How to smell expensive, for cheap

A perfume for drag queen Monique Heart

During her time on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Monique Heart was a charismatic queen on a budget. While most drag queens come to the show with outfits already made, Monique made many of her outfits using materials provided on the show. And when she was good at this, she was very very good.

Case in point: the Queen of Hearts ensemble Monique made out of materials from the 99 cent store. What made it excellent was its structure: the base of the skirt is made from straw hats, the hair from plastic No Trespassing signs.

A perfume for Monique had to be cheap but excellent.

Rihanna Reb’l Fleur

Celebrity perfumes have a reputation for being cheap and smelling cheap, but Rihanna Reb’l Fleur smells expensive. It smells like a highly Instagrammable vacation on a private beach, full of champagne, coconut, and peaches. There’s a starring role for tuberose, a grand diva of a flowery perfume note: silky, rich, and insistent on making itself known.

The secret that makes this perfume smell expensive is its structure. While it’s hard to make a tuberose perfume on the cheap, coconut is easy. For Reb’l Fleur, perfumers Caroline Sabas and Marypierre Julien spliced tuberose and coconut notes into one ribbon and wrapped it around this entire perfume. The effect is easy-going luxury, elegance that seems effortless.

You can find a sample of Rihanna Reb’l Fleur on myperfumesamples. You can find a bottle for about $20 online.