Clean Simply Soap™ vs. Demeter Pure Soap™

When Clean™ was launched by Fusion Fragrances back in April of 2003, I immediately fell in love with the fresh laundry-like scent that had nothing in common with the overly sweet and heavy perfumes I often thought of as the signatures of a stylish women (i.e. Burberry, Gucci, Lolita Lempicka etc.)

 At $40 per one ounce of eau de parfum, I did not, however, love the price. 

 As years went by, Fusion released an entire family of Clean-based scents, Clean Warm Cotton™, Clean Fresh Laundry™, Clean Ultimate™, Clean Provence™, and finally Clean Simply Soap™.  After each release I would find myself in the store trying on one of the many Cleans, and then proceeding to a less expensive rack to find something that was ‘almost’ as good.

I never found anything that compared, and I never thought I would, until I spotted Demeter Fragrance Library, Pure Soap™.

First about Demeter™: if you haven’t ever picked up one of the nearly-too-real scents produced by the Demeter Company, you should.  With unimaginably realistic, nostalgia-inducing fragrances like Earl Grey Tea, Dirt, Fresh Hay, Crayon, Grass, Play-Doh™ (yes, it really smells like that squishy florescent stuff) and Tomato, Demeter scents are almost more fun to own than they are wearable.  I have spent huge amounts of time in Sephora, giggling (and sometimes gagging) as I tested the scents, and I have a variety of the small square bottles cluttering up my make-up case.

 With this knowledge of Demeter-realism, I was extremely excited when I saw Pure Soap, and despite mixed reviews on sephora.com, I happily whipped out my credit card and ordered what I was sure would be an accurate Clean copy.

 A few days later when I opened that black-and white Sephora box, lifted out my newest small square bottle, and sprayed a generous squirt on my wrist, my nose quivered for a moment, and then my heart sank.

 It wasn’t identical, and on first sniff it was, well, a little weird. But I waited, remembering a review that said unlike the other Demeters, this one needed a moment to ‘sit’ before smelling.  After a few seconds of waving my arms around wildly, I sniffed again.

 IT WAS GREAT!  Not exactly the same as Clean, but similar, especially to the Clean Simply Soap.  It was light, airy, and brought an image of a thick white bar of Ivory (or maybe Dove) soap to mind upon smelling.

 It was perfect for me, and at $20 per one ounce, I loved the price.

 So from now on it will be Pure Soap, not Clean for me. Unless of course those nice people at Fusion want to send me a complimentary Clean, in which case I will be happy to wear the real thing.