For a while, I've had a personal laugh over the marketing campaign for "Chanel No. 5" that revolved around one word: "Inevitable". The laugh was not over the content of the campaign itself but how it revealed a personal truth about my particular likes and fragrance tastes and how relevant it would be to my fragrance journey. For me, a silent and classic film lover, a lover of boozy aldehydes mixed with rose, a lover of all cultural artifacts and architecture solidly built but slightly decayed, I knew it was inevitable. Of course it was. I've spent years playing the perfumista "how long can I avoid this?" game and I think I've finally come to the end of the line. In my teens, I had a decanted spritzer of "Chanel No.5" that I had bought online when buying things online was a new novelty for everyone and despite having worn earlier perfumes (my firsts were "Aqua di Gio", Dana's "Classic Gardenia" and Guerlain's "Champs Elysees"), "Chanel No.5" felt like a perfect fit even then. But it was like a good parent who you would take for granted in your youth but who would still be there, forever loving, dependable and wise, when you grew-up and came around later to understanding what mattered most in life. Squeaky clean but with a voluptuously worn air to it, like high quality metals warming on a freshly scrubbed, moisturized body, "Chanel No.5" just suited my put-together-but-never-perfect resting position. It wasn't so ethereal and prim that it represented someone always society polished in every endeavor, the perfectly turned out debutante or professional and it wasn't so sultry that it reminded people of a loudly gorgeous and ambitious escort. It's just somewhere in between, that place where most people live; cozy yet just formal enough to always be respectful of others, clean but a little disheveled in a relatable, charming way. Blame the unpretentious rose notes that are just lush and unapologetically jammy. Yeah, almost everyone likes to smell a rose. Yes, it's not obscurely elegant nor a challenging floral note to blend nor wear. But roses smell good and look pretty and most people will name the rose as their favorite flower. Throw in a little jasmine and sandalwood, tuck a soft mat of vetiver under the whole thing and throw a couple of velvet pillows in the corner. Crack open a bottle of mead and mix it with champagne. Watch the bubbles fizz in the glass, with sunlight passing through and dancing on the walls. Presto, you have "Chanel No.5". It's a classic and common shorthand for "luxury", like champagne and roses on a balcony in front of The Eiffel Tower but even if the concept has come to seem unoriginal just because so many people have accepted it as a marker for elegance and beauty for so long, champagne and roses on a balcony in front of The Eiffel Tower WAS strikingly original once and after all, it's still beautiful to experience even if there is little mystery left to it. "Chanel No.5" is much the same way. It's probably the most universally likable "challenging" perfume in production today, in that most people will recognize you are wearing a perfume but even those who dislike perfume in general won't find it a major intrusion into their personal space. It's primarily a golden, jammy rose and creamy sandalwood blend with a tiny hint of metallic soapiness just to keep things from getting too carnal to be proper for public. It is deep and its oiliness is warm, while the aldehydes add a cool breeze of fresh air over the whole thing. Most will only use it for formal wear but I love its woodsy aldehydes captured and nestled into a casual sweater at the seashore and I wear this day and night, all occasions. It just makes everything a little more beautiful, so if you're wearing a black velvet evening gown and diamonds with it, the impact will be all around dazzling, indeed. But it makes a t-shirt and jeans look better, too. "Inevitable"? For me, it was. I guess part of growing up is accepting that it's okay to like what everyone else likes, to just be another nose in the crowd, if it's just really that good. And "Chanel No.5" lives up to the hype. Aug142017 www.fragrantica.com Part 1: No. 19 Eau de Parfum: Powder & Class... Chanel No. 19 Eau de Parfum is to me a very "posh" perfume. It's powdery and elegant, and I can imagine the kind of woman who would wear it. Very controlled, very posh, but still young and beautiful. I think some kind of successful woman or rich woman. Personally I really like the Eau de Toilette and I wear it myself (I find the EdT works better on a man's skin). But first let me describe what it smells like. This perfume has a gorgeous iris/orris root note. It is well known that the type of iris used by Chanel, iris pallida, comes exclusively from a specific field in Grasse (exclusive to Chanel, it previously used to be from Florence, Italy)... and iris butter (made from roots which are dried for at least 3 years) itself is one of the most expensive perfume ingredients on earth, with the best quality (80% purity) costing around £70,000 (or $105,000) per kg. So what you get here is a wonderful iris note. This is an iris note surrounded by rose (also exclusively from Chanels field in Grasse), lilly-of-the-valley, and some green oakmoss and soft sandalwood. I would describe the Eau de Parfum as a "soft" fragrance. Soft but powerful. It smells expensive. The EdT is brighter, greener and more "alive" somehow. This one is very calm and controlled, but very beautiful. If you thought the EdT was too "green" or "sharp", this EdP is more controlled and powdery. In a word, it smells like expensive "perfume". So I would expect a woman who was rich or wealthy to smell like this. But it's a wonderful smell, and iris is definitely one of my favourite notes in perfumery. Part 2: A tale of two sisters... Chanel No.19 & Jacomo Silences Now, I want to compare between Chanel No. 19 and Jacomo Silences, as these perfumes are often compared together. Let's first start by saying that No. 19 was first, and so most other "similar" perfumes are descended or "inspired" by that one. But there is something about Silences that I like, which No. 19 doesn't have... and that is an entirely different character and personality. From the start these two are very different. Put it this way, if they were "sisters", then No. 19 (the older sister) would be the wealthy, successful rich woman of society. She has married someone rich, she lives in a nice, expensive house, she hosts dinner parties wearing her perfect black dress and pearl necklace and earrings. She hangs out with rich, wealthy people in society. She has perfect white skin, like a Greek statue, perfect hair, perfect nails. Perfect life. But, she is cold, she is quietly unhappy. She has everything but she feels like she has no control. Like her rich, successful life has been "planned" for her by others. She smiles for guests, and laughs politely, but when she takes off her makeup at night in her mirror, she sometimes wants to cry. Her younger sister is Silences. This one you could call a "free spirit". She is an artist and was once a beautiful model. She is a painter. She lives in a small, cute house by the river. She goes for a run every morning with her dog. She does not take everything in life too seriously, but she enjoys every minute of her life. She spends most of her time outdoors, in nature. She loves being in nature, running, painting, enjoying the different seasons. She loves who she wants, and she lives each day to the full. Cooking, being artistic, with the dog, out in the woods. She has no regrets in life. She does not have the money that her older sister "acquired" by marrying a rich man. She does not smell so expensive like her older sister, but she has character, and a big heart. She does not want anything more in her life, and she is happy. To me these are the differences. They are both green, both have an iris note, but this note is unbeatable in the Chanel, and is powdery, floral and smells clean, polished and expensive. The Jacomo smells "greener", like you are in the forest outside, with the smell of herbs and green leaves which the Chanel doesn't have. Basically, if you are an "active" person, or if you have memories of childhood in the countryside, then you will like and enjoy Silences. But if you want to smell the smell of "perfume", or want something "posh" or "expensive", then go for No. 19. Both are great choices. I think the Jacomo is a little more relaxed and carefree, but if you want to impress or are in a very formal situation, then go for the Chanel. Both are masterpieces! Dec182014 www.fragrantica.com I suppose we can debate the merits of Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum until we are all “bleu” in the face and nothing will be resolved; nonetheless, I am here to tell you that Chanel does not make junk. This company is a worldwide phenomenon and the owners, the Wertheimer brothers, have 6.3 billion reasons to maintain fastidious control over the quality and distribution of their products. Wearing Chanel fragrance, like wearing Chanel couture, is a mantle of discovery with many layers, often as incomprehensible as it is playful and alluring. That is called Chanel mystique. You either get it or you don’t. Whether this is due to Mr. Polge’s efforts alone or some other factors I can’t say, but it would be hard for anyone to believe that he could be creating fragrance after fragrance for more than thirty years if he did not possess a devilishly extraordinary (and monetarily successful) nose. If you think back to the origins of Chanel, you may remember that Coco Chanel not only freed women from corsetry, but made an art of mocking the very Edwardian prudes she converted, ladies who formerly rejected her in society until she made them all want to wear her little gray and navy uniforms. Decades later, when the Chanel look became dated, creative director, Karl Lagerfeld (who understood her divine contempt), was hired to revive the brand by producing unexpected, masterfully crafted, incomprehensible couture and the name “Chanel” once again ascended the worldwide stage. Chanel is God. Chanel is Satan. Chanel is all the good and bad in all of us, and some of us hate it and others love, love, love it. But if you think you are laughing at Chanel, please know there is a lot of cackling going on at 31 Rue Cambon, all the way to the Banque de France. Bleu de Chanel EDP is subject to all of the above. You must pay the price to wear it, and wearing it is like wearing the whole history of the company with all of its strange idiosyncrasies and eccentricities. Attempts to diminish Bleu de Chanel EDP by saying it smells like deodorant or some amalgam of chemicals are just naïve. Chanel pulled all its fragrances from drugstore shelves in the 1970’s to increase its luster and exclusivity. Beyond this, Chanel marketer Jean Hoene has been quoted as saying “We introduce a new fragrance every ten years, not every three minutes.” It’s hard to imagine, with so much restraint and guile attributed to this brand, the House of Chanel would take the low road by releasing a trash fragrance. Such a premise would be a non-sequitur anywhere those interlocking letters appear under license. There is no tidy way to describe Bleu de Chanel EDP, just as there is no tidy way to sum up the influence of Chanel on fashion. The notes taken together seem to create something abstract or quixotic and the “professional” sample sniffers who promote enthusiasm for long extinct fragrances that have become fetid with the years and can only be purchased second hand are not qualified to critique Bleu de Chanel EDP, which is, in my opinion, pure modern luxury. There will never be another (1981) Chanel Antaeus, but there is good stuff in this flask. For example, if you bother to read the discreet embossing on the back of the box you will see that Bleu de Chanel EDP contains among its components extract of evernia prunastri or oakmoss (not listed in the pyramid above). Now restricted by IFRA, you will have to go far to find a comparably priced, recent release that contains the complex woody aroma of natural oakmoss. That’s just one of this deep blue bottle's little secrets. Occasionally, I will write a negative review, but I haven’t made a life’s work out of it. I would rather write about things which give me pleasure. The true irony here is that the “chemists”, on the other hand, are often so intent on lampooning certain molecules they hate that they fail to recognize some of the better attars because their assumptions and egoism get in the way. However, if you keep an open mind (and you have established the funding) there are many things in life which hold delight: I believe Bleu de Chanel EDP is not only one of them, but can‘t be anything less. Jun202015 www.fragrantica.comChanel No 19 Eau de Parfum Chanel for women. Chanel парфюм
Chanel No 5 Eau de Parfum Chanel perfume
Chanel No 19 Eau de Parfum Chanel perfume
Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum Chanel cologne
