If you’ve ever questioned whether perfume elitism is a real thing, allow me to share a recent revelation I had. While brainstorming stories for this very website, it occurred to me that there was one fragrance brand that had never so much as entered my home, much less touched my skin: Zara.
I don’t shop at Zara all that often, but when I stopped to consider what the brand might offer in terms of fragrance, I admittedly turned my nose up at the thought. I’m by no means fancy — my guilty pleasures include aimless Target walks followed by a drive-thru Happy Meal — but in that moment, my fragrance snobbery was definitely showing, even if only my pets were around to witness it.
It wasn’t until I brought this up with coworkers that I realized just how wrong I was. One particularly discerning colleague — Refinery29’s own beauty director — admitted to being a longtime fan of Zara perfumes. So, in the spirit of self-discovery and beauty journalism, we set out to test some of the brand’s most popular scents, many of which were created in collaboration with Jo Malone, CBE — a modern-day scion of luxury fragrance and founder of fragrance brand Jo Loves.
Keep reading for the standout Zara scents that genuinely challenged (and in some cases dethroned) our most expensive bottles of perfume.
I don’t shop at Zara all that often, but when I stopped to consider what the brand might offer in terms of fragrance, I admittedly turned my nose up at the thought. I’m by no means fancy — my guilty pleasures include aimless Target walks followed by a drive-thru Happy Meal — but in that moment, my fragrance snobbery was definitely showing, even if only my pets were around to witness it.
It wasn’t until I brought this up with coworkers that I realized just how wrong I was. One particularly discerning colleague — Refinery29’s own beauty director — admitted to being a longtime fan of Zara perfumes. So, in the spirit of self-discovery and beauty journalism, we set out to test some of the brand’s most popular scents, many of which were created in collaboration with Jo Malone, CBE — a modern-day scion of luxury fragrance and founder of fragrance brand Jo Loves.
Keep reading for the standout Zara scents that genuinely challenged (and in some cases dethroned) our most expensive bottles of perfume.
