The Best Fake Flowers That Look Real

No one likes fake-looking fake flowers! So here are my favorite fake flowers that look real! What’s even better is these won’t break the bank. These are ones that I actually use in my own home and love. From roses to lilies, and even peonies, these are the best artificial flowers!

As much as I’d love to have fresh flowers in my home every day, it’s just not realistic. Sometimes, fake flowers are the only thing that will work!

But if a flower is obviously fake, then it’s doing more harm than good in your home. Yup. I said it. If it looks fake from across the room you’re better off with nothing or drying some flowers to use in a dried arrangement year-round.

I’m pretty particular when it comes to fake plants and fake flowers, so I’ve rounded up all of my favorite artificial flowers to share with you today.

6 Tips For Making Fake Flowers Look Real

1. Pick Quality Flowers with Good Reviews

The first step is to actually pick flowers that look good. No matter how well you “dress up” a cheap looking flower, it’ll still look cheap. Artificual flowers don’t have to be expensive, but they can’t look cheap!

Artificial is a price. Cheap is a look.

Below you’ll find my personal favorites, so you’re off to a good start!

2. Fluff Your Flowers

Fake flowers come packed for shipping, so they’re a bit squished when they arrive at the store. Always take the time to fluff the leaves and the petals as much as possible.

Simply use your hand to smooth out any creases and reshape the stems. If you can, you might even bend a few petals back for a more realistic look!

3. Cut to Fit Your Vase

One of the great things about fake flowers is that they usually come with long stems to fit a variety of vases! It’s tempting to just bend those stems to fit your vase to give you flexibility in the future for a different vase. That’s okay…unless your vase is glass! There’s nothing like a dead giveaway that a flower is fake if you can see the wired stem bent up! So always be sure to cut to size as needed.

4. Consider Adding Real to Fake

I love mixing real and fake flowers or even fake flowers with real greenery clipped from the garden! This is a very subtle way of enhancing the realness of your fake flowers, while making your arrangement fuller at the same time!

5. Add Some Water

If you have a glass vase, add just a bit of water to fill just the bottom. This little detail can make all the difference! Just be sure to change your water weekly.

6. Be Sure to Dust

When was the last time you saw a dusty arrangement of fresh flowers? Never!

A layer of dust on your fake flowers is a dead giveaway, so be sure to keep them clean. You can use a soft cloth or even an air canister like the ones used to clean computer keyboards.

Artificial Roses

These are my favorite go-to roses. These are real-touch roses, so they look and feel completely real! They are available in single stems of white, pink, and pink/yellow. They are available as fully bloomed versions (seen below) but some that are just starting to bloom, as well.

The stems are a nice brown color and look realistic. The leaves are the least realistic part, but usually, when you have a bunch of roses grouped together, you can’t really see the leaves anyway.

I love these white ones, but they DO start to yellow over time so you will need to replace them eventually.

I have them in pink as well, and the pink doesn’t discolor over time. Look how realistic the pollen center looks! And each petal has color variation and veining.

To bolster a small arrangement of real flowers, I sometimes pop my fake roses in to make a larger arrangement.

Artificial Peonies

Realistic peonies are VERY hard to find. So many look good from a distance but are very fake-looking up close.

These artificial peonies, on the other hand, look good even up close! I love the way these look but they don’t feel real, so put them somewhere where no one will touch them!

I have four different ones in this bunch (shopping links at bottom of post). I haven’t actually clipped them for a vase yet, so they’re just bundled up for now.

These center ones have more of a latex feel than silk and are my favorite because of their ruffled petal and detailed veining.

Fake Lilies

I love the way lilies smell, but hate the mess they create if you don’t cut the stamens. Plus, I realize that lilies have a polarizing scent – you either love them or hate them!

Using fake lilies for your display solves the problem!

I think these lilies look very realistic. They have spotting on the inside of the petals, just like real lilies. The leaves and flowers are all wired so that you can bend them into a realistic shape.

Cherry Blossom Stems

I love large, flowering branches but haven’t had any luck finding ones I’d recommend…until now! I love the color and shapes of these branches. There are four offshoots with flowers and the base of the offshoots is wired so that you can shape them.

The stems of these cherry blossoms are unfortunately fake, fake, fake. The color is actually an odd purple-brown that is too shiny to be realistic. My solution was to wrap the main stem in brown floral tape.

Snap Dragons

Okay, this is perhaps a weird one. I know most of you aren’t sitting around wishing you had some artificial snap dragons but hear me out!

These are so amazing! I saw them in the store and was so convinced they were real that I had to touch them, and even then they felt realistic! I actually had to pinch them to see if they would talk. (I’ll save you the embarrassment. They don’t) Aside from that detail, though, they are incredibly realistic!

Snapdragons are nice for a tall display or an accent flower as part of a larger bouquet. I like the white ones but I don’t love the green tinge on the tips of some of the flowers. Personally, I think the purple/pink ones look a bit more realistic. Look at the detail on those petals!

Artificial Lavender

I stumbled across these stems at Hobby Lobby. They are a seasonal item but don’t they look completely real?! The blossoms are a variety of shades simulating real flowers as they start to fade.