We all know that there are a lot of fake perfumes on the Bulgarian market. When we buy a perfume (especially online), we are always suspicious about whether we bought an original perfume of a fake one. If the perfume is on sale, we decide that the price is too low for an original perfume, and if the price is high, we are concerned that the seller wants to mislead us with the high price. Here’s how to make sure that the perfume we bought is original:

Package

Package is the first element of the perfume that we notice. It’s easy to find out whether the perfume in the package is a fake if there is a misspelled word or a grammar mistake in the name and description of the perfume. You don’t believe that a famous perfume house would make such a mistake, do you? Take a look at the cellophane – it has to be transparent and it should adhere tightly to the carton package (if it is cloudy or wrinkled, this should strain your attention).

But before you jump to any conclusions, you should take into account two things. Firstly, there’s a strong chance that the package may be harmed due to bad transportation. Very often the online perfumery retailers use courier services to ship their products countrywide. Even if it hardly ever happens, the courier may mistreat the package and thus damage its content.

Also, you should pay attention to the fact that there are a lot of original perfumes without an official package on the market. These so called testers, are just as high quality as any original perfume. The only difference is the lack of an official package. Bear in mind that the testers are more appropriate for personal use rather than as a present.

Bottle

You should make sure to find the origin of the perfume – it’s at the bottom of the bottle and says “Made in…” Despite the fact that you may come upon a fake perfume, whose bottle has the perfume’s origin, there are some other clues that will help you find out if it is an original or a fake one. The quality of the bottle should be impeccable – its surface should be smooth, with no bubbles in the glass, the inscriptions should be precise, there shouldn’t be any smudges on the texts and logos. The cap should stick tightly to the bottle and it shouldn’t come off if you turn the bottle upside down.

Perfume

The perfume in the bottle should be absolutely transparent (with no sediment or a difference in nuances). There shouldn’t be any clouds or particles in the liquid at the bottom of the bottle. As you know, the fragrance of a genuine perfume is multi-layered and consists of top notes, heart notes, and base notes. In a fake perfume you won’t find this multi-layer composition. In the best case, the fake fragrance will vaguely remind you of the original, but, in most cases, the two have nothing in common. You should never spray the perfume directly on your skin if you have any doubts it may not be original as you don’t know what chemical substances are in there and if they are harmless for the human health.

Barcode

A lot of people think that the perfume barcode shows whether it is original or not. In fact, we shouldn’t judge by this as the barcode is the easiest to falsify (it’s much easier to create a barcode with a graphic program than to make the bottle, imitate the package design and the liquid inside). The barcode on the package shows where and when the perfume is produced and it’s important to know that the same perfume may be produced in different places and thus may have different barcodes. The perfumes made in France have barcodes that start with 30-37, those made in England start with 50, the German ones start with 400-440, the Spanish with 84, the Italian with 80-83, and those from USA and Canada start with 00-09.

Decoding

Perfume decoding is erasing of the information showing where the perfume is intended to be sold to (the batch number is erased and there is usually a sticker with the perfume’s country of origin on top of it). For instance, if a certain perfume is intended for India, its price would be much lower than if it is intended for Europe. So, if an Indian distributor sells it to a European distributor, its final price would be lower than if the perfume is bought directly from the European producer. The chance for such a “decoded” perfume to be a fake is close to zero as perfume decoding of a fake product doesn’t make any sense.

Our advice – be careful when you choose a perfume and always choose a legitimate online store. An answer to the question “How to choose a good website for original branded perfumes” you will find here.