Need-U

I got a small tester of this as a gift when I ordered a vintage woolen sweater from etsy. When I opened the box of the sweater, a whole set of imagery took over me - twilight at the cliffy oceanside, a small stone house standing strong against the rough wind, a slim thirties-something woman wears a large, white oversized woolen sweater while the wind is blowing around her. On the other side of the house, she has her well tended flower garden, and you can sense the strong, flowery scent from around the corner. She wears leather, cotton and wool, often borrows clothes from her husband, and somewhere deep in her bedroom drawer is her grandmothers' old perfume bottle that gives that musky, old fashioned elegance. It has been a few years since I had this experience, and I had forgotten about the Need_U. Now when I picked it up again, at first I wanted to cough, and it reminded me of old ladies' perfumes, but the more I smell it on my skin, the more I feel the sea-breezy flower garden again. I think this is the kind the perfume that grows on you slowly.

I've been looking for a skin scent to call my own for a while. I sampled, but not only: 11:11, not a perfume (both), a few eccentric molecules, le musc la peau, dirty rice, glossier you, another 13... Nothing worked for me. I was anosmic to quite a few and the rest either smelled like straight up laundry soap or disappeared in 30min. That was until I stumbled across Need_U while killing some time at a department store. I cringed at the name and decided to try it expecting some teenage sweet floral to match the title. To my surprise this perfume is very much the opposite, it's aquatic, with a tiny pinch of salt and pepper and some beautifully blended and subtle jasmine. To me it smells like catching someone's scent on a piece of clothing they left behind.It's intimate and lasts about 6 hours on my skin. I finally found my "my skin but better" perfume. If you've been struggling to find yours I suggest giving Need_U a chance.

I love musky skin scents and own a bunch of them, but until now I didn't truly find a skin scent that smells like a skin and not like some light musky perfume. Need_U is the most non perfume scent that I have ever tried (and I have tried tons of skin scents). It smells just like gorgeous naturally scented person. A little peppery. When smelling it I just find about a pure clean velvety skin. Maybe there was a perfume there the previous day or before a shower, but what lingers now is just a very faint and pretty skin scent. Not sea salt, but the natural salty scent of the skin. Nothing marine here to me. Just the skin out of the shower, in an evening. The towel is fluffy. Totally unisex. The person smelling like that is gentle, smart, gorgeous.

Second bottle. It’s like being hugged by freshness itself. The most delightful clean-girl scent I’ve found so far—crisp enough to sparkle, yet not a trace of lemon in sight. Instead, it’s all about white blossoms kissed with a gentle sea breeze. The drydown? Soft and tender, like a hug you wish would linger a little longer. This is my go-to when I head to the gym, or when I want that post-shower freshly-embraced-by-clean-air feeling in the morning. On my skin it leans unmistakably feminine—light, fresh, and just a touch dreamy.

I purchased a sample of this and was very pleasantly surprised how the florals interacted with my skin chemistry. I am not a big floral aquatic fan but this was amazing. My wife loved how good it smelled on me but didn’t overwhelm with floral notes or projection. Instead, the florals added depth to the fragrance while maintaining its aquatic essence. For me this balance is worthy of a full bottle. I am now officially a fan. If anyone knows of aquatic florals that do not tilt too feminine let me know.

A very soft and delicate scent. Smells like what I imagine if your sweat smelled like Jasmine. It sits extremely close to the skin; this scent is more for you to smell on yourself, or for those you'll be hugging. I wear this scent to bed because it lasts a couple of hours on my skin, so it's gone by the time I knock out. I enjoy every minute of it. It creates a very cozy aura, and in the morning I smell it on my sheets and pillow. Would recommend Need_U if you're a skin scent lover!

Sea salt isn't listed here but I actually get a lot of salty sea breeze. Like if you took 11 11 and added sea salt/breeze to it and made it even more fresh air ozonic. 11 11 azure doesn't compare because it's much more blue shower gel aquatic and this is literal. Genuinely fresh, crisp sea breeze, flowers by the ocean, a lemon water in your hand. It isn't strong and it doesn't need to be

I love the fresh green citrusy smell, i really do, but it is so super light... like it's not there. Longevity = 0.

This fragrance has a very citrusy and aquatic opening. Quite similar to ‘Aegean Salt & Citrus’ from Theodoros Kalotinis. The initial drydown gives a promised wave of white florals, a beautiful contrast to the salty and warm aquatic. The musky base is sweet and mellow, and ambroxan to my nose is as it usually is; chemically non-existent. It does give of the same kind of ambroxan as it does in ‘Another 13’ from Le Labo – Like a warm plastic-y fridge in a kitchen show room. I see other reviewers have compared these two fragrances as well, but they are far from clones even though there are some similarities. When this finally dries down on the skin and it gets to a realistic salty aquatic, I absolutely adore it! It really smells like you have been out to the beach and the salt water have dried on your skin. At one point it feels like the lemon is excessive, and together with the pepper it gets slightly more masculine than I would personally want. The fragrance itself is actually pretty good, but it ends up falling between the cracks, and the longevity is unfortunately a bit too short. Though, I will absolutely cherish my sample this summer, because it was given to me with great love.

This is the epitome of a your skin but better scent, as it’s very close to skin and only intimately projects. This does open very bright and fresh with a rosy pink pepper and citrus. The heart of this is very marine, like a beach air blended with a musky ambroxan and airy florals. It smells like your skin after a day at the beach. It’s a naturally musky scent with a slight sweetness, almost similar to sweat but in no means a bad way. It’s like a sweetly familiar musk. The dry down is a bit more powdery from the sandalwood but still a very much “your skin at the beach” sort of scent. I actually really liked this one for what it is, a perfect fragrance for beach days.

I like this quite a bit. Not groundbreaking, but certainly smells good. The opening is a ton of fresh jasmine and salty sea notes, and while it is pretty linear on my skin, the drydown has a lot more clean, almost soapy white musk. Another comment mentioned watermelon, but I didn't catch any. This is light, fresh and breezy. Very soft sillage and poor to moderate longevity though, and that's why this is a "like" and not a "love" for me personally. Completely unisex, at least in my opinion.

Quite a popular clean-smell-trend, but personally, only here for the first time I found something that corresponds to my idea of the smell of cleanliness. No soap, no musks, no air fresheners, no ironed linen. Just clean skin and clean air. Incredible! I think Italians know how to make fresh air better than anyone else.

It is a very soothing and nice scent. This scent is not too overpowering (you could say it's a weak scent), so I feel like this is what my body smells like. I think this is a kind of skin perfume. I feel like I was born smelling good.

Pure Jasmin smell in beginning ..Fresh smell with marine accords .Reminds me Davidoff Blue . Watermelon note in background

Very light, fresh and a hint green. Not a lot of initial personality in testing this blind. It does warm up a bit after time becoming aromatically spicy, but remains breezy. Looking at the notes now it's the pink pepper that sticks out while remaining restrained, and the breezy feeling coming from the sea notes. While there might be the slightest hint of white flowers, I don't get any lemon. Not sure why this is mainly characterized as feminine. I find it a bit more leaning masculine with the bend towards aromatic spicy. Unfortunately, the longevity was only okay, and it's close skin projection leaves something to be desired, ultimately making it easy to pass over for similar scents with a bit more personality and more longevity.

I usually don't like aquatic/marine fragrances, but this one is very ok to me, jasmine/white florals forward with a sea breeze aspect and a classic/generic musk, it's really really light though, quite weak and fades very fast, as soon as you spray it on and let it dry for not even 30 seconds to a minute, you can already tell the top and mid notes are leaving, which is pretty disappointing leans slightly feminine on me but still pretty unisex

Nose Note #384 It's an interesting summer scent, but there's something about it that smells outright stale, like stale, a little molded bread. And both longevity and sillage are a huge issue. It's like a mens aftershave - it just withers in seconds and even at skin level it's very light. If you are looking for a super light summer musky-marine-white floral scent then that's not bad. But I'd give it not more than 5/10. A major dissapointment

A true unisex scent. Right in the middle between everything - male & female, sweet & savory, fresh & floral, playful & serious - to a point where things seem to cancel each other out and I really don't know what to make of it or how to even describe it. It's so successful in its attempt to fit everybody that it might end up fitting nobody inte the end? Does that make sense?

smell of clean sheets , a softener, without personality . It's not enoug particular or well composed to denote.

While in Japan, I stumbled upon The Nose Shop in Shibuya. They had a display rack ranking their top 10 most popular fragrances. Need_U was ranked no. 2. I took a whiff out of a glass cone and it immediately brought back images of the man I used to sleep with, i.e. it smelled of sex. When I flew back home, I did not bring the perfume with me to Indonesia. After mulling it over for a month, I decided to ask a friend there to purchase it for me and ship it home. What I got in the mail was horrific. The sexy, musky, hint-of-flowers scent was gone when sprayed to my skin. It did not smell as heavenly as I remembered. I was sure that I might have told her to buy the wrong perfume but after reading up on what Fragrantica users described, this was still the perfume I wanted. I wanted it to smell like the floral & sweat scent that everybody mentioned. However, on my skin (and probably in weather) it became this overbearing watery mix of alcohol, chlorine and urine. I've never felt this sick to my stomach. The beautiful memory of my sexual youth is now clouded with this horrible Walmart men's fragrance stench of a sweaty pool locker room. My own fault.