Some background:

The first project in my ebook is making a designer duplication perfume. Most major, popular perfumes are available for the “knocking off,” and the duplications are incredibly accurate, given that they only cost about 10% as much as retail. I give instructions on how to do this for several reasons:

1. It is so easy that anyone can do it as a way to get started. If you follow my directions and sequential photos, it is very difficult to screw up.
2. It gives people, especially beginners, confidence – many people have written after they tried it to say how fun it is to make “real perfume.”
3. It’s not expensive, unlike working with essential oils and absolutes. No one has to worry about wasting precious materials.

Many people are curious about how the designer duplications can be so good. So, I have finally gotten around to writing about it.

Historically, designer perfume duplications haven’t been that great.

The knock-off market is nothing new! Counterfeiting and duplications are a part of the art and fashion market. It’s not always illegal or black market stuff, either. Most of us can’t afford a Picasso, but we can certainly afford a nice reprint from an art poster shop! (And it’s probably less stress – I can’t imagine having a peaceful nights’ rest with a masterpiece in the house and three cats, one of whom is nicknamed “Wrecko.”)

You may remember Designer Impostors from the 80′s and 90′s: “If you like Obsession, you’ll like Compulsion,” etc. Well, Compulsion may have been in the right ballpark – the same general fragrance family – but it wasn’t that accurate. This is because, just like computers, the technology has really matured. They were using the equivalent of an old Pentium 35 laptop to recreate their duplications.

Matured technology makes it possible.

Now, there are machines where you can analyze a sample of anything, even if it’s incredibly delicate and subtle. The air around the sample, which contains the scent, is sucked up. Using sensitive gas chomatography and other methods, including human judgment, scent scientists can use the profile returned by the machine.

Whether the scent is snow, fresh-squeezed orange juice, new apple blossoms, or the latest expensive fragrance creation from House of Creed, it is possible to get quite close to the original. Like all things, there is some variation. If you make a lot of duplications, you’ll get a few misses. But most of them – especially the most popular – are so accurate that most people can’t tell the difference.

Can you recreate a designer formula from scratch?

Anything is possible, I tell people, but I believe that your time is better spent creating original blends. Designer duplications are just the beginning, and why spend your precious “making stuff” time reinventing the wheel? (Hey, it’s a cliche because there’s a lot of truth to the phrase.) The truth is, I don’t think you can get accurate duplications without technological assistance. At least, it would take you a very long time!

During that time, you could be blending your own scents that you like better. And the cost of the machines is about what you’d pay for an electron microscope. Not in the range of most people’s household budgets.

Instead, I encourage people to leverage the existing designer duplications and use them to further their perfume making abilities.