Clue Dandelion Butter Review

When I first smelled this fragrance at Ministry of Scent in SF (shoutout to the Fillmore location). It took me immediately back to childhood recesses. This scent feels like childhood awakening, like reminiscing of a time when skipping was socially acceptable. More specifically, it smells like sitting on the grass in a circle with your friends and making daisy and dandelion chains. I know the name is Dandelion Butter, but it smells less like a flower and more like the sticky sap of the green stems. The juice smells like your hands would after plucking them from the ground and peeling them apart to weave the stems together.

Be aware that this is not a milky buttery scent. Sure, there is a salted butter note, but I think that manifests itself more as a creamy quality, which is more apparent during the dry-down after the green grassy-ness has disappeared. I have not yet had the pleasure of trying this on skin. Ministry of Scent was, unsurprisingly, sold out of samples on the day I went. Considering how hot this fragrance was when it first dropped, I’m surprised they had enough juice in their tester bottle to try at all.

Recently, many brands have jumped on the hype created by Perfumerism (a TikToker who makes fragrance content) when she began looking for a perfect milk scent. Since then, it seems as though every single brand has dropped a lactonic scent with milk as the hero note. When done well and time is taken, these scents can be phenomenal, but when brands are just trying to pump out something mass appealing, they can feel soulless. Clue has managed to avoid that in this fragrance.

Aside from the cult following that Clue as a brand has, its marketing for this fragrance helped it jump from the shelves and into people’s baskets. Butter yellow and lactonic scents have both been trending over the past couple of years. This scent somehow remains part and apart from those trends. The marketing uses dandelion and butter yellow as the main colors in the campaign, and it’s another lactonic scent, but the way in which the salted butter note was incorporated was novel. Clue found a folk game in which the players are asked if they like butter, and a dandelion is held beneath their chin. If the chin is yellow, it means the person likes butter. It is a silly, meaningless game, but the frivolity of it leans into the childish (in a good way) nature of this perfume. This is such an interesting inspiration for a fragrance. With it, Clue was able to produce a scent that was technically on trend, but stood apart from all the other lactonic fragrances launched last year. You can really tell that the perfumer took their time and put their heart into the juice.

Personally, I don’t think that I would ever purchase a full bottle of this fragrance. Obviously, I won’t rule it out completely until I’ve given it a fair chance during a wear test, but I am not a huge fan of green scents. That is a broad statement, but I don’t reach for them even when I do like how they smell. If and when I do finally wear this scent, I will be sure to update this post with my full opinion. For now, this is a very fun and playful fragrance with a fantastically unique (but trendy) marketing campaign behind it. I strongly recommend getting your nose on this fragrance, or any of Clue’s other masterpieces.

Keep on Sniffing,

Anosmic