You might as well know the truth. Perfume is expensive. It's one of the true luxury substances on earth. In fact, even in the Bible, perfume was recognized as something of tremendous value (it's in the story of the woman who broke open the alabaster box to put perfume on Jesus; one of the disciples criticized her for her waste and extravagance).

There are reasons for its high price tag. First, it is a luxury. Second, there are not many people who are trained and qualified perfumists (called "noses" in the trade). Estimates are that there are really only about 50 living noses right now, and it can take an expert a year or more to arrive at the formula of a sensational new fragrance.

Not only can a perfume take a long time to develop, but the raw materials are not cheap, either. It can take thousands of flowers to distill enough essence to make one bottle of a certain fragrance--but most fragrances use many many "notes."

As a perfume shopper, here are some tips to getting a good deal:

• Perfume is almost never discounted. Don't wait for a sale; they never happen.
• You will see price variations by fragrance. Youth Dew, for instance, costs less than Beautiful. If your mom likes an older or less popular fragrance, you may be in luck.
• You will notice price differentials by product. Cologne is cheaper than eau de parfum and both are cheaper than perfume. While the "drive out" cost is less for cologne, your mom may get less mileage from cologne than a smaller bottle of perfume. It's best to find out what your mom prefers and stick with that. (Some women prefer the lighter colognes to perfume, which one tends to dab on rather than spray.)
• One way manufacturers get around the unwritten rule "never put a sale on perfume" is to offer special gift packages. In these cases, the manufacturer puts some fragrance in a fancy box along with some other products, typically a powder or lotion or shower gel. Then the whole package is sold at a price that is much lower than the individual components would have cost individually. While sales are very rare, this practice is quite common. These are almost always your best deals.
• You can buy fragrance at drug stores, department stores, specialty stores and online. You really won't notice an appreciable difference in price, at least overall. Many online sellers offer discounts but you may be asked to pay for shipping.

Should you ever buy a knock-off? Sometimes called counterfeits, knock-offs, or spoofs, these are fragrance products that are reputed to smell the same as major brand names but at a fraction of the cost. Sometimes these products are fraudulent, that is, they are marketed and sold as the real thing when they're phony. That's one reason you should always buy perfume from reputable sources.

But some places, notably discount houses and drug stores, often offer some small squirt bottles of fragrances that are openly sold as imitations of major brands. These products are not frauds; they are legal because they say what they are.

However, we don't recommend buying them for a couple of reasons. First of all, not everyone agrees that these things are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Second, the major perfume companies have established reputations (sometimes centuries old) and make products known for purity and strict manufacturing processes. It is unclear if a no-name product will deliver those same standards of purity. But our real reason for shying away from these products is this. You're buying a present to show your mom what she means to you. No woman wants to get a present whose main attribute is its utter cheapness.

Just as a woman doesn't want to get a plastic ring or cheap earrings that turn her ears green, she really isn't eagerly awaiting a knock-off fragrance gift.

Now that isn't to say that some women don't buy these products for themselves; they very well might. Most true perfume lovers never do this, but some women will shop the discount racks to pick up a scent or two for a few bucks. That's fine, just as a woman might buy a rhinestone necklace for herself.

But if you're shopping for a gift, buy the real thing. Besides, with many perfumes, the box and bottle are part of the whole "oooh!" experience of opening the preent. Most cheap versions of perfume come in small, plain bottles with squirters that break after one or two uses.

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