Aromatics Elixir, the senses stirred The Clinique brand was born in 1968, driven by the Estée Lauder group. Clinique Laboratories Inc. would quickly achieve success thanks to its fragrance-free products. The brand's philosophy is to meet the needs of every skin type.
In 1972, the young house of Clinique, founded 4 years earlier, was successfully offering powerful yet fragrance-free cosmetic products, sober and refined for maximum results. When the house announced the creation of its first perfume, it was imagined to display the same restraint as the brand's previous products. A great mistake, because on the contrary, Bernard Chant, Clinique's perfumer, delivered an Aromatics Elixir with a bold and thoroughly chypre character.
Aromatics Elixir, “far more than a perfume”
While at first glance perfume creation was not the priority of the house of Clinique, its head, Carol Phillips, former editor-in-chief of Vogue, as well as the great lady Estée Lauder (owner of Clinique), seemed convinced of the project. Thus the Clinique perfume was born under a single motto: a perfume that would be far more than a perfume. And the least that can be said is that perfumer Bernard Chant disappointed no one with Aromatics Elixir.
The nose behind this magical potion was first inspired by Estée Lauder's taste for perfumes with sillage, and chypre ones if possible. But Bernard Chant did not stop there, and did not hesitate to choose raw materials based on their elegance as well as their medicinal power. For although Aromatics Elixir did not wish to be associated with the medicinal whiteness of Clinique products, it was nonetheless sold for a long time as a fragranced remedy. As a result, the composition of Aromatics Elixir was first presented to the public as the magic formula of a fragranced potion: Aromatics Elixir plays the role of a perfume but goes beyond it, thanks to ingredients carefully chosen for their historically recognized effect on body and mind. Ylang-ylang and oakmoss are emollients, orange blossom is relaxing, sandalwood and chamomile have hygienic properties…
Despite its many medicinal virtues, Aromatics Elixir above all offered a fragrance whose image was radically different from that of its house, Clinique, and indeed from all the standards of perfumery at the time.
Aromatics Elixir, Bernard Chant's masterpiece for Clinique
As we have seen, Aromatics Elixir had the wild audacity to blend the aesthetic use of a perfume with rather ancient notions of aromatherapy. Its greatest audacity, however, was to offer a chypre fragrance, powerful, sometimes even judged as retro in its elegance, at a time when the fashion in perfumery leaned far more toward fresh waters or green notes. Let us be clear, Aromatics Elixir is a bomb of sensuality in its rawest state.
Bernard Chant first opens Aromatics Elixir with aromatic notes, which in itself surprises no one. Verbena and Roman chamomile thus play on freshness, with a pretty bergamote to make one believe in a fresh water. Reaching the powerfully floral heart of this Aromatics Elixir, one understands that the reigning notes of this perfume will be rose, jasmine, and tuberose. Yet the magnificence of these flowers does not hesitate to rub shoulders with the indecent sensuality of patchouli, civet, and vetiver, giving this Aromatics Elixir a suave, opulent, and absolutely irresistible animalic quality.
Aromatics Elixir, entirely at odds with the refined, even sanitized image of the brand, quickly became a success in the United States and stood, in the twentieth century, as one of the most important representatives of the chypre family.