How We Score

What the similarity % means

Every dupe pairing on ScentMirage carries a similarity score from 0 to 100. It is our estimate of how closely a clone smells like the original fragrance — 100 means "widely regarded as nearly indistinguishable", lower numbers mean "same general vibe, but most people can tell the difference".

The score is an opinion aggregated from public fragrance communities, reviews, and side-by-side comparisons — not a measurement. We do not run lab testing, chemical analysis, or blind-tests of our own, and we do not claim any of the numbers to be objective fact. It is editorial judgment plus crowd consensus, and scores can change as consensus shifts.

Where the data comes from

Dupe pairings are sourced by hand from public fragrance discussion — community forums, subreddits, review sites, and clone-house product pages — then consolidated into one entry per pairing. Entries are built on aggregated community consensus rather than a single source, and personal tastes vary: two people can disagree about the same clone, and we present the consensus view, not a guarantee.

Prices are our own approximate research (discussed below). We do not accept payment from clone houses to create or promote a pairing, and affiliate economics never change a similarity score, a discount, or a ranking.

Verification tiers

Each pairing carries one of three verification statuses, shown on its dupe page:

• Verified — the pairing is well-established and confirmed against multiple independent sources; it is as solid as our sourcing gets.
• Community — a community-reported pairing with reasonable, consistent consensus behind it.
• Unverified — community-reported but pending editorial review. 38 of our 269 entries currently carry this flag. Expect these to be the most likely to change or be dropped on review.

Verification reflects how confident we are in the pairing itself (does this clone really correspond to this original?), and as with everything else on the site, it is provenance-based confidence — not a lab certification.

How the discount % is calculated

The discount percentage is computed mechanically from the two prices shown:

For example, a $34.99 clone of a $92.99 original computes to a 62% discount. An automated lint check enforces that the displayed number matches this formula within ±2 percentage points, so the percentage and the prices never drift apart.

How prices work

Base prices are in US dollars, researched at the time of writing and approximate. On regional versions of the site, USD figures are converted to local currencies using rough exchange-rate estimates. Real-world prices vary constantly and depend on the retailer, sales, shipping, and taxes — always treat our numbers as ballpark figures and confirm the current price on the retailer's own site before buying anything.

Affiliate disclosure

Some links on ScentMirage are affiliate links. Purchases may earn ScentMirage a commission at no additional cost to you. Retailers such as Amazon use these links to attribute the sale to us. This does not affect our scores, rankings, or recommendations — but we link to products because we believe the comparison is useful, and some of those links pay us a small referral fee when you buy through them.

How to dispute or correct an entry

We are straightforwardly wrong sometimes — a clone may be misattributed, a score may no longer reflect consensus, or a price may have drifted. If you spot a problem, email

with the dupe page URL and a short explanation of what is wrong (links to sources help and speed review). We take corrections seriously: contested pairings can be re-labelled, re-scored, or removed outright. Disputes are never settled by whoever pays us — there is no paid channel for changing scores.