Plainly For Women

Plainly for Women opens soft and airy on white flowers brightened with a touch of melon, the gentle, clarity-driven overture of Clinique's Simply. A quiet floral heart of rose, violet and peony adds a powdery prettiness, threaded with a whisper of leather, before the fragrance reveals what made the original so distinctive: a comforting, milky base of smoky wood and creamy milk that reads earthy and intimate, almost like soft soy-milk flowers. Clinique's discontinued original is loved as one of the most comfortable, skin-like scents around, wearing most of the day; this budget interpretation captures that warm, milky-floral intimacy faithfully, if with a slightly simpler, more synthetic creaminess and a touch less of the genuine earthiness. It remains a cosy, low-key comfort scent suited to autumn, winter and cooler spring days for daily and casual wear, and a welcome stand-in for a fragrance that's otherwise gone.