Hey all!
I’m back with Dossier perfume number twenty now? Maybe 22. I don’t know, I’ve lost count but I do know that I love this brand so much and can’t get enough of their perfumes.👃
Dossier is a designer dupe fragrance brand creating luxury scents at next-to-nothing prices. Recently I purchased the YSL Black Opium by Dossier.co fragrance dupe known as Ambery Vanilla. This is a dupe for one of YSL’s most famous scents!
If I could best describe Ambery Vanilla by Dossier I’d say it’s like being wrapped in an extra-large blanket. It’s delicious and soft, and I am obsessed with Dossier. This scent is the perfect gift. 😍😍
In the guide below I’ll walk you through just what is a dupe fragrance and how Dossier compares to the original YSL Black Opium scent. Keep on reading below for all of the juicy details and to learn why this scent is an excellent gift for yourself or someone!
🌸What Is Dossier?
Dossier is the world’s leading alternative fragrance company. Since 2018 Dossier has been a championed manufacturer of fragrances for women, men, and unisex scents.More recently they’ve expanded their brand with the addition of candles.
Dossier creates scents inspired by your favorite designer fragrances. Its mission is to make luxury attainable. Dossier perfumers use the same practices, supplies, and methods as your favorite designer fragrances but sell them at a fraction of the price.
Why?🌸
Because Dossier doesn’t believe in brand tax markups, excessively fancy bottles, and celebrity endorsements to sell a good scent. The perfume speaks for itself.
Designer Scent Sans Markups
The reality is that most of the “juice” to your perfume only costs about $2-$4 to produce. This means the hundreds of other dollars you’re paying are allocated to unnecessary markups.
Dossier believes in fair pricing to level the playing field when it comes to smelling like a million bucks. Dossier also rewards customers when they try different scents. The more you bundle, the more you save.
Dossier also believes in radical transparency. The fragrance industry is notorious for shady manufacturing and hidden ingredients. Dossier tells you exactly where their fragrances are made, and the key ingredients n each scent. Their formulations are 100% non-toxic, cruelty-free, and vegan.🌸
Dossier strives to maintain ethical and sustainable manufacturing practices, leaving the corruption of fragrance behind. They also ensure to give back with their philanthropic business model. Dossier has a great returns policy.
If you don’t like a scent you can simply return it for a free refund. All returns in good condition are donated to charity, allowing more people to smell amazing!
🌸What Are Dupe Fragrances?
A dupe for something is a cheaper alternative to a product. It’s a term used to describe off-street luxury alternatives that offer the same style and quality of the luxury piece but at a fraction of the cost.
Dope fragrance brands started popping up over the past few years as generation Z demanded fairer alternatives to luxury goods. There used to be no middle ground.
You could either buy cheap drugstore body mists with scents of vanilla and orange blossom. Or you could splurge on a $100+ bottle of perfume for the modern woman. These top perfumes dominated the market for a long time.
Dossier carved its niche by creating luxury scents with rich base notes like white flowers and black coffee. However, they sell all of their full-price fragrances at only $29-$59 a bottle.
There are few competitors in the dupe fragrance space. The other alternative creates dupes but often are not accurate reflections of the original scent they are inspired by. Or their dupe fragrances are identical but not made of the same quality so they irritate the skin and don’t last.
Dossier dupe fragrances are made in the same place as all of their designer counterparts. This is why they offer unmatched quality, scent, and longevity at an unbeatable price.
🌸Is Dossier Legit?
One understandably might be skeptical of how I can score an exact dupe of my favorite $150 perfume for just $29. It’s thanks to Dossier’s radical transparency, no shady business.
Dossier produces its fragrance in the same facilities as other luxury brands. The difference is that they don’t mark up to unattainable prices. Dossier removes all fluff from their product marketing.
What you see is what you get. There are no ornate bottles, no celebrity endorsements, and no brand heritage markups. A 1.7-ounce bottle of perfume fragrance only costs about $2 to produce. The other costs include the packaging. So a bottle of perfume might cost around $10 at most to produce with some variation depending on distinct features.
So why are you paying almost $400 for some designer perfumes?
Realistic Prices For All🖤
You should not have to be. If you want to, more power to you. But I’m here to share with you a much more affordable but equally effective alternative, Dossier.
Dossier has been named “TikTok’s favorite alternative fragrance company.” They are trusted by prestigious publications including Insider, Entertainment Tonight, Who What Wear, Apartment Therapy, Architectural Digest, and MSN. Dossier is an incredibly reputable fragrance company on a mission to allow everyone to smell good, regardless of their budget.
Dossier has over 100,000 customers and almost 200,000 Instagram followers. It’s only been around since 2018, but Dossier established itself as an alternative fragrance authority. Since its foundation, it has gained the praise of the press and customers alike.
Many reviews state that this is their fourth or fifth Dossier purchase! I myself am a regular Dossier customer, and they never fail to live up to their guarantees. All of my Dossier scents smell exactly like the fragrances they are inspired by.
Pretty much my entire fragrance collection is exclusively becoming Dossier because I don’t see the need to spend $100 more on the exact same fragrance. With Dossier I get the quality, scent, and refined packaging in one.
🌸Where Is Dossier Produced?
Dossier is manufactured in the small French town of the beautiful Cote d’Azur. This small town has a big history. Grasse, France, where all Dossier fragrances are made, remains the perfume capital of the world since the 18th century. Grasse is the birthplace of the world's best-selling fragrance, Chanel No5.
It is also where Chanel, Dior, Hermes, and many other designer fragrance brands continue to source and produce their fragrances. Chanel actually owns a whole garden of roses in Grasse that is used to produce some of their signature scents.
Despite sourcing from and producing in the same facilities as these designer brands, Dossier sells at a much fairer price point. You get the same heritage and rich perfume history of Grasse in the bottle, but without markups on the brand’s behalf.🖤
Knowing that Dossier produces in Grasse helps me shop confidently. I know that the best perfumers in the world developed my scent. I also know that Dossier is supporting the ethical manufacturing of fragrances and third and fourth-generation perfumers with healthy living wages.
Being that Dossier is produced in France and headquartered in the U.S. it means I can rest assured they are strictly adhering to all European Union and the United States cosmetic regulations. As someone with a sensitive skin type and allergies, I know that my Dossier fragrance comes from the best so I can enjoy it and not worry about colorants or UV filters that go into other fragrances.
Dossier.co fragrances have quickly become my new go-to fragrance staples.
🌸A Bit About YSL: Yves Saint-Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent, YSL, born in Oran, Algeria, was a French fashion designer. In his teenage years, YSL left Algeria to pursue a costume design career in Paris, France.
YSL attended fashion school for a brief time and won a prize in an international design contest. A Vogue magazine executive showed YSL's designs to Christian Dior.
YSL was immediately hired as Dior's assistant at just 17 years of age. After Dior's sudden death in 1957, Laurent became the head of Dior.
YSL developed some of Dior's most iconic looks such as a-line silhouettes, mini skirts, and the beatnik style. Laurent's induction into the French army in 1960 put his design career to a screeching halt and he was replaced at Dior.
Upon his return, YSL decided to launch his namesake brand in 1962. He quickly became one of France's most influential designers. Laurent's brands expanded quickly from couture to include ready-to-wear, accessories, linens, and fragrances.
One of his most notable fragrance launches was Opium in 1977. After 37 years in business, Laurent sold YSL to Gucci for $1 billion, but now both YSL and Gucci are owned by the luxury goods company, Kerring. Black Opium is a modernized version of the original 1977 perfume, Opium.
Black Opium is the brainchild of Nathalie Lorson, Marie Salamagne, Olivier Cresp, and Honorine Blanc. It was released in 2015.
🌸YSL Black Opium Eau de Parfum
The Black Opium scent was launched in 2015 with actress Zoe Kravitz as the face of the scent. Today 887 bottles of YSL Black Opium are sold every day.
The scent pays homage to the glitz and glamour of the rock and roll world. Yet the coffee notes in the scent make it a lovely one to throw on when you want to feel cozy.
🌸What Does YSL Black Opium Smell Like?
The scent profiles of the original Opium and today's Black Opium are distinct. Really all they have in common is the name.
Black Opium starts with fresh, ripe pears. Then the star ingredient of this perfume, coffee, steals the show. The coffee is pronounced but not overwhelming.
It doesn't straight-up smell like a cappuccino, but it has coffee undertones. The coffee is succeeded by nutty hints of almond. There is also licorice intertwined in with soft floral notes of orange blossom and white flowers.
The resulting scent is gourmand and coffee. The scent base is all vanilla and patchouli. The earthy sharp patchouli is juxtaposed with the sweet, creamy, stimulating vanilla scent.
The scent's bold start relaxes to a balanced scent of coffee, florals, patchouli, and sweet vanilla. It's intoxicating, delicious, and irresistable.
🌸Where Is YSL Black Opium Produced?
YSL perfumes are now produced by the L'Oréal Group. The L'Oréal Group headquarters are in Clichy, France. Clichy is known for the L'Oréal Group headquarters as they are the world's largest beauty and cosmetics company.
Clichy is a commune in the suburbs of Paris, France. Black Opium perfume is produced in France but distributed worldwide. It is carried in thousands of stores including YSL Beauty and Sephora.
Comparing the YSL Black Opium Original to the YSL Black Opium by Dossier.co Dupe, Ambery Vanilla
YSL Black Opium by Dossier.co, also known as Ambery Vanilla, is the perfect dupe for the original YSL Black Opium scent. As a #perfumelover it is so important that I find scents that are high quality, non-irritating, and last all day.
I’ve tried YSL Black Opium, before and love the scent. It also has pretty good staying power. The one thing I’m not a fan of is the high price tag.
I can’t justify spending so much on consumable goods. Sure I’d spend $500 on a YSL bag because I can keep that forever and resell it, but when it comes to fragrance I like my prices low and my quality high.
That is why I am obsessed with Dossier. They offer those two most important traits in all of their fragrances. Below I compare and contrast the Dossier Ambery Vanilla with YSL’s Black Opium perfume. See who outperformed the other.
🖤Price
My 1.7-ounce Dossier bottles cost just $29. The same size bottle from YSL costs $110 dollars! That's almost 80% more than the identical fragrance.I could get three or four Dossier.co fragrances for the price of one YSL Black Opium.
I am the kind of shopper that values quality over quantity. With Dossier, I get both. I can try more of my favorite designer perfumes because Dossier prices are so affordable.
That does not sacrifice the quality of Dossier though. Even with more products, I get the same artisanal perfumer craftsmanship as I would from a luxury fragrance company.
If you've been wanting to try out YSL Black Opium but find it too expensive, this is the best way to get your hands on the same scent, but at a fraction of the cost.
🖤Scent👃
The Ambery Vanilla by Dossier is a beautiful scent. It opens with pear and mingles with licorice. It evolves into an evocative floral scent of orange blossom, jasmine, and contrasting vanilla and coffee notes.
It's yummy and sensual. The multi-faceted scent begins with a soft bright and tasty scent and evolves into a floral warmth.
Top notes in the Ambery Vanilla scent include mandarin, pear, pink pepper, and licorice. Middle notes include jasmine and orange blossom. Base notes in the scent are a mingling of cedarwood, patchouli, vanilla, and coffee.
Many reviewers on Dossier say that this scent "might as well be the original." It's fabulous and will become a compliment magnet, so be wary. If I could describe the scent myself I'd say it smells like cashmere wood, leather goods, black coffee, and orange blossom.
YSL's Black Opium smells exactly like Ambery Vanilla. Ambery Vanilla smells exactly like YSL Black Opium. If you gave me two unlabeled bottles, one of each scent, I would not be able to tell the difference.
The YSL scent is intoxicating, warm, and spicy, and shares the same key notes of coffee, vanilla, pear, and patchouli.
🖤Longevity
The quality of Dossier Ambery Vanilla is supreme. This scent lasts all day long!
The notes intensify throughout the day and traces of vanilla, wood, and florals dance around each other for many hours. It dries down beautifully.
As a general perfume pro tip, make sure to not rub your wrists together when spritzing. This breaks up the molecules and manipulates the scent.
The Black Opium scent is very long-lasting. It will take you from the daytime to dinner. YSL also creates this signature scent in an Eau de parfum intense.
An Eau de parfum intense is a perfume with a higher concentration of fragrance oil. The fragrance oil is what stays on your skin and makes the scent linger.
🖤Packaging
The quality of the branding is excellent as well. The mailer box is so cute! It's this high-quality, recyclable kraft paper with pink and red text.
The product packaging is beautiful as well. It comes in a high-quality thick clear glass bottle with a shiny silver magnetic cap. I love the minimalist branding of the Dossier packaging.
It looks so elegant on my vanity.
The YSL Black Opium packaging is the black sheep compared to the minimalist, clean, and refined Dossier packaging. YSL's packaging is meant to attract a daring and edgy woman.
It's black and covered in sparkling glitter, to hint that it's a scent for the night. It's a pretty cool bottle and to me looks like a black diamond.
While you don't get this cool bottle with the Dossier Ambery Vanilla, you do save about $80, which is also pretty cool.
🖤Sustainability and Ethics
Dossier's commitment to eco-conscious manufacturing is commendable. I believe it is imperative that brands take steps to improve their workers' lives and use eco-friendly raw materials.
Dossier sources all of its ingredients from local makers and farmers in Grasse, France. They also never test on animals nor do they include animals in any of their product tests. In an effort to reduce waste, Dossier also donates all of its returns to charity.
The parent company of YSL Beauty, the L'Oréal Group, is not a cruelty-free company. It is unclear whether or not they test this specific fragrance on animals.
🌸My Review of Dossier Ambery Vanilla🌸
Ambery Vanilla is one of Dossier's bestselling fragrances, and with good reason. The scent is a high-quality dupe of YSL's famous Black Opium scent.
I've tried many Dossier scents, but I think this is actually my favorite! Below I talk about the many pros and non-existent cons of this stunning scent.
Ambery Vanilla Pros
First off, wow, this scent is INCREDIBLE! I've smelled YSL Black Opium before, but I swear the Dossier Ambery Vanilla is better! Ambery Vanilla checks all of the boxes on what I look for in a perfume.
This scent is one of Dossier's bestsellers with nearly 2,000 reviews and an average 4.5 out of 5-star rating.
Ambery Vanilla Cons
Personally, this scent is pure perfection to me. There is nothing I would change about this Ambery Vanilla from Dossier.
There are only a couple of reviews on Dossier that state the scent didn't quite match their taste. Perfume is so personal, so there will never be a scent that makes everyone happy.
Most of the reviewers who weren't fond of the scent said it was too sweet for them. This is the same as the original YSL Black Opium fragrance which is pretty sweet.
🌸A Great Addition to My Perfume Collection: I Can’t Live Without This Ambery Vanilla Scent From Dossier🌸
The YSL Black Opium by Dossier.co, Ambery Vanilla, is one of my new all-time favorite Dossier scents! As mentioned, I own over 20 Dossier scents, so I am quite experienced with the brand.🌸
Dossier is quickly filling up my vanity compared to other fragrance brands. I get designer quality at unreal prices. Ambery Vanilla is an identical dupe to YSL Black Opium Eau de parfum.
The scent is perfect for the fall and winter months. It’s subtly sweet like your favorite latte but has a kick of warming amber to turn up the heat on a cold day.
I recommend bundling when purchasing from Dossier. Buy three or more scents and you’ll save!🖤🖤🖤
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