These $19 Fragrances Smell Just as Good as the Most Expensive Brands Out There

I’ve always been obsessed with fragrances, so much so that I’ve made a career out of talking about them. I love switching up what I’m wearing each day depending on the season, the time of day, my mood, or how I’d like to feel. Scent plays such a huge role in our day to day, in ways that we realize and ways that we often don’t.

There are some that don’t share my passion for scent, for many reasons. And while I may not understand them, I try to. Some may not want to smell like the same thing day in and day out, which makes sense. Others may find the cost of a traditional fragrance prohibitive, or simply just don’t want to spend $80 on a perfume. I get that too. And there are those who just fine fragrances inaccessible as a concept, which, believe me, even as someone who is as immersed in it as I am, I completely get.

Fragrances are esoteric. They often feel like an in-crowd to which you were not invited. And even if you were, once you get there, with all the talk different notes and concentrations, it’s easy to feel like the conversation goes straight over your head.

Let me introduce you to a brand that has is trying to change all of that. MIX:BAR is a new collection of seven fragrances, in three different formulas, made to be worn alone or mixed together. They are available at your local Target or online, at a very accessible price point. What I like most is that the fragrances are good (I mean really good) and they don’t try to dumb fragrance down or make a joke out of it. They simply make it straightforward and easy to understand, without sacrificing quality.

Each scent is available in a traditional eau de parfum in a 1.7 ounce bottle for $20 and a Hair & Body Mist for $10. I know “affordable” means different things to everyone, but considering most fragrances are $50 or more, those prices are definitely worth calling out.

And they’re just…great. I really didn’t know what to expect but the caliber of these scents competes with some of the biggest names in fragrance. But let’s just get into each one, shall we?

Below I have each fragrance, with an “inspired by” and “notes of” sections that I pulled from the Target product page. I included these because I think they do a great job of succinctly telling you what to expect from the scent, and then I give you the low down after.

Mix:Bar Vanilla Bourbon, $20

• Inspired by the rich juice of dark berries
• Notes of: Blackberry, lily of the valley, jasmine, musk wood, vanilla

I always forget how much blackberries bring to the table when it comes to fragrance. They’re sweet, pungent, tangy, and deep, and can mix beautifully with other notes.

Blackberry Tonic also has a lot of depth to it, but also the juiciness of the berry that brightens it up. The soft addition of floral and woods add texture, and vanilla softens all of the edges. Along with Vanilla Bourbon and Wood Elixir, it’s one of the more commanding fragrances of the collection, but it’s made up of diverse notes that would layer beautifully with others MIX:BAR scents.

Suggested combinations:

Vanilla Bourbon + Wood Elixir

Tangerine Squeeze + Coconut Palm

Glass Rose + Cloud Musk

Wood Elixir + Blackberry Tonic

MIX:BAR scents really take you on a ride whether you wear them alone or layered. When you first spray them on, you get a big cloud of fragrance that quickly works its way down and settles. It starts off big, but ends up wearing very closely to the skin, which I like. Each scent I wore was still there by the end of the day, if faintly. I don’t often like to re-up on my scents in the middle of the day, but with these, if I felt like I needed to give them a little boost before I left my apartment, I could definitely give myself another spritz without choking anyone (or myself) out.