Clever
Fragrance notes
Character
There are few things more disappointing than a fragrance that promises cleverness but delivers only eagerness to please. Clever opens with a blast of almond that reads like marzipan paste straight from the tube, supported by a generic fruit note that could be anything from peach to pear and commits to nothing. The heart tries to soften things with pink peony and chamomile, but the florals feel like watered-down potpourri tucked into a desk drawer. Then comes the marshmallow, and the whole thing collapses into a powdery, musky fluff that clings to skin like the last wad of cotton candy after the fairground has closed.
This is a fragrance that wants to be sweet and fresh simultaneously, and ends up being neither convincingly. With longevity barely scratching two and a half hours and sillage that evaporates before you’ve left the room, Clever feels like a half-hearted shrug in a spritz bottle. It belongs to the most mainstream of floral fruity gourmands, synthetic in the way of drugstore body sprays, and utterly lacking in the wit its name suggests. The rare fan might enjoy this for a single spring morning at the office, reapplying at lunch. But if you crave a perfume with actual personality, skip it. Because what exactly is so clever about smelling like a faint, sweet ghost no one will remember?
Smells similar
Built from the same materials — ranked by how unusual the shared notes are, not by how many.
