'All the affordable perfumes I swear by that actually smell expensive.'

Beauty is pain, and smelling good is a luxury. Two 'truths' of my teen years as I winced through every wax and spent a quite frankly irresponsible amount of money at my local Lush (the Lust scent was my drug of choice for many years).

I love perfume, and I love smelling good. I am a layering queen who will use a body wash, and then a lotion, and then a body spray, and then a perfume all in the same scent family so you'll catch a whiff of me two streets away.

It's my vice, but it's also an expensive one — though it turns out, it doesn't have to be!

By now, you've probably seen the explosion of perfume dupes making their way onto our feed.

There's dupes for Baccarat Rouge 540, Black Opium, Tom Ford — you name it. It's a pretty exciting trend for perfume enthusiasts like me who like to switch up their scents — I go for a different perfume based on the weather, my mood, the outfit I'm wearing — and owning multiple perfumes is expensive!

Watch: How to make your perfume last all day. Post continues below. 

So, after about a million extremely targeted ads, I decided to take the plunge and try a bunch of dupes for some popular and wildly expensive perfumes so you don't have to.

Here are my absolute favourites.

Tom Ford's Soleil Blanc dupe.

Soleil Blanc is one of my favourite perfumes of all time. The powdery coconut-cardamon scent is what dreams are made of, and I spritz it on every time I go to Mecca just to get a whiff because there's no way I am ever going to be able to justify spending $440 on a bottle. 

So that's where this (affordable) guy steps in…

Daydreamer by Aerre, $49.

Image: Mecca, Tom Ford, Aerre

Aerre makes affordable dupes of luxury perfumes and has a copycat of pretty much every popular scent on TikTok right now. My friend bought me the Soleil Blanc dupe, called Daydreamer, for my birthday and I can confirm: this smells like the real deal. I shouldn't be surprised given Aerre makes all its scents in Provence, France — the perfume capital of the world!

The glass bottle is a generous 50ml for $49 — the real Soleil Blanc costs almost 10 times more — and its magnetic lid makes it feel expensive.

Baccarat Rouge 540 by Maison Francis Kurkdjian dupe.

Cult Fragrances is an Australian fragrance house that is vegan and cruelty-free, and wowza the shipping is fast on this one.

I tried a sample pack of eight 5ml scents, which I got on a deal so it only cost me $64. I tried dupes for iconic scents like Spicebomb, J'adore, Soleil Blanc, and others (my neighbour said she could smell Spicebomb in our stairwell hours after my husband had walked through it).

However, there were two clear standouts to me: the J'adore dupe, which smells identical to the original Dior scent (I now own a full-size bottle), and Baccarat Rouge 540, which I blind bought based on how obsessed everyone is with it…

135 by Cult Fragrances, $75.

Mecca, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Cult Fragrances

Upon receiving the Cult Fragrances dupe (and comparing it to the real deal which I huffed in Mecca), I can confirm they smell almost the same. Cult Fragrances' is a tad warmer/more amber-y than the original, which is a bit more floral thanks to the saffron note. However, the dupe is super long-lasting and potentially even better than the original in terms of staying power — I had to wash it off my wrist with soap because it wouldn't fade!

A 50ml costs $75. But I bought three full-sized perfumes for just over $100 thanks to a sale!

Sol de Janeiro Brazilian Crush Cheirosa 62 Perfume Mist dupe.

I feel like everyone and their mum is in love with Sol de Janeiro's gorgeous salted caramel and pistachio body mist, which also comes in its iconic bum bum cream, a shower gel and a deodorant. 

However, the mist costs $42 for 90ml, which is pretty exxy given it's just a mist and doesn't last super long. This isn't an eau de parfum, after all! I have the scent as well as Cheirosa 68, and I am flying through them. 

So I've found this great alternative.

MCo Beauty's Salted Caramel & Pistachio fragrance mist, $20.

Image: Mecca, Sol de Janeiro, MCoBeauty

If you're running out of the spray quicker than you'd like, I have some good news: MCo Beauty has released a dupe for five of the Cheirosa scents, and I gave them a whiff: they smell the same! 

The 90ml mists are only $20 — less than half the price of the originals — and you can also buy roller-ball versions for just $14. Plus, there are dupes of the shower gels and body lotions too. Get that layering on!

Feature image: Supplied.