An expert said it was a common error
People who shop at duty free in airports are being told to think twice by an expert.
Holidaymakers could end up paying 10 times more than they need to for perfume if they buy it at the airport instead of planning ahead, according to an expert. While many travellers still assume airport duty-free offers the best deals, UK fragrance research site ScentVerdict said the departure lounge was one of the worst places to buy perfume because shoppers are rushed into making expensive decisions.
The biggest example is Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry. A 100ml bottle typically retails for around £300, but analysis by ScentVerdict found 14 UK dupe brands selling their own interpretation for a median price of just £30 – around one tenth of the cost.
Daniel Grimes, founder of ScentVerdict, said buying perfume at the airport was a mistake many travellers make.
He added: “The departure lounge is the worst place on Earth to buy perfume, because it is the one place where you are shopping against the clock. The ‘duty-free’ label does the persuading; you have not smelled the thing properly, and your flight is boarding.
“Decide before you fly, not at the gate. Take Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry as an example.
“It is around £300 at retail for 100ml; 14 different UK dupe houses sell their own version of it and the typical price is about £30 for the same 100ml, roughly a tenth.
“It will not be identical and you are not buying Tom Ford. But if what you want is that cherry-and-almond hit rather than the box it comes in, the maths is hard to argue with.”
The findings suggest dupe fragrances tend to sell for broadly the same price regardless of how expensive the original designer bottle is. Across 10 of Britain’s most popular fragrances, originals ranged from £89 to £310, while equivalent dupes typically sold for around £30.
The most extreme example remains Creed Aventus, one of the UK’s best-known men’s fragrances. A 100ml bottle retails for £310, while the median price of a comparable dupe is just £29.
Even fragrances with much lower retail prices show a similar pattern. Montblanc Explorer sells for around £89, while a typical dupe costs £25, suggesting dupe brands price according to what shoppers expect to pay rather than matching the original fragrance. Grimes said many people assume dupes simply undercut luxury brands by a percentage, but the figures suggest otherwise.
He continued: “That flat £30 is the story. The dupe houses aren’t pricing against the original at all. They charge what someone will pay for a dupe, and it barely shifts whether they’re copying an £89 Montblanc or a £310 Creed.
“The saving isn’t really a discount. It just tracks whatever the designer decided to charge.”
He added that shoppers should still compare prices before deciding, as some designer fragrances are regularly discounted outside airports, narrowing the gap between the original and a dupe.
Retail prices for the designer fragrances were checked at John Lewis, Boots and The Perfume Shop on July 17, 2026, while dupe prices represent the median price charged across brands selling equivalent fragrances at each bottle size.
