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Perfume has never been dearer — plenty of houses now charge £500+ for a bottle and nobody blinks. But price and quality parted ways a long time ago, and the bins nobody photographs are still full of things worth smelling. Everything below is easily found online for under £30/€35/$40.

Juicy Couture

Juicy Couture

Everything about Juicy Couture's debut should have been a disaster. Instead of matching the rhinestone-studded pink velour of the clothes, somebody at Juicy HQ went and commissioned a luminous, creamy tuberose with watermelon bubble gum and crème brûlée either side of it. Green at the top, toasted and sugary underneath, and the tuberose never turns shrill. If you've written tuberose off as something your gran wore, this is the one that argues back. A hidden gem — or a hidden rhinestone.

Jil Sander Sun

Sun

Sun smells like it's always been there, and near enough it has: launched in 1989, and 36 whole years later it's still the beachy fragrance everything else gets measured against. Pierre Bourdon (Frederic Malle Iris Poudre, Davidoff Cool Water for Men) built it on waxy, heady ylang softened with vanilla, so it lands as sun-kissed skin rather than coconut oil out of a plastic bottle. The bit people underrate is the base — a rich, animalic 1980s foundation that gives the whole thing some oomph. Gorgeous, and priced like an afterthought.

Ghost The Fragrance

Ghost

Michel Almairac (Dior's Fahrenheit, Gucci Rush) made this at the turn of the millennium, and it has aged far better than the brand's vintage-inspired clothes would lead you to expect. Rose, incense and musk overlap into something dewy and sweet, set against a silvery, resinous backdrop. It's lightweight but hugely diffusive, which is a rarer combination than it sounds. Y2K nostalgia is doing a lot of work in perfume right now; this is the genuine article rather than a reissue of one.

Salvador Dalì Parfum de Toilette

Dali Parfum de Toilette

Yes, the surrealist had a fragrance. No, it isn't a novelty. Alberto Morillas — the nose behind Kenzo Flower, CK One and Gucci Bloom — made it, and the result is an opulent powdery-mossy floral with resin underneath that would sit on a Guerlain or Chanel shelf without anyone querying it. It's nothing like as abstract as the paintings; the warmth belongs to his colour palette, not his ideas. For less than £30 you're buying a piece of art and olfactory history, which is a daft bargain.

CK Be

CK Be

CK One gets all the oxygen, rightfully so, and CK Be gets none. That's the wrong way round. Arriving 2 years after CK One's homogenous everyone-is-the-same concept, this one sold individuality — marketing guff then, marketing guff now — but underneath the slogan sits a sharp modern fougère. Clean, transparent lavender with hints of grass, sweet flowers and woods, sparse and mineral in a way that dates it beautifully to the '90s. If CK One reads as too familiar to you at this point, this is the one to go back for.

Rochas Moustache

Moustache Eau de Parfum

Rochas' back catalogue is a perfume Hall of Fame — hit after hit, icon after icon, banger after banger — and Moustache is up on the wall. Be clear about what you're buying, though: this revamped Eau de Parfum bears no resemblance to the 1949 original, so anyone chasing the old one will be let down. Judged on its own terms it's a smart, on-trend masculine, rose against chocolatey woods with a jolt of pink pepper. Elegant and handsome, and cheeky enough not to bore you.

Lalique Encre Noire

Encre Noire

How one of the greatest vetivers ever made is also one of the cheapest, nobody has ever satisfactorily explained. Inspired by black ink, it's vetiver at its rootiest and earthiest, carried on a waft of silvery smoke, with no fruit and no sugar softening the blow. It stays close — this is an understated skin scent with artsy flair, not a room-clearer — so if you want to be noticed from across a bar, look elsewhere. If you want something quiet and strange, there's nothing else quite like it.

Roger & Gallet Fleur de Figuier

Fleur de Figuier

You could throw a dart at Roger & Gallet's range and hit something decent. Fleur de Figuier is the best of them by a distance. Francis Kurkdjian (who needs no introduction) made a fig that's vibrant and juicy rather than jammy — crushed fresh fruit, citrus and greenery, all held together by his signature waves of white musks. It's a simple pleasure and doesn't pretend otherwise, which is exactly why it works at this price.

If you buy one thing from this list, buy Encre Noire — it's the only one here with no real equivalent at any price, cheap or otherwise. Jil Sander Sun is the better choice of the two if you'd rather smell like a holiday than an art student. And skip Moustache unless you've made peace with the fact that it isn't the 1949 fragrance.

Add your favourite of the eight to your Fragplace wishlist, then tell the community which bargain bin find you'd defend to the death.

Thomas Dunckley

Fragrance Expert, Copywriter, Trainer, Speaker, Podcast/Event Host, known as Making Scents Make Sense on social media and on perfumetok.