Lululemon dupes, Dyson Airwrap dupes, Van Cleef dupes—if a product is popular, there’s almost definitely a cheaper alternative. And consumers are all in.
The appeal of dupes has skyrocketed in recent years, and today, they account for a significant portion of the global consumer market. It’s a US$1.7 trillion industry.
Riding this phenomenon is Best Perfume Store, a homegrown business in Singapore that recreates well-known perfumes and enhances them, claiming to make them stronger than the originals. Each 100ml scent retails for S$69, at a fraction of the price of their luxury counterparts.
And it appears that the brand has gained notable traction. Launched in 2022, Best Perfume Store has already managed to expand to two outlets in Singapore: one at Plaza Singapura and another at Westgate, Jurong East.
We spoke with the brand’s founder, 32-year-old Josh Frost, to learn more about his entrepreneurial journey and his perfume business—how it operates, and what led to its rapid growth.
It wasn’t his first venture
Josh’s path to entrepreneurship wasn’t straightforward. Initially unable to pursue a master’s degree due to financial constraints and a reluctance to take on student loans, he turned to teaching, taking on multiple part-time tutoring roles to make ends meet.
When COVID-19 hit, he lost his teaching jobs and took on various roles, including part-time work as a bartender, a side gig he’d kept on and off for over a decade.
Eventually, Josh moved into the edutech industry, but soon came to realise that a conventional career path wasn’t for him. At that point, having claimed to have saved up about S$110,000, he decided it was time to strike out on his own.
Leveraging his bartending experience, Josh ventured into the alcopop market in 2022 with Happies Homebar, producing alcoholic beverages mixed with fruit juices and other flavourings, with relatively low alcohol content.
At the time, brands like Hard Seltzer were taking off in the US, and I felt that was a good venture into understanding flavours [rather] than mixing your typical spirits and liqueurs.
Josh Frost
But the venture never took off. After investing around S$70,000 and attempting to manage production—from 800-litre mixing tanks to automated label rollers—all out of his mother’s HDB kitchen, Josh soon realised the limits of operating from home.
Regulations also required him to move to a factory setting, but without funds for a deposit, he was unable to launch the business. Yet, Josh wasn’t ready to give up.
I was okay losing money; you can make that back again. But I would have never let myself live through giving up.
Josh Frost
Instead of returning to the alcohol industry, he identified another promising venture: fragrances. It was an industry that shared many of the same manufacturers as the flavours business, and thanks to the contacts he had built while trying to set up Happies Homebar, he already had a head start.
Moreover, Josh had also spotted a clear gap in the market at that time. Perfumes were either overpriced or, if they were cheap, they felt “dodgy.” There was no middle ground, and that pain point would become the starting point for Best Perfume Store.
Trial and error
To kickstart his business, Josh committed a significant investment: S$30,000 for the minimum order of raw ingredients, and another S$15,000 into building the essentials, including Best Perfume Store’s website, equipment, and glassware.
Although he had already dabbled in aromatics as a hobby, his early experiments with scent blends left much to be desired. “It was awful,” he admitted.
Determined to improve, he sought out feedback wherever he could—joining forums, speaking to other perfumers, and steadily refining his craft through trial and error.
A good eight to 12 hours of his day were spent experimenting with formulations, while the rest went into learning everything he could about perfumery. To keep the business afloat in its early days, he also juggled a part-time teaching job to cover his expenses.
As orders began trickling in, Josh contracted access to a Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) machine through another perfumery. The GCMS allows him to accurately analyse fragrance compositions, enabling Best Perfume Store to refine its blends with far greater precision.
“Being able to do this is a huge keyman risk,” he said, as one of these machines typically costs between US$30,000 and US$40,000.
“But [it is also] the major reason why Best Perfume Store can beat out other clone houses, as they are usually outsourcing or the product owner isn’t a perfumer and able to adjust [formulations] or understand how to troubleshoot.”
Another key differentiator of the brand is its focus on producing high-concentration perfumes, which offer longer-lasting wear, especially well-suited for Singapore’s hot and humid climate.
“Skin in the game”
Within six months of launching Best Perfume Store, Josh had managed to sell over 3,000 perfume bottles, and the momentum hasn’t slowed since, with the brand offering an expansive catalogue of more than 250 different scents today.
It also ventured into the retail space in 2024, setting up its very first outlet at Plaza Singapura, followed by a second at Westgate.
Why go physical? For Josh, it’s about bringing the perfumes directly to the people. “[It] also [helps us] reach people that we couldn’t from advertising…. and [to show] we’ve got skin in the game.”
The strategy seems to be working so far, with Best Perfume Store currently on track to surpass S$10 million in revenue this year alone, according to Josh.
But growth aside, are selling dupes even legal, and where exactly is the line drawn?
To stay on the right side of the law, Josh takes a cautious approach. He avoids using trademarked names, logos, bottle shapes, and packaging that might confuse consumers or infringe on intellectual property.
“Stay away from that, don’t deceive the consumer, and then you’re okay,” he said in a previous interview.
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Looking ahead, Josh remains focused on long-term growth over short-term profit. Since Best Perfume Store’s launch, he shared that over 90% of its earnings have been reinvested into product development and expansion.
On the horizon, the brand is preparing to open one final outlet in Singapore. Regionally, it’s laying the foundation for wider Southeast Asian growth, with factory bases almost finalised across Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
In the long run, Josh envisions establishing Best Perfume Store as APAC’s leading perfume house by 2030—a one-stop destination for safe, long-lasting fragrances.
- Find out more about Best Perfume Store here.
- Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean startups here.
Featured Image Credit: Wan Aidil via Google Reviews/ Best Perfume Store