffered from reformulation since their heyday. Duc de Vervins is the one I’d recommend. It’s clean yet robust, masculine, smells very 80s without being horrendously dated or ‘old mannish’, and does the job it needs to do. I think the reason DdV retains its appeal has a lot to do with Houbigant’s presence in the contemporary market; unlike so many of the brands with aromatic/powerhouse scents, they are still making good quality and desirable boutique scents (Fougere Royale etc), and so the reformulations have been kind to DdV. All said, it’s a really good retro/vintage fougere.
    Price: £40-50
    Colours: Greens (!), Mild Purples/Whites/Reds/Brown
    Versatility: Formal, All weather

  8. Vera Wang for Men
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    There’s not a great deal of discussion about pale woody ambers like Vera Wang for Men but this will stand the test of time far better than the vast majority of stronger, more distinctive fragrances that are currently en vogue (oud). This is the smell of masculinity with a clean and subtle depth, a formal/evening foil to the clean/light/fresh aquatic trend of the 2000s. Fruity fresh citrus, mild spices, soft warm amber, and some delicate woods and musks: there’s not much to dig your teeth in to, but it’s a very pleasant ‘background noise’ kind of fragrance that could easily be a signature scent. Everything about this is mild and sometimes that’s a necessity without wanting bright/fresh/clean musks. A good daily work fragrance.
    Price: £20
    Colours: Warm Ambers, Oranges, Browns, Yellows
    Versatility: Most Weather, Casual to Formal

  9. Guerlain Vetiver
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    If you ever needed evidence that quality fragrance doesn’t have to cost the earth, a scent like this proves it. Masculine, dry citruses, smoke, woods, dry mild spice, and of course an earthy yet still very clean vetiver. Slightly dated; if that’s an issue you could easily lose this or one of the other vintage/retro scents. If not, vetiver makes for a great autumn to early spring scent – it’s how to wear darkness without it becoming oppressive.
    Price: £40-60
    Colours: Greens, Browns, Some Reds
    Versatility: Formal, Evening to Night, Cooler Weather

  10. Lalique Pour Homme (Lion)

    Another Lalique, and similar to Floris Santal in that it’s based around a creamy ‘sandalwood’ buttery-sweet woody heart. There’s more going on in LPH, however, with plenty of iris, spices, and enough aromatic and balsamic notes to make this part fougere and part chypre. This is quite a particular fragrance that is more suited to formal or even special wear but considering the alternatives from Creed and Nicolai don’t appear to be using markedly ‘better’ ingredients, this is another fragrance where it avoids all the problems and baggage clones bring to the table. You need personality and confidence to wear this; if not, something on the drier, less powdery, more woody or leathery side of masculine would suffice, but this is a great fragrance priced at an absolute steal at £20ish.
    Price: £20-30

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    Colours: Warm Yellows, Greens, Reds, Purple
    Versatility: Formal, Evening to Night, Special

You can see this as a bit of fun, if reading/contributing to list threads if your idea of fun. 😉
On the other hand, I think something like this can be useful to old enthusiasts and newcomers alike. The old heads get to reconsider what they value, what they’re seeking from fragrance, but also then get to share their experience and understanding with people who don’t know very much and who have just signed up to the site/are newly interested in fragrances. I’m convinced that boutique perfume especially is increasingly disconnected from material value – most niche perfume is in the same bracket as well (indies and artisanals be damned, sorry lads! 😄). For a lot of people that won’t matter, they’ll keep buying what they know, what they like, what others buy etc. But I think you could make 100 lists like the one above and have good/great affordable fragrances every single time. Anyway, that’s getting off the point.

Feel free to share your suggestions for a set or collection of affordable fragrances, whether according to your own personal taste or for an imagined collector. I’m interested to see what other people come up with. 👍



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