Clinique

Clinique: The Science of Beauty

Since 1968, Clinique has pursued a different philosophy that most other cosmetic companies. Instead of making a line of cosmetics that are intended to work for every individual, Clinique makes cosmetics personally tailored to each customer. Their skincare and makeup products are often fragrance-free to make them as pure as possible. This has not stopped them from making several lines of excellent aromas under the Clinique brand.

A New Idea in Cosmetics

Clinique is a daughter company of the cosmetic giant Estee Lauder, created in fact by Estee Lauder’s daughter-in-law, Eveyln Lauder. It all began with an article in the magazine American Vogue. Titled “Can Great Skin Be Created?” it sparked an idea in Evelyn Lauder’s mind and she brought it to her mother-in-law. The article was about how skincare could produce better-looking skin, and the Lauders decided to see if they could make this a possibility.

Already an executive at the Estee Lauder company, Evelyn Lauder headed the creation of Clinique, an offshoot of the parent company dedicated the science of bringing for everyone’s true beauty. She was the first to wear the iconic white lab coat that Clinique employees still wear today in cosmetic departments all over the world.

Clinique strives to make sure their products are allergen-free, first by including no known allergens in any of their products, so anyone can benefit from their work. Even without the addition of known allergens, they rigorously test each product by applying it to six hundred people, twelve times. If a product causes any reactions to anyone, it is considered unsuitable for public use.

Clinique Fragrance Lines

Skincare is the signature Clinique item, but they are much more than that. They produce their own makeup, like its parent company, including anti-bacterial brushes, again catering to sensitive skin. They also create a number of intriguing fragrances to their clients can smell as amazing as they look.

One of the earliest fragrances to come from Clinique arrived in 1971: Aromatics Elixir. This is a subtle elegant scent, with a dry woody air, for daytime wear. It starts with rose and chamomile and contains other natural touches like jasmine and ylang-ylang, with some of the great standard scents at its base: musk, sandalwood, and patchouli, among others. This perfume is still produced today, and has become the head of its own line of fragrances, including Aromatics Elixir: Perfumers Reserve and Aromatics Elixir: Velvet Sheer.

Another line of Clinique perfumes debuted with the simply named Happy in 1997. This feminine and floral scent was made for the working woman to wear at the office. It has more fruity elements, like ruby red grapefruit, boysenberry, and bergamot, but also has a number of exotic flowers to give it a lovely natural aroma, including Hawaiian wedding flower, Chinese golden magnolia, spring mimosa blossoms, and Indonesian jasmine, along with a few others. The Happy line continues with Happy Heart, Happy Holiday, and Happy in Bloom. The latter, Happy in Bloom, even has many yearly revisions, like Happy in Bloom 2009 or Happy in Bloom 2011, some of which stay in production well past their years of origin.

Even men can get a little aromatic happiness with Happy For Men, released in 1999. Like the woman’s version, Happy for Men is for the work day. There are fruity top notes to Happy For Men, like kalamanzi fruit and kaffir lime, and mandarin, but also more woodsy touches from cedar, guaiac wood, and Mediterranean Cyprus.

Enhancing the Individual

Clinique offers many fragrances, because like their cosmetics, perfumes are a matter of individuality. This is the very core of the Clinique philosophy. Anyone who has been to the one of the Clinique centers in a cosmetics department knows how they match cosmetics to each person’s skin tone, eye color, skin type and other factors. Is there any reason the same attention to individuality should not be applied to perfume? After all, what smells great on one person may not work so great on the skin of another, and vice versa.

Clinique had made a science of looking (and smelling) beautiful, and the results are nothing short of amazing. Millions have benefitted from their skincare products, looking younger than ever. And often when someone looks younger, feeling younger follows shortly after.

From foundation to fragrances, Clinique’s attention to detail and to the needs of each customer is what makes them a leading name in the cosmetics industry.