A genuine decant is real perfume, drawn from an authentic bottle and honestly described as a small repackaged portion; a counterfeit is a product designed to deceive the buyer into thinking they’re getting the original brand when they’re not. Legally, one is a labelling and cosmetic-registration grey area, the other is straightforward trademark infringement and, often, fraud.

Why the distinction matters

Selling a small vial of real Tom Ford drawn from a bottle you bought is legally different from filling a vial with a cheap imitation and printing a fake Tom Ford label on it. The first might breach cosmetic packaging rules if done commercially without registration; the second involves using a protected trademark to mislead a buyer about what they’re actually purchasing, which is the basis of most counterfeit prosecutions and the reason Trading Standards gets involved. Courts and enforcement bodies care far more about deception of the buyer than about the fact that a bottle has been split.

We go through the tell-tale signs of counterfeit stock, from batch codes to cellophane quality, in our guide to spotting fake perfume. For the fundamentals of how genuine fragrance is classified and sold, see the complete guide to perfume.

A simple rule of thumb

Ask what’s actually in the bottle and what the seller claims is in the bottle. If those two things match, you’re dealing with a decant. If the seller is implying it came sealed from a boutique when it didn’t, or the branding is designed to pass as original packaging, that’s counterfeiting territory regardless of how good the liquid itself smells.