I get stopped in the street by people asking where my perfume's from – it's a dupe of a designer scent & saves me £135

The Irish Sun

20-05-2025

THERE'S nothing better than finding a perfume that "lasts all day" and doesn't break the bank.
And one woman has done just that, with a £29.99 Zara scent.
4
Caitlin took to TikTok to gush about the £29.99 Zara scent Fashionably London
Credit: TikTok @caitlinrocheee
4
It's a dupe of the Parfums de Marly Delina scent, which costs a whopping £165 a bottle
Credit: FRMODA
4
Caitlin predicted the Zara perfume - part of a collection designed with Jo Malone - will be a total sell out
Credit: EPA
As an added bonus, the perfume is a dupe of a pricey £165 designer one - namely Parfums de Marly Delina - meaning she saves a whopping £135 every time she buys it.
Caitlin
"My nail tech put me onto the nicest Zara perfume ever!" she said.
"When I tell you, people literally stop me in the street and say what perfume are you wearing?
Read more Dupe stories
"The other day I walked into this one bed shop and the girl at the desk was like, 'What perfume is that? You smell so nice!'
"I've walked into work and people have literally walked into my office and been like, I can smell your perfume in this whole office."
The perfume in question is the Fashionably London one - part of a collection scent queen Jo Malone created with the high street store.
"Girls, you need it, you actually need it!" Caitlin continued.
Most read in Fabulous
"Honestly, it's the nicest perfume and it lasts all day.
"I spray this on me and like I'll come home and like my mum or my nanny will be like, 'I can smell that perfume on you!'"
Come see what's new in at Zara
She added that while she's always loved her YSL perfume, the Zara one even "lasts longer than that".
But she did warn there's a side effect she found from using the perfume, as she said: "It might give you a headache for like three days but you'll get used to it!"
"Run!" Caitlin captioned the TikTok video.
Other people in the comments section admitted they'd had a similar response when wearing Fashionably London.
"I got it months ago, have been stopped by people all the time!" one wrote.
"Nooooo I was tryna gate keep this," another admitted.
Why is Zara so popular?
Zara was founded in 1975 in Spain, and the first UK store was opened in 1998. It remains as one of the most popular stores on the high street, but why?
Rather than producing more quantities of a style, it is said Zara focuses on producing more styles.
Some stats suggest Zara releases 24 trend-led collections every year, 500 designs a week and almost 20,000 per year. Other estimates put its production levels at 450 million garments a year.
Even if a style sells out very quickly, there are new styles waiting to take up the space. This means more choices and higher chance of getting it right with the consumer.
Zara only allows its designs to remain on the shop floor for three to four weeks, and this pushes the consumer to keep visiting the store or website, because if they were just a week late, the clothes of a particular style or trend would be sold out and replaced with a new trend.
At the same time, this constant refreshing of the lines and styles carried by its stores also entices customers to visit its shops more frequently.
"Girl keep gatekeeping!" a third urged, calling it the "nicest perfume ever".
"I've been wearing this for ages and I've had to stop wearing this as my everyday perfume because I was getting sick of people stopping and asking me what I'm wearing!" someone else said.
"It was happening everyday!"
"No you really didn't need to share this," another wrote.
"My fave perfume ever - I don't know how more people don't know about it … every single time someone asks what I'm wearing."
"Girl no!" someone else sighed.
"It's my most complimented perfume. Holding you responsible if I can't I get it anymore".
4
Caitlin said she'd decided not to "gate keep" any more, but predicted it would be a sell out
Credit: TikTok @caitlinrocheee