Zara

the dupe and the duped

I’m on record saying that the only honest products in mainstream perfumery, if one defines honesty as truthful labeling of what’s in the can, are dupes. This applies mostly to the US where labels are allowed to say “Our Version of […].” In the more decorous EU, you have to know which thing is a dupe of what, but fortunately magazines and the internet will let you know.

Zara perfumes are mostly dupes, and some of them are much-liked, so I paid the local Zara shop a visit. There was a tall gangly guy by the perfume counter carrying a large canvas bag full of the fragances and I thought for a second he was buying the whole range twice over. It turned out he was restocking, apparently a full-tine job. These things are selling well, and no wonder: many are priced at £12.50, at least an order of magnitude cheaper that the stuff in the Harrods perfume floor next door.