How we score dupes
Our similarity scores run 0–100 and answer one plain question: “Of the people who’ve smelled both, how many say the dupe gets close?”
Scent is subjective — it shifts with skin chemistry, batch, temperature and even your own nose on a given day. So we don’t pretend a single number is objective truth. Instead, a dupenote score is a transparent summary of community consensus, cross-checked against the two fragrances’ published note pyramids. Here’s the whole method.
1. Community consensus (the main signal)
For each original → clone pairing, we aggregate the verdicts enthusiasts already publish: side-by-side comparisons on Fragrantica, threads on Reddit’s r/fragrance, and long-standing discussion on enthusiast forums and review channels. When dozens of people independently say “this is a dead ringer for the first two hours,” that agreement is a stronger signal than any one reviewer — or than a marketing page.
2. Note-pyramid overlap (the cross-check)
Consensus can be noisy, so we sanity-check it against structure. If two fragrances share most of their top, heart and base notes and their headline accords, a high consensus score is credible. If people say it’s close but the pyramids barely overlap, we treat the claim with suspicion and score conservatively.
3. Performance is reported, not blended in
A clone can smell 95% identical for an hour and then vanish. Rather than fold that into one number, we list longevity and sillage separately so you can weigh them yourself. A high similarity score with weak longevity still means “smells right — just reapply.”
What the bands mean
| Score | Read it as |
|---|---|
| 90–100 | Near-indistinguishable to most noses, at least through the opening and heart. The “blind buy with confidence” tier. |
| 80–89 | Clearly the same idea; a trained nose spots differences but most people won’t. Excellent value. |
| 70–79 | Same family and vibe, with a noticeable twist — a different sweetness, a sharper open, a lighter base. |
| Below 70 | “Inspired by” more than “clone of.” Good if you like the direction; not a stand-in. |
What we deliberately don’t do
- No lab analysis. We don’t run GC-MS and we won’t claim chemical identity. If a score looks authoritative, that’s the consensus talking — not a spectrometer.
- No pay-to-rank. Scores are set before any affiliate link is attached, and a commission never moves a clone up the list. See our disclosure.
- No counterfeits. We only score legal, independently-branded dupes — never fakes that impersonate the original.