What is your stance on clones?

In the past couple of years, clones (and inspirations) seem to have taken a lift cloning some of the most popular fragrances for a fraction of the price.

In the past, brands such as Dua and Alexandria took inspiration from best sellers and offered their interpretation for a more budget-friendly price. Depending on where you live of course, shipping either of the two to your home country could still heft you a rather high price.

Enter Middle Eastern cloning brands: Lataffa, Maison Alhambra and more recently brands such as Paris Corner, French Avenue etc. Down to the bottles, nearly every known popular fragrance was cloned and offered for a mere fraction of the price and made accessible to the masses. Some of these are a near 1:1 of the one they're inspired by. Or revive interpretations of fragrances brands discontinued in the past.

One could argue this is blatant copycat behaviour leeching on the success of the perfume it is inspired by. On the other hand, are the originals not immensely overpriced and could one settle with a more budget-friendly clone?

What is your opinion on clones, do you feel these have a place in current day fragrance community or is a trend you'd rather see end soon?

I'm a bit ambivalent towards it: On the one hand, I find it okay that people with a lower budget are capable of buying a good perfume, on the other hand I don't like the idea of copying. I don't buy dupes myself (I bought a copy of For Her Eau de Parfum once at Lydle's but that was meant as a price for some kind of bingo party at work ) because it just feels like 'not wearing the real thing' so that's purely psychological . And once I bought a dupe just to get an idea of the real perfume of which I couldn't find a sample.

But I think as long as the brand that makes dupes, is transparent about copying (by saying things like 'Inspired by' etc.) and the original brand allows it and doesn't take action..I guess it's okay.

It's not as bad as people selling cheap clothes and bags with fake lables claiming it is from a well known, expensive brand, or put cheap perfume in bottles and boxes that suggest it is the 'real' perfume while it is a fake.

Personally, I won't buy dupes. I don't mean to come off as a snob, but I want my money to go to the house/company/perfumer who actually created the scent. Not some house/company that can get close enough and sell for cheap. Now, the argument for how much some of these scents costs is another discussion entirely. 

With that said, I don't have any issues with people buying or even preferring dupes. I agree with @Ringtale that if they are transparent and honest for what they are, I am not sure I care that much. It provides a decent/good scent option for those with budget constraints or the unwillingness to pay the high dollar it takes to own the original. I look at the folks who are going to buy a dupe were never going to buy the original and as long as they are not tricked into thinking it is the original with blatant trademark infringements, I'm cool if the original company is cool. Who knows, maybe Creed does get extra business because of all the Aventus clones being bought and tried and a certain section of that dupe market is like "Ok, I gotta see how this stacks up" and actually buys a bottle. LOL

The most annoying thing about dupes are the people wearing it and saying they wear the real thing. This guy at work kept saying he wore this Tom Ford while in fact it was one of those “inspired by” dupes.

Anyway, good thing about dupes is that they sometimes outlive an original perfume. For example Naomagic isn’t available anymore but there’s a dupe around if you want to get all nostalgic.

Clones smell artificial and god awful.

Morals aside, I don’t want to smell artificial and god awful.

Also, I’ve never heard a better joke than “this clone comes 95% close to Aventus.” 😂

I'm so curious: How did you find out he wore a dupe ?? Could you just smell the difference or....?

It smelled a little bit like Sauvage Elixir be he kept saying it was a Tom Ford, I don’t recall which one. So I checked out what the real one smelled like and it was nothing like it. So I asked if he didn’t mistake it for another, because I couldn’t smell this and that note. Well he had a confession to make.

Aha !

My opinion's kind of controversial so I want to preface by saying I'm talking about dupes in particular... not counterfeits or fragrances that are trying to trick people into buying them instead of the original (like Al Haramain's Lovely Cherie or the like). Things that may or may not be open about their inspiration, but they're obviously not trying to pretend they are the original.

I don't seek out dupes (I own a couple Lattafas that are apparently dupes for other fragrances, but I didn't buy them for that reason... I liked them and found out they were dupes later), but I have the sort of cynical view that they have their place in the fragrance ecosystem. A lot of the fragrances that are popularly duped are ones that are a) prohibitively expensive, and b) cheap to make. I think there must be a million Baccarat Rouge 540 Eau de Parfum dupes out there, and it's a prime example of this. It costs hundreds, it's incredibly popular, and it's made primarily out of a few very cheap aromachemicals. You can see why the dupe market pounced on it.

I ultimately just don't really see it as a problem. I don't think the dupe market is necessarily hurting the sales of the original: people buying "Ana Abiyedh Rouge | Lattafa / لطافة" or "Casino Royale | The Dua Brand / Dua Fragrances" for $30 were probably never going to be splashing $400 or whatever it costs now for Baccarat Rouge 540 Eau de Parfum . And the kinds of fragrances that get duped are the ones that are already popular, so it's not like anyone is going to forget about the original or who created it. No one's stealing cash out of Francis Kurkdjian's hands, he'll be fine.

But if the dupe market is hurting the sales of the original, if there really are people who are capable of buying either Kurkdjian or Dua and choose the latter, there's two easy ways for the company producing it to avoid that problem: a) price their fragrances lower, or b) create fragrances that are difficult to clone on the cheap with any degree of accuracy. The former might be difficult for companies that want to maintain their exclusive image, but the latter is definitely achievable. It will cost them more to produce it, but most fragrances will still be achieving a profit margin that other industries can only dream of.

So I guess my view on the whole is: I wouldn't buy them myself, except on accident. But I don't think they're doing any harm to the fragrance industry, and they might even be helping it, in a ruthless survival-of-the-fittest kind of way.

If the original is discontinued or limited edition or reformulated, then the clones can be an awesome option. I also think that it's ethical then because the original brand has themselves ruined the original or made it unavailable. Also there are some clone fragrances that I actually prefer to the original - sometimes there's an annoying note that the clone lacks or the original is too strong or intense for my taste but the clone is a bit toned down which I might prefer. Or if the original is ridiculously overpriced, then a clone is a great option too. In other situations I can't see the point of them and prefer the original.

When you have perfumers like Lucas Sieuzac working with Afnan I feel like the whole ethical point goes out of the window. And I don't think anybody needs to ashamed when they don't want to pay 300 bucks for a bottle of Pacific Chill. On the other side I don't think anybody should buy clones of cheaper brands like Versace because just why.

I totally agree but I haven't seen clone makers acknowledging that they're just "inspired". Can you give me some examples of perfumes for which the manufacturer says the perfume is inspired by another one?

I agree with a lot of what's been said here (they probably don't hurt the perfume industry, won't buy them myself, don't judge those who do). 

Another reason I would never buy a 10 dollar dupe is the complete lack of control over potentially harmful components in there, especially when most dupes are advertised as having mind-blowing longevity and projection. Those don't occur by adding more orris butter. 

The dirt-cheap prices also encourage a frenzy of buying when perfume is already a very polluting industry. It takes me years sometimes to finish a 100ml. My sister in law, the other hand, just blind-bought 1000 ml worth of dupes for 70 euros on sale. My bet is she is never ever going to finish those and will still buy more.

I think they will undoubtedly help the industry bring in more more users and fanatics, they're getting started younger and with reach.

i got into clones soon after starting to look for fragrances, honestly I feel like I got took. Most everything is not enjoyable enough to wear. Almost everything has a sub par quality smell to it. Sure they can hit some notes, but linear flat not long lasting with projection scents is not what I wanted to put money in to. I got fooled and so from my pov ME clone houses aren't really frag houses they're tiktok businesses selling marketing.

The social media push with influencers hyping everything, bots being used, and sub par juice put in "buy me" packaging I think it's too much deception. And im sorry I don't really get that from Dior, Chanel, JPG, Essential Parfums, Xerjoff, or the like.

Also I paid 3 dollars more for 200ml of an OG than the 100ml bottle of the clone of the OG. Meaning this clone was priced significantly higher than the OG. And that seems to be easily possible once a clone gets hyped and the OG is designer.

LV and a lot of other brands are having a laugh by creating unoriginal scents like Imagination, L'immensite etc because they're not using expensive raw materials like Cambodian oud etc in them and yet the price is as if they used unicorn sweat in them. Middle Eastern frag houses are doing a much better job by creating the same thing at a fraction of the price, and they last longer. Buying Imagination or blue talisman OG is a waste of money. Also, when PDM copied the A&F Fierce DNA, no one called them out, so fair play to Middle Eastern clone houses. They are doing a solid job.

basically everything on dossier's website!

Instances I turn to clones/dupes are usually if a. I appreciate the scent as a standalone scent, not so much me chasing a 1:1 in hopes it will replicate something. (In fact, there are certain instances where I enjoy the inspired twist more than it's original counterpart) b. I like a scent
but the parent company of the brand the scent belongs to is not one that aligns with my ethics and/or values and I don't want to financially support them (see: LVMH) 

I have nothing against them. The people that have the extra money to buy the original will probably buy the original.

But for everyone else, I don’t see why we wouldn’t save some money if there’s a $40 dupe that smells the same as a nice $400 perfume. 

I don't really like clones. I thought I would? At one point I had Club de Nuit Milestone Eau de Parfum and I had Club de Nuit Sillage Eau de Parfum as well as the originals (I was kind of breaking into clones) and although they were fine, they weren't the OG. I tried others from Alexandria, and I think they make good stuff, but in the end, if I know the OG, I'm going to like it more (at least so far that's been the case). One exception is Jack it's actually not exactly the same as it's duping lol, but it is pretty good. I won't replace it if I even ever finish it, but I can give it pretty good marks (It's a clone of Original Vetiver which I also have).

I think the only thing I get upset with is the passive aggressive push by people that seem to want to rain on parades, and demean people that buy the OG. Like, someone gets Silver Mountain Water then you see someone like, "OMG, you could have gotten Club de Nuit Sillage Eau de Parfum for a tenth of the price!" or something. It's like, well, if I wanted that, I would have chose that. I didn't.

I would certainly never demean people that buy clones, but I think the reverse should hold true.