Joanna McLaughlin

The perfume industry is a big business plagued by an old problem: people trying to steal the recipe. The perfume industry protects itself with secrecy, complex formulas, and the fact that real perfume lovers can't help but prefer the original to the copycat stuff.

Mother's Day is perfume shopping season, but unwary buyers may be surprised to find out that in the perfume world, there are genuine products, imitation (but legal) products, and counterfeits. Knowing how to shop for perfume, how to sniff out a fake, and if and when you should go with an imitation is important. This easy guide will help you figure out how to get the real thing.

Mother's Day can be tough for people trying to find the right gift. Perfume is a traditional gift for Mother's Day for good reason: it's luxurious, it's appreciated, and most women enjoy it. However, a visit to the perfume counter can be a scary thing, particularly if you don't know much about perfume. Here are some tips from a perfume counter denizen to make your shopping a whole lot easier!

If you're buying perfume as a gift, don't be intimidated. You don't even have to go to the perfume counter anymore! You can shop online and we can help you. This is my advice (and some of my best-loved brands and favorite websites) for making your perfume gift memorable and appreciated.

Every now and then circumstances and misfortune compel a person who knows nothing about perfume to walk down the perfume aisle in the department store with the heroic hope of actually purchasing a perfume for somebody else. It won't be easy, it won't be cheap, but it may be do-able. Here's how.

It's hard to pass a perfume counter without seeing the barrage of celebrity fragrances. Are these scents just flat-out marketing ploys to get celebrity-crazy kids to buy ordinary perfume, or are any of them worth checking out? That depends.

Perfume today is usually prominently labeled men's and women's and marketed accordingly. But did you know that those dividing lines are artificial and recent, not historical and traditional? Centuries ago, men wore all kinds of perfume, even floral scents, and there was no notion that the genders should have different fragrance products. Today's new gender-spanning fragrances are returning to that old concept--calling it something new!

Perfume is a lot like fashion: styles can fluctuate wildly and fragrances may fall in and out of favor almost haphazardly. Yet some fragrances like the venerable Chanel No. 5 stay with us for decades. What makes a perfume a classic? No one knows the exact formula, but here are some musings on perfumes that have stood the test of time.

Cruise ships offer great opportunities for old and new perfume fans to try and stock up on their favorite fragrances. While the base price of the perfume may not be discounted much onboard ship, the opportunity to try on and wear the scent before you buy it plus the duty-free option (no taxes) mean perfume lovers can nab some good deals onboard ship.

Marie Antoinette definitely wore perfume and perfume has a long history among European royals. However, they saw fragrance as primarily a medical substance, an antiseptic that could possibly keep away the plague and other diseases, and a substance that made it possible to endure the all-too-smelly world around them.