Just as BMW offers its more accessible 3 Series to younger buyers, many perfume houses offer beginning fragrances for their younger consumers. Each house follows its own logic.

Ck IN2U her is a scent created for those still using their parents’ credit cards. In terms of critical assessment, IN2U poses a problem. Classically understood, a perfume is a work of art; YSL’s Paris has (in theory at least) the same artistic integrity as, say, a Rothko painting. IN2U has the artistic integrity of an Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie. This is its intent. The perfumers Carlos Benaim and Loc Dong, along with the fragrance consultant Ann Gottlieb, have engineered not a perfume but a smell. There is nothing wrong with this per se. It’s just a different thing. Where a perfume stakes out an aesthetic position, a smell like IN2U, with its carefully calibrated lock on the vibe of the moment, is a passkey to popularity. What it actually smells like is somewhat secondary. But it’s pleasant enough: a combination of Breck shampoo and the scent of a brand new Jaguar convertible on a clear, warm evening in Los Angeles.