CK be Calvin Klein perfume – a fragrance for women and men 1996

Let me preface this by saying if you spritz a bit of this on a tester strip or anything besides your skin, you’re going to get that sharp, bright, soapy impression of a lot of these 90s musks or aromatics. On the skin, it introduces itself sharply but mellows quickly, too quickly. It isn’t long before there’s hardly any impression at all. I consider myself someone with a sensitive nose and I don’t pick up hardly anything after two hours. In those two hours though, it lingers with a light impression of bright wood, musk, and green notes, the confluence of which strikes me as a kind of green tea accord. It’s very elegant and beautiful, bright, clean, and very unisex. Unlike One, Be seems to really meld with your body’s natural scent and accompany the skin, opposed to generating this perpetual forcefield of scent fluctuating over it. Those fleeting impressions bear the aesthetic hallmarks of sleek, modern, refined minimalism of CK at the time.

I’m inclined to believe the formulation was stronger at its inception, for CK to continue something that has historically been so weak is unlikely. I hear some people say similar things about CK One, but the longevity on that one is like a radioactive isotope decaying, it’ll be noticeable on clothes for days without a wash, and sometimes that’s not even enough. My expectations were neutral for this one after reading other reviews mention how light and weak it is, something I cynically chalked up to incessantly impossible-to-please crowds of perfume enthusiasts who are either offended how projecting something is or are lamenting it’s barely there. But here, the crowd was correct. It’s barely there.

I’m saddened it doesn’t have a little more longevity. The lack of projection doesn’t even bother me that much, I’d be delighted to even be the only one smelling this as I catch wafts from my wrist as I rest my cheek on my palm. But it seems eager to sublimate from your skin as quickly as possible. From a house that produced iconic 90s powerhouses like Escape and One, I expected a lot more from Be. On the topic of One, I note that it and Be flirt with similar themes in perfumery and the general aesthetic impression they’re aiming for. They both are aiming at that bright yet mellow, clean, unisex vibe of the later 90s. Be is more calm, One is more intense. Be has escaped the fate One would meet in becoming so popular that its scent was mimicked ad nauseam in dupes and other house’s formulations. Be, on the other hand, smells familiar, as it participates in popular fragrance themes of the time, but sits in its own niche, a little more refined and subdued than One. If only it would stick around as long as it’s older brother.

If you see a honkin 200ml of this laying around at a discount store or perfume site for CHEAP (extremely common) go ahead and pick it up. Spritz yourself when you want to wear something tragically fleeting yet calm and refined, or when you might wear something later you don’t want to put on now, Be will definitely be out the door by then. Be is a conflicting fragrance to me, but I can’t help but coming back to enjoying it for what it is, in all its deficiencies.