Can you tell the difference between good perfume and something else?

[SnowyLamb]

Why is it that some perfume (Eau de Toilette) costs close to £100 and some £5 or somewhere inbetween ?

I was given some M&S perfume for my birthday, cost about £10, I believe and I think it's quite nice.

I rarely wear perfume because it's such a luxury, but maybe I would if I had one at an everyday kind of price.

If you think the good stuff is worth the money, how often do you wear it?

More expensive ingredients and chemistry but much more expensive branding and marketing. Chanel, YSL etc have an image and spend ££ to keep that. Boots No.7 or some pop star fragrance doesn't have the same cachet.

I think some expensive scents have a complexity the cheaper ones don’t, but there’s no doubt at all you are paying a lot for both marketing and the feeling you are buying a luxe product

cheaper scents can be good, but you want to aim for simple, not some horrendous confection. I can well imagine m and s is good. Have a Google and you will find others suggested

Usually, yes.
But asda does a good ck1 dupe, and kew gardens used to do wonderful, natural perfumes very cheaply.

M&S are okay. Not perfume but some of their Molton Brown-esque hand washes/shower gels are pretty good too.

Re perfume I personally think you can tell the difference. I had some Zara dupes given to me and the synthetic nature of the fragrance was pretty apparent. But then I am a perfume fan so I’m already leaned in to that world, so to speak.

It might be quite personal.
I don't like the smell of more synthetic ingredients, often, especially musk.
It smells not-nice on me.

Somewhere like lush might use natural essential oils and I will prefer that.

My favourites tend to be from Penhaligons but I only like about 1/3 of theirs.

I’m useless where smells are concerned, l wouldn’t have a clue if a perfume was synthetic or not, l would have assumed most perfumes had synthetic elements to them as they are not promoted as 100% natural in their marketing but I’m obviously no expert.

They absolutely do - I think about 50% of most perfumes are synthetic.
I dont mind eg linalool- to me, that smells like lavender.
I just avoid perfumes which use synthetic ingredients that smell bad on me, like musk.

I love some natural ingredients like tonka and will tend to obsess about perfumes that contain them.

I have only at the advanced age of 60 finally found a perfume that does not turn to 'fly killer' on me and still smells good hours later, 'Portrait of a Lady' by - cant remember and the bottle is upstairs, about £90 LOVE IT