The modern perfume market has the largest number of counterfeit products.
In order not to fall for the tricks of scammers, find out how to check perfume for authenticity and distinguish a fake from the original.
To ensure the originality of a particular perfume composition, pay attention to the packaging.
A number of important criteria are put forward for it:
In 2020, some manufacturers abandoned the use of cellophane so that the buyer could better appreciate the attractiveness of a cardboard box. However, distributors or store employees may package the perfume themselves.
This is done so that they do not lose their presentation. If something confuses you, check with the seller exactly when and who packaged the goods in cellophane film.
Check the certificate
How to determine the authenticity of a perfume? Ask the seller for a certificate that contains all the necessary information (manufacturer, distributor, country of production).
The quality certificate or declaration of conformity can be found in the unified customs register.
According to current legislation, all perfumes officially supplied to the Russian Federation undergo mandatory certification, during which a bar code (batch code) is applied to them.
Using this registration number, you can not only establish the authenticity of the product, but also find out its release date, expiration date and country of origin.
How to check perfume authenticity using a barcode? Find a special sticker on the box and study it carefully.
Logically, the registration number of a perfume must match the first digits of the barcode of the country that issued it. However, in practice this is not always the case.
Markings may be different if:
- The manufacturer's headquarters are located in another territory;
- The manufacturer registered the batch code in the country with the largest export volumes;
- The manufacturer granted a license to produce perfume to another state;
- The manufacturer has several factories or subsidiaries located in different countries.
The barcodes indicated on the cardboard packaging and the bottom of the bottle itself must match.
As a rule, labeling is divided into 2 subtypes - European and American. Let's take a closer look at them.
European barcode – EAN-13
Consists of 13 characters. Of these, the first 2-3 digits are the numerical country code. They have it:
4 or 5 digits after the country code indicate the manufacturing company, and the next 5 indicate information about the product.
The last character is the control character. It is required for manual barcode verification. It's done like this:
American barcode – UPC-A-12
The labeling of perfume products produced in the USA and Canada has 12 digits.
The first 2 (00-09) are the country code, the next 4 are information about the manufacturer, and the remaining 6 are the product item identification number and check digit.
To check American-made perfumes using the batch code, you also need to carry out simple calculations:
How to check the authenticity of eau de toilette using a barcode without resorting to mathematical operations? There are several applications and online services for this:
Do not buy perfumes on tap - branded products are produced only in standard bottles.
If you want to save money, keep an eye on promotions and sales offered by large cosmetic store chains.
To understand whether the perfume was purchased in a particular store, take a close look at the bottle. He must answer several points at once:
The bottle should fit tightly and not dangle inside. Moreover, if he falls, he almost always remains unharmed.
To understand how to distinguish fake perfume from the original, apply a couple of drops to the inner bend of your elbow. The original perfume will reveal itself gradually. First (within 15 minutes) - the top notes, then - the middle notes, after a couple of hours - the trail.
For fakes, there is no gradual development of aroma. If we talk about durability, for perfumes it is 5-10 hours, for eau de parfum – 4-8 hours, for toiletries – 2-4 hours.
Also pay attention to the color of the internal contents - it should not be too bright. This indicates a large number of chemical impurities.
And the last important point is the consistency of the perfume.. Shake the bottle well: in original perfumes the bubbles will last for 10-15 seconds, in counterfeit ones they will disappear immediately.
To check whether a bottle you just purchased is original, place it in the refrigerator. If after a while the perfume or eau de toilette becomes cloudy, return it and ask for your money.
Do not agree to replace the product at the same outlet - most likely, you will be given a fake again. In case of refusal, contact the consumer protection department.
To protect yourself from counterfeits, make purchases in branded stores. Before going, don’t be lazy to look at the manufacturer’s website and find out what the bottle and packaging of the fragrance you are interested in look like.
Video: What is the difference between natural perfumes and fakes?
Unfortunately, in our time, counterfeit perfumes are far from uncommon, but quite common. However, purchasing low-quality perfumes is not only unpleasant, because the main thing is that the aroma leaves much to be desired, but it is also dangerous, since its quality can cause irritation, allergies and harm your health. Fortunately, there are a number of certain signs that make it quite easy to distinguish a fake from the original. The main thing is to be careful when purchasing.
Myths
Let's start with the most absurd versions: there is no real perfume in Russia! A frequently encountered phrase: “I buy perfume only abroad, but now there is no opportunity to go there. Where can we buy at least a good likeness of the original?” And, buying original products in Russia, a person has already formed a strong opinion and sincerely believes that this is just a high-quality fake, while telling his friends: “Yes, this, of course, is not France, but it will do!” Undoubtedly, numerous sellers of counterfeits are largely to blame here, assuring that these are original products. Many buyers, having once bought a “fake”, stop trusting even bona fide sellers.
Let's consider the existing version that original products are bottled especially for you and me (i.e. for Russia), but with reduced concentrations of aromatic components. The Russian consumer market is currently the largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Therefore, it makes no sense for any manufacturer to supply to our country a product that is obviously worse than to other countries, because there is very serious competition in the perfume market, which you can lose to your competitor in an instant. Let's also imagine the numerous stages and complex processes of making such a pleasant and tasty aroma for us. Each component undergoes a thorough check for harmony and interaction with others, a huge number of people and funds are involved in this process, this is not ice cream, where by proportionally reducing the amount of fats and sugars we will get less creamy and less sweet, but still ice cream. Although there are certainly some subtleties here, so why does the manufacturer need additional problems with quality, durability, costs and prestige?
There are probably no more people left who believe that online stores or sellers walking around offices with so-called “customs confiscation” are selling originals? SUCH a quantity of confiscated goods cannot exist in nature. In fact, the so-called “Customs perfumery” does not exist in principle. Likewise, there are no perfumes manufactured “under license”. Such concepts are used as a cover for sellers who want to sell low-quality perfumes, which, as a rule, are produced in the UAE, Turkey, Poland or Holland. The price of such “liquids” fluctuates around 700 - 1200 rubles, while almost all such perfumes are offered, as a rule, at the same price - “all for 750 rubles!”, While the purchase price of the original perfume is much higher. Can't cost "Chanel" in a 100 ml bottle. 750 rub. under no circumstances. The definition of a fake is the absence of real testers, on the back of which is usually painted information about the nature of the perfume, the initial and “heart” notes, the list of oil essences that are included in the composition, the absence of a “bath” series, deodorants, deo-sticks, perfume sets and etc.
Store assortment
It is worth paying attention to the assortment of the seller's store. Mostly popular brands are counterfeited (Giorgio Armani, Hugo Boss, Christian Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, Dolce&Gabbana, Kenzo, Lancome, Versace, etc.) Less well-known perfume brands (Chopard, Cartier, Hermes, Narciso Rodriguez, Sisley, Victoria's Secret, Juicy Couture, Lalique, Montale, Odin, etc.) are much less likely to be counterfeited, since the demand for them is not so great. Moreover, as a rule, counterfeits are presented only in large volume bottles - 100 ml, smaller volumes - 30 ml and non-standard volumes 40 ml, 60 ml, 65 ml, as well as miniatures are unprofitable to counterfeit.
Luxury perfumes are practically never produced in so-called “pens” with a spray bottle or a ball with a capacity of up to 25 ml (the exceptions are miniatures by Salvador Dali and Morgan). Accordingly, a store that has an assortment and sells these types of products is most likely engaged in counterfeiting.
Cast aside all doubts when buying testers - there are practically no fakes on them.
Package
Carefully examine the packaging of the perfume. The most crude fakes are those that have errors at least in the name (letters have been replaced, or letters have been rearranged). We won’t even dwell on this in detail; you won’t fool anyone with this.
If the product is packaged in cellophane film, then the film should be thin, neat, the mark that fuses the film should be strictly in the center. But not all brands cellophane their products (for example, Clinique, Hugo Boss (some positions), Davidoff, Lacoste (some positions) and a number of other manufacturers do not do this). The box should be made of thick cardboard or high-quality paper. The original packaging is smooth and without dents.
Fonts on packaging must be clear and readable. Sometimes the font may be pressed out first and then filled in with tone; in any case, the paint should not smear. The packaging must have a returnable packaging sign (two arrows in a circle).
The packaging must have the following inscriptions: name; category (parfum, eau de parfum, eau de toilette, i.e. perfume, eau de parfum, eau de toilette, etc.); milliliter (in ml); volume in fl.oz (1 fl.oz is an American unit of measurement, translated as “fluid ounce”, so 30 ml equals 1 fl.oz.); composition (the components of the perfume composition may not necessarily be indicated), country of origin (not necessarily France, since some Fashion Houses are Italian, German, English or American, while the country of origin is indicated in the form of the familiar inscription: “Made” in..." or the French equivalent "Realises dans...".
The manufacturer's code must be affixed to each package. This is a set of several numbers or a combination of letters and numbers, which encrypts the production date, batch number and other information; each manufacturer has its own encoding system, including to combat counterfeiting. This code is always the same on the box and on the bottle itself.
All perfume products must be accompanied by stickers in Russian. In this case, the sticker can be made on either glossy, matte or transparent paper or film.
As for barcodes, the issue here is posed more seriously. Many people believe that, for example, the number 3 at the beginning of the code means that the manufacturer is France, i.e. this is the original. But it’s worth thinking about, because if the packaging and bottle are completely faked, and there are attempts to replicate the fragrance itself, then why would they be embarrassed to fake the barcode? In general, programs for “checking” barcodes do not give 100% correct results; barcodes are easily counterfeited or their databases are simply stolen. Also, the barcode may not indicate the country of production, but the location of the headquarters of the manufacturer, for example Sweden or Switzerland.
Arabic texts on the packaging do not mean that the product is fake. This just means that a batch of this product was produced for several countries, including the Arab region. Lots with such inscriptions are, for example, in Duty-free stores in many countries.
Bottle
One of the criteria when determining low-quality non-original perfumes will be the bottle itself. Counterfeit bottles are usually of low quality (coarse cheap glass, the presence of unevenness, chips, bubbles in the thickness of the glass or poor coloring - the glass of original bottles is initially colored, in cheap fakes it is painted; cheap plastic, crooked bends, poorly fitting cap made of poor quality material). If you have just unpacked the bottle, then the first two “sprays” should be empty. Examine the spray bottle: if the tube is longer than the bottle (it curves along the bottom of the container), rest assured, it is a fake.
Pay attention to the color of the content. The liquid should be clear, not cloudy and without sediment. Sometimes greenish, pinkish or lilac shades are achieved with the help of dyes. But the bright “chemical” color should be alarming.
Aroma
Check the scent of the perfume. The main feature was and remains the smell and durability! However, there may also be pitfalls here: the smell may seem a little different to you than you remember, but this does not mean at all that you have purchased a fake. The smell may vary slightly depending on the ambient and body temperature, and the smell on the skin may change if, for example, you eat high-calorie, spicy foods, or smoke. There are also situations when, some time after applying perfume, you no longer feel the aroma. The reason for this may be that your sense of smell has adjusted to the smell, which is typical for humans.
In some cases, manufacturers change the fragrance formula. Also in the European Union, regulations often change, which may prohibit the use of a particular ingredient that greatly affects the durability and perception of the smell, and the client may perceive the updated fragrance as a fake. And only a few buyers will still go to the manufacturer’s official website and read about the change in base notes, while others will spread bad word about the store.
The structure of any original fragrance is three-level: top notes, heart notes and base notes. Top notes are the first impression of a fragrance. They last no more than 2 minutes, followed by heart notes that last 2-3 hours. The final note is a base note and lasts for about 4 hours or more. As for non-original perfumes, they only have one note, but scammers simply cannot replicate the full structure of the aroma due to technical and financial impossibility. So it turns out that only one base note is taken to create a fake, all the raw materials are cheap and low-quality at best, and at worst you will expose yourself to chemically active and hazardous components that can cause allergic reactions on the skin.
However, it should be noted that some odors of the original products are not very persistent and must be applied 2-3 times a day. These are mainly light summer scents with fruity and floral notes, scents with notes of green tea, fresh sea scents and others.
General
Some stores make up myths about whether they have an agreement with the manufacturer, for example, in France and Italy. 99% of such statements are lies. The vast majority of stores in Russia operate through distributors.
Please pay attention to the price of the product. Luxury perfumes cannot be very cheap. Prices in online stores may differ from prices in regular chain perfume supermarkets. The difference is the savings of online stores on renting a sales area and wages of sales consultants. If the offered price is much lower, then you should think about purchasing. It is likely that they want to offer you a low-quality product.
Check with the Seller for documents confirming the quality of the goods. If you still have doubts about the quality of the goods, you have the right to ask the seller to show the accompanying documents (Certificate of Conformity or Declaration of Conformity). These documents are a guarantee that the product has passed safety control and meets the requirements for perfume products in the Russian Federation. Many stores do not allow you to open the packaging before purchasing, citing the law that perfume and cosmetic products cannot be returned or exchanged. Therefore, you should buy perfumes in those stores that have been operating for a long time and value their reputation, provide all documents for the products, issue checks and give you the opportunity to verify the quality before purchasing.
We value each of our clients and guarantee that our products meet all requirements and have accompanying documents (certificates). You can open the product purchased from us upon receipt to check the sprayer for functionality.
We hope that shopping in our online store will bring you only joy!
ATTENTION! The correct barcode does not provide a 100% guarantee of the originality of the product. However, an incorrect barcode is a clear sign of counterfeit.To verify the authenticity of the barcode, you can use the form below.
Enter 13 digit barcode:Check
Genuine perfumes are mostly packaged in thick polyethylene with side seams. The seams have a correct and even line. The incisions are made using heating. In the original, the polyethylene fits tightly and does not stick out on the sides. The original polyethylene comes in sealed form. Some branded manufacturers do not use polyethylene cellophane.
Fake on top: wide and uneven mica seam
Package
When purchasing, it is important to carefully inspect the box. In this case, do not open the polyethylene.
- There should be no fuzzy or smudged writing on the wrapper.
- Barcodes and batch codes must be written in clear lines.
- Afterwards, with the permission of the consultant, you must carefully open the polyethylene. According to the rules of trade, perfumes with packaging violations will not be accepted back.
- Afterwards it is important to check the wrapper by touch. Well-known brands use only high-quality cardboard for each product.
On the left is the original, on the right is the fake
Inside of the wrapper
A special cardboard structure is inserted inside each high-quality perfume. This mechanism prevents the bottle from moving. When producing a fake, the internal structure is not inserted. If the mechanism is available, manufacturers use premium cardboard.
On the left is a fake, on the right is the original
Bottle
When examining the wrapper, you can only reveal a cheap fake of poor quality. And factory fakes have high-quality packaging at a high-quality printing level. Only a specialist can identify a fake with high-quality packaging.
Check the certificate
The surest way to find out whether you are holding an original or a fake is to ask the seller for a certificate, or rather a declaration of conformity, which indicates the manufacturer, distributor, and country of production. By the way, declarations of conformity can be found in the unified customs register.
Additionally, the seller can undergo voluntary certification for any type of cosmetics and perfumes.
Buy from trusted stores
If you have bought original eau de toilette in the same store several times, then you should stick to this tradition and go there again for a new bottle. You may be tempted by amazing discounts from other offline and online retailers, but your desire to save money may end up disappointing you with a low-quality product.
If you decide to inquire why the seller is demonstrating unprecedented generosity, selling perfume 2-3 times cheaper than in a trusted store, never believe fairy tales like “this is a customs confiscation” or “this is the same water, but produced under license in Holland" and so on.
Regarding confiscation: do you really think that luxury cosmetics manufacturers allowed their goods to fail customs? Well, “manufactured in Holland” or “it’s directly from the warehouse” are common tales from sellers of fake cosmetics.
And well-known brands rarely release samples for sale, “travel formats” and other miniatures. So buying a 10-15 ml micro bottle always runs the risk of running into a fake.
One of the well-known brands that produces small pen bottles is Salvador Dali. You can also find Escada, Masaki Matsushima and some other brands in the pens, but you need to be an expert or carefully study a specific eau de toilette and manufacturer to determine whether it is a fake or not.
If you just can’t muster up the courage to ask for a certificate in a store or someone gave you perfume as a gift, then you’ll have to focus on other signs. Let's start with the outer cardboard packaging. It should look expensive and attractive. You should feel good holding it in your hands.
The cardboard should be thick enough, have pleasant colors, and the inscriptions should be clear and easy to read. The bottle should not hang around inside the box.
If the package is wrapped in polyethylene, then it should also provide tactile pleasure: be thin, tightly fitting to the box. The edges of the film should be sealed and not roughly glued together. This packaging is, of course, ideal:
More often than not, the box looks something like the following picture. Packed neatly, although the film is torn at the bottom and the box is slightly deformed because a protective sticker with a barcode was inserted there.
Some manufacturers do not use polyethylene, but distributors or store employees wrap the boxes themselves so that they do not lose their presentation. Such packaging may not look very presentable. If something confuses you, check with the seller where and when the product was packed in film.
It’s a good idea to check the manufacturer’s website to find out what the bottle and box look like. However, there may be ambiguous situations. For example, the official Gucci store does not stock Flora by Gucci Gorgeous Gardenia eau de toilette in a volume of 30 ml, but it is available in stores. Through some research, I discovered that a bottle of this size had come out before, only in a different box, but this year all the eau de toilettes in this series came out in boxes with a floral print. This is probably a limited edition to celebrate the anniversary: Gucci's famous Flora pattern turns 50 this year.
Upon my request, P&G responded that in the store where I saw the eau de toilette, all the products were official, and the Gucci store website was not updated as often as I would like. Well, even famous brands have shortcomings.
The box must contain a so-called batch code: numbers or letters and numbers, as if pressed into the cardboard. The exact same code should be on the bottle! It can be written directly on the bottle or on a sticker. By deciphering the batch code using a special service, you will find out the date of manufacture of the eau de toilette.
The batch code can be decrypted on the website Checkfresh.com.
The batch code is not always at the bottom of the bottle.
Review barcode and manufacturer information
In fact, this is a very confusing and ambiguous method - trying to determine from a barcode whether it is a fake or not. It would seem that everything is extremely simple: it says Made in France, which means that the same country should be determined by the barcode. But no, the barcode very often does not coincide with what is indicated on the box, for example, because the plant is located in one country, and the manufacturer’s headquarters is in another. And the barcode indicates the country where the headquarters is located.
Here's a concrete example. Flora by Gucci Gorgeous Gardenia eau de toilette. The box says: Made in France, P&G Prestige Beauté Geneva, London EC1A 4DD, UK. Judging by the barcode, the country of origin is the USA.
And the sticker in Russian says that the plant is located in France.
And how can all this be brought to a common denominator? Where was the eau de toilette ultimately produced? And what does this have to do with the manufacturer of washing powders?
And the point is this: Gucci eau de toilette (like many other luxury perfumes) is now produced by P&G Prestige Beauté, a subsidiary of the giant Procter & Gamble. P&G's head office is located in Cincinnati (USA). This is what the unified information system of the global register GEPIR suggests for this barcode:
The Giorgio Beverly Hills brand was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 1994, so for now everything seems to fit. Of course, P&G Prestige Beauté has many factories in different parts of the world, and one of them is located in France, where, judging by the inscription on the box and the declaration of conformity, the eau de toilette was produced.
So don’t rush to call the seller a scammer if the specified country of manufacture does not match the barcode, first try to figure out what’s what.
An interesting discovery: the iPhone application Scan, which I have been using for a hundred years, reads not only QR codes, but also barcodes, and also shows the product page. This application even identified a barcode that I could not find in the GEPIR register (this also happens sometimes).
Gucci eau de toilette, which became the object of my careful research, is shown in the photo still in its old packaging.
The glass of the bottle must be of high quality, without bubbles inside or other defects. If the bottle is colored, then it should not be painted on the outside, that is, the paint should not crumble or wear off. The cap should be heavy enough and cover the bottle tightly, so that you can even lift it by the cap.
The tube should be practically invisible, it should appear only when the liquid leaves. The base of the spray bottle should not rotate.
Shake the bottle. Bubbles in high-quality toilet water will dissolve within 10–15 seconds, and in low-quality toilet water they will disappear instantly.
The color of the perfume should not be too bright. By the way, it can also be viewed on the manufacturer’s website. And if you constantly use this eau de toilette, you can imagine what color it is. Eau de parfum and eau de toilette of the same series may differ in color.
Rate the aroma
The right perfume or eau de toilette reveals itself gradually. Top notes - for 15 minutes, then middle notes, and after a few hours - the trail. Counterfeits do not have full flavor development.
Another important indicator is. For perfume this is 5-10 hours, for eau de parfum - 4-8 hours, for eau de toilette - 2-4 hours.
So, let's break it down.
What to do if you decide to buy eau de toilette
Go to a trusted or large and well-known store. Small shops and online stores may sacrifice their reputation for profit or, due to lack of experience, face a dishonest supplier.
When choosing eau de toilette, carefully inspect the packaging. Does it have any flaws, do you feel like you are holding a truly high-quality product in your hands?
Take a photo of the box to study the barcode, batch code and manufacturer information at home. Ask the store to show the declaration of conformity.
Apply fragrance to test strip and wrist. Evaluate the top notes, after 15 minutes - the middle notes, after a few hours - the trail of aroma. The scent will develop differently on your skin than it does on paper, so be sure to wear it on yourself for a few hours to see how long it lasts and whether it suits you.
Take a look at the brand's website and see what the box and bottle look like.
After purchasing your perfume, print it out at the checkout counter. Inspect the bottle: the glass must be free of defects, letters and inscriptions must be clear and easy to read, and the paint must not wear off. Examine the cap; it should be heavy and tightly attached to the neck of the bottle. Make sure that the same batch codes are indicated on the box and bottle, read all the inscriptions on the bottle.
The liquid should be free of sediment and not too bright in color. The bottle should not be filled to the brim! In bottles with “shoulders” the liquid is poured up to the “hangers”; in bottles of other shapes there should be an air space of no more than 4% of the bottle’s capacity.
The lower part of the spray bottle should not rotate, the tube should be almost invisible. Spray a few times to check that the sprayer is working. By the way, the first few sprays may be “idle”, this is normal. Make sure it is the exact scent you sampled from the tester bottle.
If everything suggests that this is real perfume or eau de toilette, but for some reason you are still haunted by a feeling of mistrust, you can always submit it for examination and confirm or refute your assumptions.
Since I'm talking about perfume, it is necessary to talk about how to distinguish real perfume from a fake.
While studying this issue, I scoured a lot of sites on the Internet and realized that all that was written there was one article and several unsuccessful rewrites of it.
Why unsuccessful? Because upon studying the issue in detail, it becomes clear that some of the advice from this article can lead you to catastrophic consequences - you will lose money and not gain perfume.
Many websites, and even more so glamorous magazines, advise choosing luxury perfume in an “expensive”, “famous store”.
Alas and ah, when checked, everything turns out to be not so rosy. You can leave half your salary in some Rive Gaucher, but this will not save you from buying fake perfume.
Most people who have been involved with large distributors of cosmetics on the Russian market advise not to use this market at all. Because they not only buy fakes in unimaginable quantities, without having any certificates for their sale, but also sell them to poor, stupid ladies, tortured by glamor magazines, at unimaginable prices.
Of course, it’s good to be able to buy Dior in France, Versace in Spain, and Red Moscow in Moscow.
But what to do if this option is not available?
Another survival guide is hidden under the cut...
1. Don't hesitate to ask for a certificate!
The saleswomen of Letuals, Rive Gauches and similar stores may hate you. But, if you don’t want to run into a fake or have doubts about the quality of the product, feel free to ask for a certificate of conformity, this is your right.
Remember that if the seller is hesitant or hesitant, it means that he is either not competent enough, or the store has something to hide. Also, do not forget that this certificate is issued only for one type of product. In addition, the certificate must have a “live” stamp and not a copied one.
As you know, most perfume products have annotations. You also have the right to request them. If there is no annotation, then all the properties of this perfume must be described in the certificate.
However, the certificate is also not a complete guarantee that your perfume is real.
That's why...
2. Evaluate the appearance of the box.
Many people consider plastic packaging to be a sign of high-quality products. However, it should be remembered that a number of flavors are released without it.
In addition, the creators of numerous fakes also pack their “masterpieces” in plastic. Pay attention to the quality of the plastic packaging - it should be thin, but dense and absolutely transparent. It should fit tightly around the box, like a second skin, and the seams should be neat and even, without traces of glue or unevenness.
Next comes a very important step: directly inspecting the box. Here you need to be as picky as possible and follow the following rules:
-
We read the names carefully. You may well find on store shelves the so-called perfume variations
. These perfumes completely imitate the box, bottle, plastic packaging, they are not easy to distinguish from the original... Until you pay attention to the name.
For example, one lady with a beautician tried to show off her new acquisition. Everything would be fine, but on the “chic” bottle, which was, according to her, bought in an “expensive” store, there was a proud inscription “Gerlen”. The lady was given a hint, and she soon took down the post. But there was so much pathos in it about her perfumery sophistication!
- In addition to perfume variations, there are perfume version
. This is a perfume created after the impression of one drunken Arab by another drunken Arab. I am not inciting any national hatred - the suppliers of such perfumes, as a rule, are the UAE and, oddly enough, ex-union republics.
These perfumes can be distinguished by the small, almost imperceptible word "version". Don't forget that Arabs are very clever and can write this word in the most inconspicuous corner of the box. Invisible ink, so we may not see the treasured word “Version”.
If in doubt, look carefully at the packaging. Versions, unlike variations, for the most part do not repeat the packaging of the original.
- But the hardest thing to recognize is copies. As a rule, high-quality copies not only completely imitate the box and bottle, but also do not bear any direct identifying marks of what they actually are. Of course, they can give themselves away with the treacherous inscription “parfume” (In France, the last “e” is considered superfluous), or the inscription “France” instead of the required “Made in France”, or the outright provocative inscription “Paris-London-New York”, which Since the time of my mother, it has been considered a sign of an outright fake, but... They may not give it away.
Therefore, we follow simple Box Inspection Rules:
- The cardboard must be white. That is, precisely snow-white, and not gray, not greenish, not dirty yellow, but white, like the first snow.
- The company logo must be applied directly to the cardboard. If the logo is printed on polyethylene, put the bottle aside, this is a fake.
- Carefully read the composition of the perfume! If previously it was considered the norm to indicate only alcohol and perfume composition in the composition, recently a list of 26 potential allergens was compiled, the presence of which must be noted in the composition. Of course, manufacturers of counterfeits ignore this rule, and if the composition contains only alcohol and perfume, they are trying to deceive you. The composition must be represented by 5 or more components. However, this rule does not apply to vintage perfumes created and packaged before the passage of this law.
- There must be a barcode on the box.
Remember that the barcode for French perfumes begins with the number “3”. Barcodes of some other countries: UK 50, Germany 400-440, Spain 84, Italy 80-83, France 30-37, USA, Canada 00-09. Below the code there is also a serial number - a code of letters and numbers, which must necessarily match the code on the bottle.
If you wish, you can check the correctness of the barcode and determine the country of origin of the product.
You can check the correctness of the barcode yourself: To read the barcode, you need to add up all the numbers in even places (from left to right). Multiply the resulting amount by 3. Then add up all the numbers in odd places (without the control, the very last digit). To this amount add the figure obtained by multiplying by 3 the sum of the numbers in even places. Leave only the last digit of the amount received. Subtract it from the number 10. If the product is genuine, then the resulting result will correspond to the last, control, digit in the barcode
- In addition, the box must indicate the country of origin, expiration date and date of manufacture of the product
- Remember that creators of fakes often save on printing. That is, the inscriptions may be too small or too large, the letters may be blurry, and the lines may be uneven. This is a sign of a crude fake. The inscriptions on the original perfumes are designed evenly, clearly and neatly.
3. Inspect the bottle.
You may encounter a situation where a tester is one thing, but something in your box is something completely different. Don’t be shy about unwrapping the box and checking the quality of the bottle “without leaving the cash register.” However, before opening the precious packaging, shake the box several times. A cheap item, poorly secured in a box, will immediately give itself away with a quiet knock. The expensive fragrance will not make any sounds in response to shaking, since it is well secured in its cardboard “house”.
But here is the bottle in your hands...
- The inscriptions on the bottle must match the inscriptions on the box. Of course, the bottle does not indicate the expiration date or date of manufacture, but the name, font and design simply must match.
- The lid should fit tightly to the base, the ring under the spray bottle should not “move” from side to side, and the spray bottle itself should not scroll. Many famous perfume houses use close-fitting cork, for example, Lancome.
- A sign of a fake is stickers on the bottom of the bottle: the serial number of the perfume, its name and brand mark must be applied to the side of the glass.
- The bottle must be of high quality! The glass should be smooth and transparent, without air bubbles or irregularities. If you notice anything like this, feel free to ask for a replacement or markdown. This is either a defect or a fake. A bottle of real perfume is a small work of art, a decoration for a dressing table, and not the rough work of a Kolyvan artisan.
4. Look at the price!
Real, expensive perfumes cannot be cheap.
Here is an approximate range of price categories depending on the popularity of the manufacturer:
- the price range of the first group for a bottle of seven milliliters is forty dollars and above. It includes perfumes from world-famous fashion houses, such as: Chanel, Christian Dior, Dolce Gabbana, Boucheron, and others;
- the second group, with a price range from twenty to fifty dollars per seven milliliters, includes the names of well-known artists and designers in the world of fashion and art: Fendi, Salvador Dali, Krizia, Calvin Klein.
- the third group, with a price of up to twenty-five dollars per seven milliliters, consists of perfumes of less advanced brands: “Nautilus”, “Cafe-Cafe”, “Via Paris”, and others.
"Grey" perfumes that crossed the border illegally may cost less. However, I advise you to check its quality with even greater care.
5. Your own nose: trust, but verify!
If you know what the tonka bean smells like in the drydown of "So Elixir" and can smell it in a crowd, then you can trust your nose unconditionally. If not, then it's time to think...
If you think that the scent has changed and smells like something “wrong”, perhaps you are simply smelling it in different conditions? After all, the smell and its perception are influenced by many factors - from the temperature outside the window to your mood. In addition, scents change over time - if you have a vintage bottle, a relatively new scent will seem very, very different to you. Or maybe you just don’t like this smell and it’s time to try something else?
In short, if you are not an experienced perfumer, take the arguments of your own nose with some caution. He may fail!
6. Cold test.
If the bottle is already at home, and you still can’t decide whether it’s a fake or not, put the bottle in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. If the liquid settles, you’ve been deceived. If not, congratulations, you are the happy owner of real perfume! True, this rule does not apply to oil perfumes and perfumes with pheromones, but, as is right, no one checks them for naturalness in such a brutal way.
7. Check the expiration date and production date!
The shelf life of unopened perfumes is 1 year. In principle, it can be extended to three, but only if certain storage conditions are observed, which no one observes in Russia.
By the way, Russian bigwigs love to buy up perfumes with a critical expiration date at perfume sales - and then sell them for the price of a full bottle. Be careful to check the manufacturing date and expiration date, and remember that they should be indicated on the box.
Happy shopping!
