Where’s your first port of call on the high street for high-quality trends at an affordable price? It’s hard to think of anywhere better than M&S, which has undergone the most remarkable of glow-ups lately, and that includes its own-brand beauty, from GH-loved £3 haircare to fragrances that start from just £7 but smell far more expensive than they are.
Perfume ranges such as M&S Discover and M&S Apothecary have become beauty insider favourites, with chic bottles and beautiful scents that offer a very affordable alternative to fabulous designer perfume names including YSL, Jo Malone London, Gucci and Diptyque. The Discover eau de toilette range is a particularly rich source of bargains, with the 30ml £7 scents also being available as 100ml bottles for £10 – you do the beauty maths on that one.
While M&S own-brand scents aren't out-and-out dupes in suspiciously familiar packaging, they're fragrances that definitely overlap in perfume tastes, and smell premium. 'I'm always impressed by the quality, and often wear them as an everyday perfume,' says GH beauty director Lynne.
Leading fragrance expert Thomas Dunckley is also an admirer. ‘I think M&S is a great place to look for accessible, affordable scents,’ says Thomas, who shares his 'smell expensive for less' recommendations on his @makingscentsmakesense Instagram. 'I think they’re really well done for the price, especially Discover Soft Iris which feels cozy and lively at the same time.’
With scents that cost £100s less than the designer brands they're compared to, M&S is an excellent destination to extend your fragrance wardrobe without breaking the bank. These are the names to have on your radar.
Best M&S perfume dupes
Discover Pink Pepper
This scent sold out after it was compared to Lancome’s La Vie Est Belle, with both scents sharing notes of orange blossom, jasmine, and patchouli. It’s now back in stock, which is good news for the superfan reviewer who says: ‘I’ve purchased over 20 bottles of this perfume over the years – I love it so much! It’s become my signature scent.’
A fellow five star reviewer adds: ‘It may not linger on me as long as the £75 30ml bottle of Lancome Belle but its a brilliant dupe of the perfume and I can spray away. So pleased to have come across this affordable gorgeous smelling Eau de Toilette’
Apothecary Warmth
M&S Apothecary Warmth Eau de Parfum
This calming, understated scent is regularly mentioned in the same breath as Le Labo’s Santal 33 EPD, £172, due to their shared key notes of cardamom, cedarwood and sandalwood. Warmth has a comforting, subtly smokey quality, and while it’s not a clone of the iconic Le Labo, it more than stands up as a perfume in its own right. Fans can also enjoy it in an accompanying home, bath and body range, which has just been revamped with stronger scent intensity for a longer-lasting effect.
It currently has nearly 400 five star reviews on M&S, with one happy ‘I love this for a day to day handbag perfume. It's very similar to my La Labo expensive scent and 10th of the price!’
Discover Sweet Pistachio
Warning: definitely contains nuts! Pistachio has become quite the premium fragrance micro-trend, being spotlighted in D.S. & Durga Pistachio, KAYALI Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 and Experimental Perfume Club’s Pistachio Haiku to name a few. However, it’s Sol de Janeiro’s pistachio-laced Cheirosa 62 scent that the M&S Discover iteration is most commonly likened to. ‘Lovely fragrance. Smells very similar to Sol de Janiero… if you know, you know,’ says one shopper.
Discover Midnight Blossom
Another high-street option that’s been compared to high end; in this case YSL’s Black Opium. While the individual notes are different, the fragrances do share a certain warm, musky richness. ‘I bought this perfume since I’d heard that it’s very like Opium, which I used to wear a lot. I like this one, too, it’s certainly similar, with the same style,’ according to one of the fragrance’s many five-star reviews.
Discover Sea Salt & Neroli
A fresh and vibrant perfume often compared to a Jo Malone London favourite. ‘Salty coastal scents are a really good example of modern perfumes that feel youthful without being overly sweet,’ says fragrance expert Alice du Parcq. ‘Jo Malone London Wood Sage & Sea Salt and M&S Discover Sea Salt & Neroli have cold, crisp and savoury herbal notes to bring freshness and clarity to the blend.’
Hundreds of fans agree the M&S bottle makes an excellent designer alternative. One writes on the website, ‘I bought this as the fragrance is similar to Jo Malone’s Wood Sage & Seasalt which I love. It’s fresh with a citrus hint and slightly musky too. It’s very pleasant but it’s not very long lasting but at the very affordable price of £12.50 for 100ml, I am not complaining! It’s great for day wear!’
Discover Sweet Frangipani
One of the newer additions to the Discover range, this is a light yet creamy floral that smells as pretty as the pink bottle suggests. The juice inside is a delicate bouquet of frangipani blooms, mingling with soft, delicate rose petals. There’s also vanilla at the base to add warmth and longevity.
One impressed shopper says: ‘This is exactly the same as Gucci Rush, which is my fave-ever scent. Bought [this] on a whim and after one spray and an hour later (for staying power), got back online and bought another two bottles. Love, love, love it.’
While Gucci’s eau de toilette blooms with peony rather than frangipani, we’d say that fans of a vanilla-balanced floral will find both scents to their liking. Those who go for the M&S option may well be swayed by the price difference, with 50ml of the designer option costing £79.
Apothecary Restful
Another Apothecary scent being likened to a designer name, in this case Tom Ford Café Rose, since both give a modern twist to a classic rose. It's a favourite of beauty journalist Keeks Reid who says, ‘I was so surprised how much the dry down of this scent reminded me of Café Rose. Once it settles you’ll really can smell the similarity.’ The price and the scent itself is something shoppers are finding soothing: ‘Nice calming scent, use at night for a good sleep’ posts one five-star fan.
Discover Sweet Water Lily
Sweet Water Lily is part of the Discover Eau De Parfum line-up, which is slightly more expensive than the EDPs but it’s a lot cheaper than the beautiful £265 Diptyque scent it’s being compared to: Lilyphéa.
It’s not hard to see where that’s coming from - for one thing, Lilyphéa is inspired by Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series! Both perfumes incorporate key notes of violet leaf and vanilla and share a gentle undercurrent of warmth – musk for M&S and cardamom for Diptyque. M&S’s perfume isn’t a replica of Diptyque, but if you’re drawn to the ethereal loveliness of Lilyphéa it’s well worth taking a sniff of the delicate and pretty Sweet Water Lily.
