Frequently Asked Questions

Fragranova is a free, ad-supported fragrance encyclopedia covering 9,500+ perfumes. We catalog notes, accords, perfumers, community ratings, and verified clone/dupe relationships in plain English. Think of it as a faster, more opinionated alternative to the older fragrance databases — built for finding fragrances you'll actually love, not just looking up release dates.

Each fragrance shows an average rating out of 5 plus a total vote count, both aggregated from community submissions on the site. Minimum 3 votes to qualify for display (anything less is hidden from rankings to prevent noise). Most ranked lists on the site use a composite of rating × log10(votes + 1) so blockbusters can't monopolize every list at the expense of well-loved niche.

Our Clone Lab tracks community-verified mappings between original fragrances and the cheaper alternatives that smell similar enough to wear as replacements. Examples: Armaf Club de Nuit Intense Man is a verified clone of Creed Aventus; Lattafa Khamrah is in the Tobacco Vanille / Angels' Share family. The 'Verified Clone' badge only appears on community-mapped pairs — algorithmic note-overlap is shown separately on /smells-like pages with a clear caveat that shared notes don't guarantee identical smell.

Fragrance metadata (notes, accords, year, brand, perfumer) is sourced from public catalog data. Descriptions on indexable pages are either user-submitted or rewritten by Fragranova editors in our own voice — we never publish scraped third-party copy in indexable pages. Performance ratings, season/day-night votes, and clone mappings are all community-contributed.

Yes, completely free to use. We're ad-supported (Google AdSense) and earn affiliate commissions on outbound clicks to retailers (Amazon, FragranceX, etc.) when those clicks lead to purchases. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no premium tier.

No. We don't sell fragrances directly. Where you see 'Where to Buy' buttons on fragrance pages, those link to third-party retailers (Amazon, FragranceNet, FragranceX, Sephora). Amazon clicks include our affiliate tag (fragranova-20) — clicking them helps support the site at no cost to you.

We compute pairwise fragrance similarity as a weighted overlap: 50% accord similarity, 30% all-notes similarity, 20% base-notes similarity. Higher accord weight because accords drive the perceived 'feel' of a fragrance more than individual notes. The result is the score you see on each /smells-like/[fragrance] page — but with the clear disclaimer that shared notes don't guarantee identical smell. Only the /clones/ database represents true community-verified smell-alikes.

Yes — see /submit. Add the basic info (name, brand, year, notes, accords, image if you have one) and a Fragranova editor will review and publish. Most submissions go live within a few days.

Yes. Sign in (Google or email) and you'll see a 'Leave a review' option on any fragrance page. Reviews show up in the public review section and feed back into community sentiment that informs the editorial paragraphs.

An 8-question interactive quiz that maps your preferences to one of 8 fragrance archetypes (Smoky Sophisticate, Citrus Minimalist, Floral Romantic, Gourmand Lover, Aquatic Adventurer, Spicy Maximalist, Woody Classicist, Niche Explorer). Each archetype returns 6 matched fragrance picks. Takes 2 minutes, no signup required. Available at /quiz.

A daily-rotating editorial pick at /scent-of-the-day. The same fragrance is featured worldwide on any given UTC date (deterministic by date hash). Bookmark the URL and check back daily — it's a different fragrance every 24 hours.

On every fragrance page, click the heart 'Save' button — your saved fragrances live at /my/saved and are stored locally on your device (no login needed). For a synced cross-device collection (Own / Want / Had), sign in and use the collection chips next to Save.

Eau de Parfum (EDP) has higher concentration of fragrance oils than Eau de Toilette (EDT) — typically 15-20% vs 5-15%. Generally means longer lasting and stronger projecting, but not always — formulas vary. Full glossary at /glossary, with definitions for sillage, longevity, ambroxan, dry-down, and 20+ other terms.

Email us at hello@fragranova.com. Editorial corrections, partnership inquiries, content submissions all welcome. See /about for our editorial process and /editorial-standards for our content standards.