CK Be by Calvin Klein
Bottle Design Fabien Baron
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7.0 / 10 602 Ratings
CK Be is a perfume by Calvin Klein for women and men and was released in 1996. The scent is fresh-woody. It was last marketed by Coty.
Pronunciation
Layers well with White Musk for Men
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Main accords

Fresh
Woody
Spicy
Citrus
Synthetic

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes Top Notes
Juniper berryJuniper berry BergamotBergamot Mandarin orangeMandarin orange MintMint
Heart Notes Heart Notes
SpicesSpices White peachWhite peach
Base Notes Base Notes
SandalwoodSandalwood OpoponaxOpoponax Tonka beanTonka bean

Perfumer

Videos
Ratings
Scent
7.0602 Ratings
Longevity
5.5481 Ratings
Sillage
5.1456 Ratings
Bottle
6.4480 Ratings
Value for money
7.1196 Ratings
Submitted by DonVanVliet, last update on 03.04.2024.

Reviews

14 in-depth fragrance descriptions
8
Bottle
6
Sillage
8
Longevity
9.5
Scent
FlirtyFlower

45 Reviews
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FlirtyFlower
FlirtyFlower
Top Review 33  
What are you looking for when you're looking for yourself?
A new job, a new perfume, a new image ... What doesn't it take to survive?

When I lie there in the darkness, I have the feeling that darkness is infinite. But when the alarm clock rings, I notice that it's not a dark hole inside me at all, but the dawn that, contrary to expectations, promises a new day.

Because of the interviews, I read that men's perfumes in particular should make women more competent in the interview. But when I sprayed Thommy on it, I had the feeling in the middle of the conversation that I was growing a lady's beard.

And when I try out Dior Sauvage, I feel like a little unmade-up forest goblin sitting there unshaven and unfiltered like the little swan, as if he had never got out of his ugly duckling stage
Whether it is these feelings that really make me feel more competent. Well, I don't know.

So I'm still looking for the ideal fragrance, the ideal outfit and the ideal strategy. CK be I had recently taken in dm with me because of a really great rating on Parfumo and just try it with the fragrance.

An old colleague also gave me a book about the application strategy. I can only recommend it to all of you when the job shoe is tight and you have to look for something new.

It's called "help - I work in an insane asylum." In fact, the descriptions of the boss types help you to sort out some particularly abstruse specimens in advance. For people in difficult situations, it is also a help to understand that career does not always have anything to do with qualification."

Anyway... One day when I'm standing in Saturn (diesel powered in CK be) to get a USB stick, I feel like the divine inspiration couldn't be better. A USB stick in the form of a key. It's like I'm having a cerebral flatulence and *plopp* - there's a middle-aged lady, ok let's say late forties, standing next to me. She has reddish-brown hair, which reaches her in braided form up to the bottom. She has a pony and is relatively dainty overall and despite her sporty clothes relatively graceful and dainty in her kind.

She asks me, "What do you want with it?" - I just say with a stupid grin, "Do you think it's the key to success?" She's laughing and I like her so much. When I tell her that I want the stick for an interview, she laughs again and introduces herself to me as Vera from Canada. She says, "I used to look for the right job, too. And I have to tell you, I have a twin sister who looks like an egg to me. I applied to your company at the time and thought I needed the job, I wanted the job, I got the job. But you can't force anything."

I look at her with big brown eyes and I just say, "What do you mean?" She says, "You know, I really wanted to be a salesman. I wanted to pretend to be someone I'm not. If it's supposed to be with a job because it fits, it'll work."

And I still look at them with big brown eyes... "Well", Vera says: "If you are ready for a task and you fit for something, then it will work. But the second you try to force something, it won't work anyway."

She says something that in combination with CK be should burn forever in my heart:

"Don't obsess, don't prove it right.
When it's meant to be, it will be."

And when I realize that in that second, I notice how I haven't even noticed CK be yet. Just that I feel like myself with this scent. The scent is fresh and yet herbaceous, but not like a whole forest, so I have to feel like a shrunken forest gnome. It has a certain hold in which it actually radiates competence without undermining the wearer's own nature. It is unisex and just because of that, it would not toast either women or men. But with the right make-up, the scent still helps you to be yourself
And if you are in a situation where you don't know how to behave, where you don't know what to wear or what would be best, I can only say:

Do and be as it makes you happy, because the right people, no matter in the job or private, will understand it and stay with you.

And just keep on being yourselves because everyone else is already forgiven. (Oscar Wilde)

EPILOG
A big "apology" to all who have read the commentary before. I deleted it, but I regretted it very much. And to anyone who has a hard day! Hold on! And always hope for the best!
16 Comments
8
Bottle
2
Sillage
2
Longevity
9
Scent
Eisbaer

8 Reviews
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Eisbaer
Eisbaer
Top Review 22  
"Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping..."
Transfiguration can be a beautiful thing. Were summers really sunnier as a child? Were they really whiter at Christmas? Was life really so much more carefree? I thought about it for a long time. As a child of the 1990s, I am very much of the opinion that we still regularly had white Christmases back then. Photos from that time can prove it. But as far as summers are concerned, they are certainly just as hot and sunny today as they were then. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that the summertime of the 90s was a special one. Probably mostly because of the lack of internet. Meeting friends was arranged over the phone, if at all. Most of the time, however, people just met spontaneously - either in the backyard of the new housing estate, on the playground or on the basketball court. And when the ice cream man rang the bell on particularly hot days, there was a race to see who could reach his apartment first, talk his parents out of 50 pfennigs for a scoop of vanilla and then secure the front places in the queue in front of the ice cream van.

I love those memories. As the years went by, I gradually realized that I was transfigured. My parents, for example, found the 90s very stressful and nerve-wracking. I think a little bit that anyone who can claim to have had a wonderful childhood is transfigured. Unfortunately, the word is rather negative. But I think transfiguration is a wonderful thing - it is one of the greatest functions our brain has: Preserve the positive and sort out the bad in the best possible way. This ability enables us to travel in time. Journeys into those phases of life that we unconsciously carry within us every day - and how beautiful it is when we specifically remember those beautiful experiences that we once had. Especially since we can trigger this optimally: Through photographs and films, through music - and through smells. This is where "CK Be" by Calvin Klein from 1996 comes into play. Randomly selected? No, quite deliberately. "CK Be" is one of those fragrances that have the trigger effect mentioned above. It catapults me back to the summertime of the '90s.

I perceive "CK Be" as a very fresh scent. Two or three sprayers from the deep black bottle and immediately iced mint water opens up with a light tangerine in the background. After about two to three minutes, the juniper berry comes out and the fragrance develops in a deep woody direction. However, we are not talking here about fresh juniper berries served as a still life on a noble dining table - rather, the impression is created as if a bottle of gin had broken in the building materials and wood department in the Hornbach. :-) However, this is not meant negatively at all, because this combination really has something independent and extremely pleasant. I like the freshness of mint, which is always preserved, best. This makes the "CK Be" very tangy and light. Now there is of course the question: You didn't wear it as a child, did you? The answer is yes and no. My brother (almost five years older) used to wear a light eau de toilette every now and then when he was a sportsman. The whole range of AXE was there, "Cool Water" by Davidoff was there - and so was "CK Be". I didn't consciously apply it, that's true - but I stole a small sprayer every now and then when nobody was looking (as perfumes probably did as children). This was probably never noticed, because even back then the "CK Be" was of the very quietest kind: It doesn't last half an hour on the skin, a sillage doesn't even exist shortly after spraying it on.

However, the factors mentioned do not bother me in this case, because Calvin Klein's "CK Be" is not a fragrance for me to wear. It serves me as a little half-hour time travel into my past. It causes a headache for me. My brother belonged to the soccer faction at that time, I tended much more towards basketball. When I smell CK Be today, I think of playgrounds and football fields where football and basketball are played. I think of scorching hot summer days, of my tattoos, of my yellow and black Gum Watch from Crazy Planet (who else knows it?), of the ringing of the bell of the ice cream van with Bugs Bunny printed on the front. Speaking of Bugs Bunny: The "CK Be" also brings back memories of the movie "Space Jam". And of course memories of my brother. Running around together on the sports fields and in the backyard, countless abrasions, his ghetto blaster, with which he used to play ball games. :-) But also on the quieter summer evenings, when we as a family sat outside for a barbecue or when my brother and I built whole towns out of Lego bricks together in the children's room. I love it when scents manage to bring the most diverse images into my memory. Unfortunately, as I said, the experience of "CK Be" lasts only a very short time. But I forgive him for that. I am very happy that he still exists today and I am always happy when he lets me travel in time for a few minutes.

If Calvin Klein were "CK Be" music:

"Fly Like An Eagle" by Seal
"Ready Or Not" by Fugees
"Lonely" by Nana
"Don't Let Go" by En Vogue
8 Comments
10
Pricing
8
Bottle
6
Sillage
6
Longevity
8
Scent
Dini1977

9 Reviews
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Dini1977
Dini1977
Very helpful Review 22  
I find this one totally underrated :-)
Sooo a great fragrance! From 1996 and top current with juniper berry, sandalwood and TONKA. Can be found today in the trendy fragrances to hauf. Ahead of its time and yet up to date! There's something pure, detergent-like, iron-on laundry-like about it for me. The mint makes it fresh and wearable at any time. Subtly woody and spicy in the base. So again, I think this is top notch and like it a lot. Price/performance is also the cracker. After more than 20 years, a bottle has moved in again and has left some high-priced candidates behind :-)
9 Comments
7
Bottle
2
Sillage
2
Longevity
9
Scent
JoniB

1 Review
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JoniB
JoniB
Very helpful Review 9  
An excursion into the past
So now it's time to write the first comment in this great community.
CK Be is in my eyes the perfect occasion, because it was also my first perfume for years.
It's been 23 years. The teenage years are half over and actually just beginning.
And that was the companion who perhaps did not ring in this unique time, but accompanied it completely.
The first girls, a (at least in retrospect) great school time, every weekend celebrating with schoolmates, all crazy and funny moments of light-heartedness. And whenever I smell this scent, it tells me an almost forgotten story from this stage of my life.

Durability and Sillage were already rather weak at that time, the today's fillings seem to take the snowflake over the campfire as model.
But I forgive that, this scent is only for me.
Not to wear in public, no, just to sniff, just to dive into the past sometimes, just to indulge in wonderful memories.
4 Comments
7
Bottle
8
Sillage
6
Longevity
7.5
Scent
Winfried

5 Reviews
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Winfried
Winfried
Helpful Review 7  
CK`s friend...
...but I'm sure it is, CK One is definitely an "eye-opener". I love this so pleasantly aquarische as fruity sound. Further down Insa writes about the weak durability of Be, unfortunately I confirm this. Insa writes that the CK Be is definitely better than CK One, no, I just see the other way around. That he, the fragrance does not exactly knock you off your feet, yes, that's fine. Heavier than One and not having the airiness and freshness. Oriental, musk note perhaps, just to the prelude. Unfortunately, not so much comes after that, no great transformation no magic behind it. Too bad. I, but the tastes are different, very even, and I write that already again and again, I would have to choose, I would clearly choose CK One
0 Comments
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Statements

4 short views on the fragrance
KingisnaKingisna 2 years ago
3
Bottle
5
Sillage
4
Longevity
2
Scent
Not worth a penny
0 Comments
GeorgeReidGeorgeReid 2 years ago
6
Bottle
5
Sillage
3
Longevity
7.5
Scent
First impression? A solid and clean fragrance reminiscent of the 1990s. It does the job in intimate moments, but performance is lacking.
0 Comments
ElysiumElysium 4 years ago
9
Bottle
4
Sillage
4
Longevity
9
Scent
Very, very, very akin to Solo Soprani, same vibe and scent. Yet, it's pretty good per se, clean, gentle, light. I fancy to rock it in Spring
0 Comments
Jazzy76Jazzy76 6 years ago
8
Bottle
5
Sillage
6
Longevity
8
Scent
The dark side of the moon: spicy, aromatic and a little mysterious but with a slightly citrus-soapy touch giving it a gentler character
0 Comments

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