Black Orchid has been turning heads since 2006, and Harper's Bazaar says it is a fragrance everyone knows: you wear it, you know someone who does, or you have at least smelled it. Its master perfumer, Yann Vasnier, says the original defined a new floral expression that was completely unexpected and unparalleled. That is the shelf this edit starts from.

Around it sit the other names people ask for by name. The brand calls Lost Cherry a best seller, built on black cherry, cherry liqueur and a touch of bitter almond, sweet and tart in waves. Tobacco Vanille is described as reminiscent of the very finest of private clubs. Jasmin Rouge is meant to be as audacious as red, lacquered lips, and Ombré Leather is inspired by the American West. Four moods, all clear enough to describe in a sentence.

So here is how I read a Tom Ford perfume dupe: not as a stand-in, but as a look-alike from another house that shares the family, the notes and the dry-down you are after. We start with cherry, because it is the one everyone is asking about. Harper's Bazaar calls the original less wholesome cherry pie and more sipping boozy, syrupy cherry liquor in a smoky room, so I would look for darkness, not candy. Phlur's Cherry Stem pairs black cherry and plum nectar with ebony wood and sugared jasmine. BDK's Rouge Smoking leans on pink pepper, black vanilla and musk. Mancera's Cherry Cherry adds iris and white musk, and Coach's Cherry Parfum sits on an amber base with a gold cherry charm on the red bottle.

My tip: spray the card, then your skin, and wait twenty minutes before deciding. Cherry that opens loud often settles into the almond, amber and vanilla you actually came for.

Tobacco vanilla is a spice question before it is a sweetness question. British Vogue's pick for the most autumn scent in the range is spice-forward, with its sweetness coming from tobacco flower and wood sap, balanced by dried fruits, and the brand itself talks about tonka bean, cocoa and dry fruit accords. In October that is exactly the weather I would dress for: a camel coat, a chunky knit, a dark lip.

Lovery's Tobacco + Vanilla is the closest in outline, with tobacco leaf, apricot and ginger over cocoa, honey and tonka. Lovery's Smoked Vanille keeps the tobacco and turns the vanilla smoky. Mancera's Red Tobacco brings saffron, cinnamon and patchouli over vanilla pods, and its Intense Red Tobacco extrait goes darker with oud and leather. Malin+Goetz's Tobacco is the lighter, smokier read with honey, fig and amber woods, and Montale's Oud Tobacco adds black pepper and incense. Qhue's Smoky Vanilla and Heretic's Dirty Vanilla suit anyone who wants the vanilla without a lot of sugar.

The test I would run is on the dry-down. Harper's Bazaar notes that base notes in the amber and woody families, and the concentration of the formula, are what give a fragrance staying power, so I would look for amber, wood or tonka listed at the bottom and give it a few hours on skin before judging it.

What I would skip: a vanilla that reads as pure dessert if you want the private-club feel. If tobacco or spice is missing from the notes, it will not read as the same idea.

The brand describes its leather as rich black leather texturized with patchouli and vetiver, with jasmine sambac and layers of amber and moss. That is useful, because it tells you what a good leather alternative needs: something floral or woody wrapped around the hide. Leather alone can smell flat.

AllSaints' Shoreditch Leather is the easiest one to picture, with saffron, sheer jasmine, vetiver, patchouli and warm amber. IRFĒ's Saffron Leather pairs raw leather with burnt rose, cistus, sandalwood and cedar. Malin+Goetz's Leather keeps it modern, with muted florals, and Christian Louboutin's Cuir Fétiche is suede leather with osmanthus. For something sweeter, BDK's Vanille Leather puts a leathery accord under generous vanilla, and Memo Paris's Italian Leather adds vanilla absolute, myrrh and green tomato leaf. Boy Smells' Cowboy Kush goes for worn suede and hazelnut.

I would wear any of these with a black turtleneck and a good coat, spraying once at the collarbone. The fitting-room version of the test is the second hour: leather should move from sharp to warm, and the amber or wood should show up. If it stays in one gear, it is a different scent than the one you wanted.

What I would skip: Matière Première's Falcon Leather, built on Finnish birch tar, if you want a soft, skin-close leather. It is a lovely smoky one, just a louder one.

Jasmin Rouge is not a pretty-white-flower jasmine. The brand pairs jasmine sambac sepals absolute with dusk clary sage and peppercorn spices, and British Vogue adds that cinnamon, ginger and cardamom warm the floral heart while amber-like notes deepen it. So the thing to look for is jasmine with something to push against.

Heretic's Jasmine Smoke is a creamy jasmine with blonde tobacco and honey, and Henry Rose's Flora Carnivora pairs jasmine sambac with tuberose, vetiver and amber. D.S. & Durga's Jazmin Yucatan brings clove and copal, and Carolina Herrera's Good Girl Jasmine Absolute folds jasmine into bitter almond and roasted tonka for an ambery, gourmand take. For lighter days there is Gucci's Flora Gorgeous Jasmine with magnolia over sandalwood, Dolce&Gabbana's Dolce Blue Jasmine with Sicilian blue fig, and Fresh's Lily Jasmine, airy with spring muguet.

Test it the way you would test a fabric: wait. Jasmine changes more than most notes between the first spray and the thirty-minute mark, so give it that time on skin before you decide. If the spice or resin is in the notes, you should still feel it by then.

What I would skip: the airy muguet and citrus ones, Fresh's Lily Jasmine and Henry Rose's Windows Down, if you want the after-dark version. They are lovely, just daytime.

Black Orchid's signatures, as Harper's Bazaar lists them, are black orchid, ylang-ylang, patchouli and vanilla. That is a good checklist for shopping: a dark flower, a green or sweet bridge, then patchouli and vanilla underneath. Anything that has three of the four is in the right neighborhood.

Chloé's Atelier des Fleurs Orchidée de Minuit has orchid, clove and rum over jasmine, styrax, vanilla and patchouli, which gets closest on paper. Michel Germain's Sexual Lady's Noir pairs pink orchid with patchouli, and Veronique Gabai's Noire de Mai is a black rose over patchouli and amber. Carolina Herrera's Nightfall Patchouli puts Bulgarian rose and orris over patchouli and benzoin. Valentino's Donna Born in Roma Purple Melancholia brings plum, osmanthus and vanilla, Givenchy's L'Interdit Rouge heats tuberose and sambac jasmine with a fiery red accord, Versace's Crystal Noir is floral amber with caramel, and Yves Saint Laurent's Black Opium adds coffee over white flowers and vanilla.

I would wear these for dinner, with velvet or black satin and nothing else loud. Check the base before you buy: patchouli, amber or vanilla at the bottom is what carries a dark floral into the late evening.

What I would skip: a dark floral that is mostly sweet top notes and no patchouli. It will read pretty at noon and thin out by dinner.

I would decide the mood first: cherry, tobacco, leather, jasmine or dark floral. Then I would read the notes against the Tom Ford one you love, looking for the one defining detail, the bitter almond, the tonka, the black leather, the clary sage, the patchouli.

After that, a skin test and a long wait. If it still reads like the mood you wanted at hour three, it is the one. A bottle in the same spirit does not have to be the same bottle.

Black Orchid made its entrance in 2006 and people are still looking for what it started. I would rather find my own version of that.