A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
How do you smell this morning? Didn't mean for it to sound that creepy. Now, maybe you spritz on some perfume...
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A little personal. A little personal, A.
MARTÍNEZ: ...Or cologne to get the day started. That could be one of life's nice little extras, but it does come at a price.
MARTIN: A bottle of the good stuff could easily run you $200 or more. Turns out, though, there are cheaper versions known as dupes.
VICTORIA BELIM-FROLOVA: Some of the dupes are so close to the original that even professionals would have difficulty telling them apart.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Victoria Belim-Frolova, a perfumer based in Brussels. She's seeing a growing number of scents that mimic more expensive originals.
BELIM-FROLOVA: I think we see a lot of this explosion thanks to TikTok and YouTube, and kind of the younger generation of perfume wearers who are using dupes almost as this way to rebel against the prestige established market.
MARTIN: So these aren't exact knock-offs of a brand perfume. Companies that make dupes advertise them as being inspired by more expensive alternatives. Sergio Tache is the founder of Dossier. That's a company that makes dupes.
SERGIO TACHE: The younger generation aspires to discover fragrance more and wear different perfumes in different circumstances. It's hard to do that when if you want to buy three perfumes, you got to pay a couple of hundred dollars at your local perfume store to have that wardrobe of scents.
MARTÍNEZ: Dossier's dupe of MFK's Baccarat Rouge 540 costs 49 bucks. A smaller bottle of the real MFK scent will set you back 210 bucks.
TACHE: Perfumers are artists. They are phenomenal creators, and we respect their work a ton. But I also think there's a place for companies like ours who create great perfumes for a more affordable price.
MARTÍNEZ: Fragrance makers have used technology to analyze competitors' products for a long time, but Belim-Frolova says using it to basically copy another scent is going too far.
BELIM-FROLOVA: It's taking advantage of someone else's creativity, of someone else's success, and feeding on that. So it does not have any artistic value.
MARTIN: Ciaran Flanagan is an influencer who posts about cologne as FragranceFlan on TikTok. He says he spends a lot of his paycheck on fragrances, and he's not a fan of dupes.
CIARAN FLANAGAN: If their goal when you hear them marketing it is this is one for one. It smells identical to this. Then I'm like, I'll just buy the other one at that point.
MARTÍNEZ: You know, Michel, I've never worn cologne or aftershave. Not once. Just rubbing alcohol. Just rubbing...
MARTIN: Just rubbing alcohol.
MARTÍNEZ: ...Alcohol after a shave. Yep.
MARTIN: OK. Well, if that works for you (laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: 'Cause I'm tough like that.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
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