Cheap perfumes have always been the butt of jokes in beauty. Although some of the best mascaras, lipsticks and nail polishes can be found on drugstore shelves, we'd be happy to wipe certain cheap perfumes from our scent memories. (Mom: If you find my collection of Designer Imposter Perfumes in my childhood bedroom, please burn.)
All that has changed in recent years. Now, you can find great new fragrances at drugstores, affordable department stores, and online -- and the prices won't give you sticker shock, either. Top perfumers are designing beautiful, complex and super cheap perfumes for designer and celebrity fragrance lines as well as for your favorite affordable beauty brands.
Here are nine lovely, cheap perfumes to try now.
Image via Getty
Photo 2/10
Flower Beauty Turquoise Eau de Parfum, 1 oz., $20
We can't stop sniffing our wrists when we wear this affordable winner from Drew Barrymore's Flower Beauty. You'll get summer-vacation vibes from this lightly aquatic fragrance featuring notes of blue lotus, figwood and honeydew blossom.
Philosophy Pure Grace Nude Rose Eau de Toilette, 0.5 oz., $18
Rose fragrances are all the rage right now, and this one from Philosophy has the complexity of much more expensive perfumes. It opens with fresh greens and dewdrops and dries down to cedar and musk.
This amazingly cheap perfume from the imaginative perfumers at Demeter was inspired by the sweet smell behind a kitten's neck. It's powdery, musky, and so comforting -- the only thing that's missing is the purr.
Christina Aguilera Glam X Eau de Parfum, 2.5 oz., $30
If you tend to pooh-pooh pop-star perfumes, this lush, grown-up floral-gourmand may just change your mind. Sweet top notes of mandarin and caramelized peach are balanced out by spicy star anise; mid-notes of white flowers and heliotrope dry down to a base of sandalwood, musk and amber.
