Today I’m going to share my best tip for finding breath-taking fragrances for a lot less than you might expect. My tip:

Look beyond the perfume counter.

While the options on offer at your local perfume counter are easy and pleasant, they’re also insanely high-priced. When you buy perfume, you’re also paying for those fabulous glossy ads you see in Vogue, and possibly a couture show as well.

Here’s a cheaper, nicer alternative.

My favourite alternative to commercial fragrances, is to use top quality French essential oils instead — the kind that were used in perfumery until chemistry and profit margins took over. These beautiful oils are extracted from the plants and have a complexity and nuance that manufactured chemicals lack. They also cost $5-20 for a small bottle that will last over a year if you wear a couple of drops each day.

The trick to getting these so cheaply is to ignore the over-priced little bottles in the drug store (chemist) and go to a good aromatherapy supplier. My personal favourite is New Directions, which now has branches outside Australia as well.

An aromatherapy supplier will sell the really expensive oils like rose and jasmine as 3% dilutions that are safe to use directly on your skin; others you’ll need to dilute yourself in a carrier oil like jojoba oil because full-strength oil is too strong. (The only oil which can be used on the skin undiluted is lavender, which is great for treating insect bites but smells a bit like grandma to me.)

My favourite oils include Bulgarian rose, neroli, champaka, rose geranium and tuberose. These are all beautiful by themselves, or as an accompaniment to a commercial perfume. They’re far better quality than the stuff in department stores, they’re cheaper and arguably a lot healthier than dousing yourself in chemicals.

The down side to using them? Apart from being harder to source, using them spoils your nose so you’ll probably never like commercial perfumes again. This leads to a potentially sticky situation the next time a loved one generously buys you a bottle of Britney. You’ll probably grimace when you first smell it, which makes later declarations of appreciation seem a little, erm, fake…

You might also like...

The ‘perfume wardrobe’ con
Have you heard about having a ‘perfume wardrobe’? It’s an idea that...

Perfume samples, under $5
Picking a new perfume is hard because scents smell different on different...

Xmas gift idea: perfume atomizer, $18
New airline security requirements limit the amount of liquid you can...

Balancing the beauty budget
Beauty products have got to be one of the most confusing purchases...

Is expensive skincare worth the money?
I’ve been asked many times whether I think it’s worth spending money...