My bottle of Gabrielle is the one and only perfume I’ve cherished for longer than any other – Aaron picked it up for me from Duty Free on the ferry back from a fishing trip in France around 2 years ago (it was a guilt present for leaving me for a week to sit by a lake and reel in carp, this years present was a travel pack of Benefit Bad Gal Bang mascaras and the Gimme Brow – I’m gathering quite the collection), but that perfume is still going strong and one I’ve kept for special occasions so as to save every last drop because it’s my ultimate fave.
To make sure it lasts, I’ve gone through various bottles of cheaper perfumes for the day time from Nude by Rihanna to Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker – nice enough but not luxurious with my own name on the bottle. I think a scent is one of the most individual things about a person, so finding one of your own is no mean feat – I’ve tried endless perfumes over the years, starting off where most girls do with Fantasy by Britney Spears, to Ghost, Armani Code (still a fave) and Diesel Loverdose. But when I had a tiny sample bottle of that luxurious scent with my name on it, my perfume preferences changed – I’d finally found “my scent”.
You’re probably wondering when I’m going to get on with it and tell you when, where and how much this dupe is I suppose?
Well during my time off, I was helping my Grandad out after he’d recently gotten out of hospital by popping round to help him up and about, going out with him for drives, lunch and some food shopping. It was on a trip to Lidl that I came across a perfume for £3.99 that I wanted to try. I’d read a couple of years ago about one of their perfumes that was supposed to smell like a Chanel perfume, had tried it out but wasn’t a huge fan, so I was intrigued when I noticed a newer one and thought that the sample smelt very similar to my beloved Gabrielle. Obviously for £3.99, I picked it up and went on my merry way around the rest of the shop with my Grandad, before heading to the tills and purchasing what could potentially be the ultimate bargain.
I’ll be honest, the longevity isn’t that great and it’s not the same as a having a spritz of Gabrielle and smelling like it all day, but it’s still gorgeous all the same – you just need to top up every now and then throughout the day. After I started to write this post, I went online to have a look and see whether there was anyone else that shared my opinion, only to find people likening the one I had to Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel – maybe I’d picked up a different version of the Suddenly in Lidl back then?!
After, I did a quick sniff test of one spray of each one of my arms and noticed that the Suddenly was a tiny bit sweeter than the Gabrielle. I was gutted that my theory wasn’t right, but I do love the scent of Suddenly still and think it’s much more like Mademoiselle.
So in conclusion, I reckon £3.99 for a bottle of perfume that smells verrrry similar to one from the Chanel range (a colleague at work actually asked me if I was wearing Chanel the other day – winner!) – I reckon that’s money well spent!
Have you got any perfumes that smell exactly like an expensive one? Let me know in the comments!
Chanel Gabrielle DupeChanel Gabrielle PerfumeChanel Mademoiselle DupeChanel perfume dupeLidl perfumeperfume dupeperfume reviewSuddenly from Lidl review
