CK IN2U for Her Calvin Klein perfume – a fragrance for women 2007
Calvin Klein’s In2U for Her is THE OG, and the perfume I’ve owned the longest. This was, interestingly, a blind buy. A friend of a friend, having read my humble note on perfumes, recommended this perfume to me, and while I didn’t exactly have access to it from my humble hometown, I always kept that in mind. Two years later, I casually mentioned the name to the “not sure if he is my boyfriend” person in my life. And a few months down the line, when our families had already talked about us getting married and we decided to meet for the first time as potential partners, this was what he brought for me, and this was what I wore when I was falling deep, deep in love with him. Cheesy, yes? But hey, I was all of 24, and realising I had already met the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with was a heady feeling.
Each time I sniff this perfume, I immediately see me in a yellow top with thin straps – a fun, flirty girly piece I discarded from my wardrobe just a few months ago because it was worn to death. I had bought that top right before my fiance landed in Bangalore from Vietnam, when we took a trip with my sister and brother-in-law (who, by the way, are his college mates) to Pondicherry. It was the thick of summer, and our hotel room overlooked the rocky beach. This was the perfume that stayed with me when we went out for that lunch where he cut my pork ribs for me (such a sweetheart!), when we went to the beach to see the sunset and my brother-in-law took candid photos of us (still some of my favourite photos in the whole wide world) and even when we went to that serenely intimate French restaurant for our engagement party and I came back to the room slightly wobbly and lightheaded from all the wine.
CK In2U Her is summer in a bottle. It has the obvious citruses in the top, a very unusual cactus in the middle and the usual vanilla, cedar and amber in the base. CK perfumes unfortunately don’t have a very good reputation longevity and projection wise, and until recently I belonged to the group of people who dismissed any perfume that doesn’t last very long. What’s the point of wearing perfume if no one can smell it on you? But then I was initiated into the idea of – surprise, surprise – respraying. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. If I needed any more reason to love this perfume, it is extremely easy on the pockets, which is why you won’t even mind spraying it again, and again, and again. Oh, hello sunshine!
If you were to ask me to recommend one, just one perfume to you, I would probably say CK In2U Her. It’s such a crowd pleasing perfume. More than the smell, I think it encapsulates the essence of summer – the invigorating nip in the air after a bout of summer rain when you can smell the wet earth, the eye-blinding brightness of a white sheet drying in the sun, the sweet-sour thirst-quenching harmony of a tall glass of lemonade and for me, that of being young and in love and walking on the beach wearing flip-flops, holding the hand of the man I was falling in love with.
