20 Fragrances For When You Just Want To Smell Clean

Social media fads have spawned one aesthetic after another. The e-girls of 2019 morphed into fairycore, which eventually blended into cottagecore, which has taken a long-winding road to a current It vibe that feels like a breath of fresh air: the clean-girl aesthetic.

If you're a certified Clean Girl, chances are perfume is not at the top of your list of priorities. Yes, you still want to smell good (don't we all?), but you're probably not one to curate a fragrance wardrobe for every mood or gravitate toward heady, over-the-top scents. Crisp, skin-like scents (think light, airy, and shower fresh) and floral fragrances, on the other hand, are likely more your speed.

When we say “clean,” we're not talking about your apartment after you’ve scoured it with Pine-Sol. “That’s a more industrial, deodorant clean and, even if you like the scent, there’s a utilitarian quality that will never be truly beautiful,” says fragrance expert Chandler Burr. The clean we’re talking about is more conceptual. “It’s pure luminescence, or light turned somehow into scent,” he says. “New materials, including some terrific fragrance molecules, have allowed scent artists to create them.”

But what is it that makes "clean" scents so appealing? (Other than the fact that we can get away with washing our hair less when wearing them.) “Clean scents allow women to communicate themselves in a sharper, more clearly defined way than classical fragrances,” says Burr. “They let us speak much more in our own voices.” Intrigued? Click through to find our favorite so-fresh-and-so-clean-clean scents.

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