Simply Clinique by Clinique

Simply was a perfume that passed without fuss or glory in Clinique’s catalogue. From the success of the floral chypre of the seventies, Aromatics Elixir, until the nineties, when they finally created more fragrances, Clinique focused on releasing meditative waters with spa echoes, relaxed, refined, sport, tranquil and zen waters. Calyx doesn’t count, because although it was an EDT sport, it was ultra-acidic and dizzying, very 1990. I can’t speak for Wrappings as I haven’t tried it, however the precedent for Simply, which was Happy, was already a citrus/floral water, bland, insipid, but very pleasant. Simply is on the same wavelength; accepting that it is a bath mist with a new towel curl, it had something exotic and suggestive, although perhaps it lacked the spark to finish it off well. It opened with a melon note not as bad as usual, in its just measure of youthfulness, without being one of those repulsive chewing gum melons that youthful colognes carry. The soy was very evident, but it wasn’t that liquid, black soy that leaves you dying from salt syrup intoxication; this was a bean soy that incorporated refined nuances of something strangely salty yet vegetal, like a papyrus or dry hay accord, a very measured salty nuance to be like the whisper of silk on skin. At some point it had an air that could recall natural and sexual sweat, between musky and salty from the curve of a female breast. Simply was a perfume that smelled of human skin, neither dirty nor clean, skin of someone you love and don’t mind them putting a leg on you. Fortunately the flavour of the melon was fading, the base was a kind of wood with a little wet point with a taste of meadow hay in sophistication, a musky infusion, sienna and herbaceous, a perfume with tisane sipping, very intellectual. Simply wasn’t much of anything, but it can’t be said to have been a disaster. It did end up half-cocked. A perfume with a somewhat lactonic and dry, salty, dirty and ozonic quality that encloses more chichi than its airless water appearance initially anticipates. PS: In some places I read that for some it smells like dirty baby hair, to others like breast milk. They aren’t far off. PS II: I have always felt attracted to the Lauder group. Clinique, Lauder, Lab Series, Aramis, Prescriptives… good products, well made, with the exact point of precision and adornment, the epitome of the American, the exact collision of functionality and sophistication. Unfortunately the Estée Lauder division has succumbed to selling knick-knacks in the form of perfume for some years now, but Clinique itself has relatively recently edited the white and black versions of the classic Aromatics. And they are probably two of the best launches of recent years. Two fabulous perfumes, the first herbal, woodland and amber, the second leathery, seductive and diabolical, both unjustly ignored by the general public. They deserve a look and someone to catch fire for them because both are light years away from the drivel everyone is making today.

At first, the fragrance shows a soy milk aroma (at first I confused it with an intense anise and almost gave up buying it). But after about half an hour, on my skin I felt the white flowers. It is an interesting fragrance to change my style of such intense perfumes, I don’t know if to repeat it. The soy aroma at the start is quite invasive and has moderate longevity.