Chanel No.5 Eau Première 2015 edition: fragrance review

Chanel often comes to mind when we talk about festive occasion drenched in champagne, if only because of the reputation of aldehydes being fizzy and sparkling materials (the aldehyde sequence in No.5 is mostly citrusy and waxy, to be honest, though). 

 

Chanel's perfumer, Olivier Polge, taking the baton from his father Jacques, had stated clearly that the legendary perfume of Chanel No 5 Eau de Toilette has no age, yet the newer edition Chanel Eau Première No.5 from 2008 would "effortlessly outshine the original without denying its relevance." The choice of words was not random, it seems. Effortless seems to comprise the very essence (no pun intended) of the bright insouciance of the newer interpretation of the venerable classic.

However great Eau Première from 2008 was, nevertheless, the advancement of tastes meant that it wasn't really appreciated by mass consumers, but only by us, perfumephiles. Logical enough, it followed the well-known formula rather closely. Therefore in 2015, the company revamped it in No.5 Eau Première 2015, in the process liquefying it according to the IFRA regulations, which made an impact around 2012. 

One perfume lover once said, "No5 Eau Première is a gateway perfume to the aldehydic genre. This is a beautiful mix of soft, bright, fizzy, and powdery. Eau Première is Diet No5, about 60% the flavor but still highly pleasing." 

I find myself flirting with a bottle for a long time now because it brings on that girly, lovely, fizzy quality to the fore, most of all. It's not the aliphatic aldehydes' cluster of perfumery materials that made the older versions waxy and clean-soapy; it's the brightness of its facade that belies its being born with a silver spoon in its mouth. It reminds me of New Year's Day mornings sipping champagne and eating eggs Benedict at a posh hotel dining room after a night out dancing. It's festive, dazzlingly bright, ethereal, and with its hopes for the best risen to their apex. The balancing act of the fragrance lies in judging how the citrusy freshness extends and rejuvenates the rose in the heart; there's a delicate, wisp-like chord of citrus and rose. What has kept me then from owning a bottle? Poor performance, mostly, as I have mentioned in an article I wrote "Eau Couture for Chanel No.5 L'Eau". Yet it smells good and puts good-natured charm in one's mien. 

There's a time and place for that, too, and champagne bubbly for January of a new year could not meet with a more reliable ally. 

 

Careful: the 2008 edition had a tall architectural bottle resembling that of Elixir Sensuel, while the 2015 edition has the classic squared shouldered bottle of No.5. 

Fragrance Tendencies for 2022: The Perfume Shrine Forecast

 The new year opens before us with the world of perfumes reflecting everything that concerns us in the rest of pop culture. From the world of woke to environmental consciousness and artificial intelligence, 2022 is set to be an exciting year. Let's go examine these tendencies in fragrance for 2022 one by one.

 

Reclaiming the Name of the Rose

Perfumes with rose work slightly like the classic trench coat in beige gabardine in our closet, or a brit pop song in a department store with youthful products. They brighten the mood with their easy reception even by novices, their purity of intentions, their classicism in structure. This year, creators and companies, mainstream and niche, are reinventing the rose.

 Tom Ford leads with 3 suggestions that follow last year's Rose Prick, this time with geographical inspiration: Rose D'Amalfi, Rose de Chine, and Rose de Russie are released in February 2022, before Valentine, as part of the new Tom Ford Private Rose Garden collection. Red and rose and for Armani with the new Sì Passione l'Εclat de Parfum, with the bright Cate Blanchet as the muse of the campaign again. As with Lancôme with La Nuit Trésor Intense L’Eau de Parfum (what a mouthful, have your smartphone at the ready to show to sales assistants).

 Digital Anamorphs

When marketing perfume, we often tend to resort to ancient techniques - things that are collected and processed by hand. In the actual industry, however, this is definitely not the case. Fragrances by large and small houses incorporate sophisticated ingredients of human laboratory preparation and advanced industrial sophistication technologies. Headspace was one, a popular technique first used in Antonia's Flowers, that captures the smell of things, and then recreates them in the lab as innovative arrangements. 

Nowadays technologies such as artificial intelligence are used to compose perfumes. In 2021 there was even an all-digital fragrance created as a non-exchangeable work (NFT)! The launch of Paco Rabanne Phantom in late 2021,  with its cute robot-shaped bottle, let consumers use their smartphone to tap on its head to create a digital experience.  

The composition of Paco Rabanne Phantom on the other hand is entirely created by artificial intelligence (AI) and this is going to be used more and more in industrial size perfumery. Digital interactive bottles and perfumes created entirely from artificial intelligence will continue to pierce our minds and noses. In 2022 and beyond. 

 

More art + perfume go hand in hand 

 

Arpa (sounds like harpe in Greek…) is a new multi-platform brand by perfumer Barnabé Fillion. It combines aroma, music, architecture and images in a complete experience of all the senses. Coupling that is becoming an increasingly strong trend. In November 2021, Arpa was officially released at the Dover Street Parfums Market and the final collection did not disappoint our high expectations. 

 

At Arpa, Fillion reunites with many of its former partners, drawing on different talents to create accompanying pieces for the brand's perfumes. These include a series of sculptures and records that are combined with scents, such as Anicka Yi and the French DJ Pilooski. The graphics were designed by the heavyweight Nathalie du Pasquier of the Memphis Group, while an office space was designed by the architect of the Australian firm Aesop, Jean-Philippe Bonnefoi. Meanwhile, limited edition bottles have been hand-crafted by glassmaker Jochen Holz.

 

 

Chinese Tips for Chanel

As part of its approach to China's always-aimed-at market, this dormant luxury consumer giant, Chanel with a distinctive eco-friendly approach creates recyclable, bio-sustainable products in a new line of cosmetics, makeup and grooming products called Chanel No.1

 

The collection with the camellia logo bears the symbol of the flower in red, just in anticipation of the Chinese New Year (the so-called Lunar Year) and with the expected lightness in the fragrances. For Chanel No.1 L'Eau Rouge, perfumer Olivier Polge explained: "This aromatic spray with a composition of 97% natural ingredients, can be used in combination with another product of the house or alone". 

The composition ends with a drying down of iris and clean musks for a slightly powdery feeling of cleanliness.

 

  Hot air? Not exactly.

 This is not the first time that pure air has been packaged in bottles for consumers with a sense of humor. The Air de Montcuq was a first attempt: Montcuq is a French village, but the headphones bring a bit of "air from our butt" - the smell happily reminiscent of ethereal mountain scenery and freshness.

 Air Eau de Parfum by The Air Company is a sexless fragrance composed of carbon dioxide, which binds at its source. To do this, the brand produces hydrogen which is fed to the patented carbon conversion reactor along with CO2. The resulting reaction converts hydrogen and CO2 into ethanol, methanol and impurity-free water, which form the body of the perfume. Then, the Air Eau de Parfum preparation ends with light aromatic notes, such as orange peel, jasmine, violet and tobacco - so as not to deviate from the aromatic parameter.

 

 

Eco-consciousness will flourish 

Starting with Rochas and their Rochas Girl, lots of companies, not only Chanel above, put an emphasis on eco-consciousness, sustainability and green imprint. 

Fashion brand Chloé has even issued a sort of manifesto on their website. "We intend to become a force for positive change beyond the Chloé workplace by working with our main suppliers to promote and further our standards while ensuring transparency. Based on our environmental impact research, we learned that our biggest impact comes from raw materials. This has prompted us to work with external experts to identify lower impact materials. We are focused on increasing their proportion such that we can reach 90% by 2025 at the latest. Consequently, this will contribute to our target of reducing emissions by 25% per product."

This is reflected in both their Chloé Eau de Parfum Naturelle and their newest, just launched Nomade Eau de Parfum Naturelle, fronted by Naomi Scott.  

We will continue to see this trend gaining momentum throughout 2022 and beyond.  

 

Three Case Studies from 2021 Mapping the Way into 2022: Fragrance Market Cues

 Apart from the pandemic, which made 2021 a very hard year to test out fragrances in physical stores, since testers were removed, there were three significant signposts that pertain to the fragrance market at large and which dictate how 2022 and the coming years will flow. 

 

DIOR & SAUVAGE: Ads and Representation

When the ads for the men's Sauvage Parfum with Johnny Depp first hit the scnreen with images of the wild American countryside, and descendants of Native Americans dancing ritualistically in late 2019, I remember thinking "the only thing worthwhile about this synthetic swirl whichpasses for perfume is its advertisement ”. Being a true harbinger of failure, the ad was harshly hailed as cultural appropriation.

Having no shares in Dior, or in the monstrous behemoth of LVMH to which it belongs, I find that it is one of the few times that the audience proved to be less informed than the house. The counselors of the house had done a thorough research, in order to be completely respectful of the context towards the minorities of the natives. They even named the native people who participated in the project. However, the French connection of sauvage with silk fabrics with a weave anomaly, the most "irreconcilable", was completely lost in the Anglo-Saxon language. Thus in the collective unconscious, as is often the case, the conflation of the name sauvage (= savage) with the depiction of Native Americans, was the strike of death… Advertising was withdrawn in 2020. 

 

Dior exhibited quick reflexes for the main face of the campaign. Johnny Depp's cancellation apropos his trial with his ex wife, Amber Heard, was completed in 2021. And while the lawsuit, which Depp lost, concerned his own lawsuit against the British media for libel, in the public consciousness it was as if every charge against him had been proved. Acting as Pontius Pilate, Dior froze every ad with the old protagonist in 2021. Just 3 weeks ago Dior announced the replacement of the main person in the Sauvage campaigns with the French footballer Kylian Mbappé.

 

How the American public, which is targeted by designer brands, will identify with a person so French and especially with a footballer (a sport that is much less popular in the US than in the rest of the world) is an issue that obviously did not concern them. And the reason is simple. Sauvage sells itself, since its release in 2015, with the intensive promotion that has been given to it so far in stores. In other words, LVMH only cares to be considered politically correct, so as not to risk a second John Galliano controversy… For those who do not remember, Galliano was also (justifiably) fired by Dior when he had an unacceptable anti-Semitic outburst in a Parisian restaurant, which was broadcast extensively.

 

 

Billie Eilish's breasts and the vanilla of her dreams 

 

To say that the American pop singer is the pop phenomenon of the last 2-3 years is an understatement. Billie wrecks havoc on the Net, with her body image disorders, her exposure to porn from the age of 9, her loose clothes that seem to swallow her, and the viral photo shoot for Vogue with corsets. So she released her first perfume , like any self-respecting celebrity. Eilish by Billie Eilish, currently available in the US.

 

 The choice on the one hand of the scent, and on the other hand of the bottle for Eilish, arouses the interest of any student of pop culture. Regarding the actual scent, while one would expect a fragrance as subversive as the image of the young singer - a breath of fresh air in a hyper-sexualized environment that visually projects pop stars as concubines at the very least - is a predictable vanilla. The launch was accompanied by the usual claims that "Billie was dreaming of the vanilla she could not find and decided to make her own". (I swear, I've been hearing this exact tag line ever since Donna Karan introduced her own fashion house at the close of the 1980s-early 1990s). 

 

As for the perfume bottle, it represents a bust of her body, with her breasts overemphasized. The official version claims she personally chose this mold because she is very proud of this segment of her anatomy. Cool I'd say, self-emancipation! Only there's the catch that the company that oversees the perfume project, that is Parlux (who released the perfumes of Paris Hilton among others) probably wanted to compete on an equal footing with the independent brand of the Kardashian sisters, KKW (Kim Kardashian West, from when Kim was still married to Kanye). Said independent company released some very successful commercial perfumes under the KKW umbrella in the last 2-3 years, with bottle-molds made out of the trunk and infamous hips of Kim Kardashian…

 

100 Years of Solitude for Chanel No.5 

 

It sounds like an oxymoron, but it's really not. The most famous perfume of all time does abysmally in blind tests. Typically, when we give it to modern audiences to smell and evaluate it, without telling them what they smell, it is rated much lower than it's really worth. The perfume continues to be produced and sold, but not actually worn! Gifted, symbolically, totemically, but safe-kept… 

 

The Ψηανελ company, however, is very careful in maintaining the legend of Chanel No.5. With various screenings, revealing "reports" about his bottles on the nightstand of Marilyn Monroe (its most famous customer), and snippets in the history of its creation. 

Ernest Beaux, the perfumer of Chanel, actually envisioned his original formula one night in the Arctic Circle, in the ports of the soon-to-be Soviet Union. The generation of millennials and generation Z no longer finds contact points with it. 

 

 A friend, a critic and acclaimed author had said about it, “Chanel N ° 5 remained more wearable than most old perfumes, but it shows its age again. This is not an argument against him. In fact it is just the opposite. There is a royal correctness in N ° 5 that you will not find in a perfume of Comme des Garçons, and an extreme or boldness in Comme that you do not find in N ° 5. As long as you understand what you are communicating with either one or the other.”  

Modern audiences are familiar with vanilla (see Billie Eilish above) in thousands of variations and the soapy sophisticated profile of No.5 looks heavy, formal - and oh mon dieu "old lady"! (age racism for perfumes is the last bastion) This year's 100th anniversary for Chanel No.5 was therefore celebrated with a series of "collectible" body products and items (such as a water bottle and stickers!) called FACTORY NO.5 at stratospheric prices for what they offered… The highlight was Chanel's Advent Calendar, offered at a steep price, with some flimsy products (there were stickers again...), key chains and other such trinkets. The influencers were rampant with calling out Chanel on Tik Tok. And rightly so. For half the  price you could have gotten the advent calendars by Dior or YSL with normal useful products.

 

So corporate hypocrisy got a big churn during 2021. Fragrant market please beware of such phenomena in 2022. 

Anne Rice's novel Exit to Eden and the author's favorite Chanel perfume

 Anne Rice, the author of the gothic novel Interview with the Vampire, among many many others in different genres, has died at the age of 80. You might have read the obituary, you might also have read her books, she was mighty popular; and for good reason.

The sad news of her passing prompted a memory to surface, one I don't believe I have talked about before. In one of her novels, Exit to Eden, a bdsm erotica novel from 1985 written under the nom de plume Anne Rampling, and later under her own name, there is an exquisite (her favorite word) excerpt that focuses on perfume perception.

The plot line goes like this: They call her the Perfectionist. A stunning, mysterious, and fearless sexual adventurer, Lisa is founder and supreme mistress of The Club—an exclusive island resort where forbidden fantasy meets willing flesh. A thrill-seeking photojournalist, Elliott risks his life daily in the most dangerous, war-torn regions on Earth. Now he has come to Paradise to explore his most savage and vulnerable sexual self, committed to the ultimate plunge into personal risk.

In the initial chapters, when Lisa and Elliot first play together, a mention of Chanel perfume is mentioned. 

"Tall but not as tall as all the men were here. And there was that sweet, intoxicating scent of Chanel. No doubt about it. She was there. The woman in my life."

and elsewhere

"The perfume was Chanel, and it came in little waves, like with her pulse."

 Chanel, but which Chanel perfume? At the time of printing, mid-1980s, the available feminine fragrances in circulation were predominantly Chanel No.5, Chanel No.19 and Cristalle. And out of the three, No.5 seemed more likely to be the candidate for the piercing, projecting, sweet fragrance mentioned. Or so I thought. I had forgotten that in the USA, where Anne Rice resided, the cult of an old Chanel perfume had never died and the scent was still available for purchase.

Anne Rice herself has shed light into her personal favorite perfume, stating " For over thirty years, I've been wearing Chanel No.22 and Chanel has stopped making my favorite perfume. [ed.n: she lamented it being discontinued in the 1990s before the re-issue in the Les Exclusifs line after 2005] I hope they make chanel no.22 again."  In 2014 she was also put into record in an interview on The Guardian as claiming No.22 by Chanel being her favorite smell. 

Which is odd in regards to being included in the novel, since its cultural image was as far removed from the whips and chains brigade as possible.  

This discrepancy however is very much helping to delineate the character of both Lisa and Elliott and to foreshadow their blossoming romance which turns them from bdsmers to vanilla lovers by the end of the book.

Many have wondered over the years whether Anne was part of the Scene herself; some of her descriptions sound true and really heart-felt, quite the opposite of 50 Shades of Grey. I guess we will never know for sure. One thing is for certain, ms. Rice put something of herself in one of her literary characters. And I find that quite touching. In the moment of her passing, I hope her dear ones remembered to sprinkle her belongings with a final spray of No.22

photo borrowed from poshmark

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: Chanel reviews & news, Aldehydic Floral Fragrances for Beginners, BDSM and scents.

Chanel No.5 L'Eau: fragrance review & marketing insights

 Chanel No.5 L'Eau, endorsed by the debutantes of the Chinese press, has been hailed as an innovation, but it's really "new old school". And I'm stating this in a positive light. It's a very likeable fragrance by Chanel which retains the spirit of the classic with a very contemporary sensibility of new beginnings and a freshness that differs from the exigencies of the 1920s, a century later. But its composition is not innovative, rather it makes abstract and elegant (in the mathematical sense) what has been passed down from tradition, in order to appear new. 

To wit, the use of aldehyde C8 is an addition that is not particularly modernist, nor is Australian sandalwood or the fractional-distillation ylang ylang that Polge père (Jacques) and Polge fils (Olivier) have been surely contemplating using for a couple of years now. The balancing act of the fragrance lies in judging how the citrusy freshness extends and rejuvenates the rose in the heart. And how an aldehydic fragrance appears non stuffed, nor "old lady perfume" (explained).

The core of No.5 L'Eau is shifted from the densely ylang and perceptible musk chord that dominates the modern varietals of No.5 to the delicate, wisp-like chord of citrus and rose. Almost a skin scent. By definition the concentration is light, ethereal, reflected in the choice of Lily-Rose Depp as the face of the ads. But why an ethereal version with a youth as the face?

It all started in the 80s when then in-house perfumer, the erstwhile Jacques Polge, created the first real "tampering" of the authentic formula to bring it up to par with the powerhouses of the decade of excess. When you have to keep your footing in the market that saw the original typhoon of Dior's Poison and the lead density of detonator of amber waves that was the original Obsession by Calvin Klein, you have to have a classy and elegant formula boosted to its logical limit. Ergo No.5 received a generous helping dose of the sandalwood synthetic Polysantol which effectuated that smooth, lactic boost that was missing from the earlier versions. No.5 Eau de Parfum is possibly not the "truest" No.5 but it is a satisfying edition that is made with great care.

Chanel continued to keep a very tight, and careful, modus operandi on any and all subsequent editions of No.5. I distinctly and fondly recall the No.5 Elixir Sensuelle which boosted the soapier smelling and muskier elements to render a less faithful but still sexy-as-hell body gel. It encapsulated what Coco Chanel herself had meant for No.5 to symbolize: a clean woman that wasn't at odds with her natural scent. The idea that women could be both sexy and not dirty. After all, her inspiration was a famous cocotte friend who smelled "clean", contrary to society women of the times "who smelled dirty" according to the French designer herself. 

The logical extension could only be manifested in something like Chanel No.5 Eau Première. Indeed praised by almost everyone in the industry for adhering to the original concept, without deviating too much, and at the same time bringing forth a new sensibility, Eau Première was critically praised by critics and bloggers, as well as connoisseur wearers only to be daunted at the fragrance counter by a relative indifference in its modern message. Eau Première, fabulous though it was, couldn't address the needs and wants of a youthful audience who knew No.5 from its legendary course and urban fashion clout, but did not feel confident in pulling it off in real time.

Unlike many, maybe even most, flankers by Chanel, such as Coco Mademoiselle and Coco Noir (extending and renewing the fragrance concept of Coco Eau de Parfum), which had little relation to their predecessor, No.5  l'Eau inherited enough of the original's nucleus to serve as a valid reimagining on the original idea.

Related reading on PerfumeShrine:

Coco by Chanel: fragrance review

Chanel No.19 & Heure Exquise: Twin Peaks

On Classifying Chanel No.19 & perfume review 

What's the True Story of Chanel No.5?

Cultural history: Exposition Chanel

Chanel No.5 Through the Years

Chanel No.46: fragrance review & history

I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire: Imaginative Fantasies

Chanel Les Exclusifs Misia: fragrance review [And a collective Chanel Les Exclusifs link.]

My Perfume Collection: Some Chanel Eye-Candy

photo by Elena Vosnaki

photo by Elena Vosnaki

photo by Elena Vosnaki

photo by Elena Vosnaki

These small pleasures amount to a great deal in difficult times. These Chanel perfumes are part of my fragrance wardrobe and don't get to take an outing regularly, for no apparent reason. This specific time-frame is pointing that maybe they should go out and see some action. They have been cherished and used, as you can see, but they probably need to be drained and replenished! Ho ho ho!

The Master & Margarita (Classic Perfume References)

photo by Elena Vosnaki

Chanel Cristalle: fragrance review, history & comparison of concentrations

To consider Cristalle by Chanel a predominantly "fresh" scent begs the question: which version of it? Contrary to some of the previous fresh scents that dominated the 1970s like Eau de Patou, Eau Libre (YSL) or Eau de Rochas, Cristalle has circulated in two distinct variations that differ considerably.

Although only one of them is set in the 1970s, namely the eau de toilette original version, the 1990s eau de parfum edition is also popular and perhaps blurs the lines most between simple freshness and ripe enigma; if the citrus burst of the eau de toilette is a sunny but still crisp morning, then the more floral chypre leaning of the eau de parfum is late afternoon when the warmth of the sun has made everything ripen and smell moist and earthy.

The structure of Chanel Cristalle Eau de Toilette is citrusy green, almost cologne-y, with only a hint of chypre perfume  structure; more jovial, more unisex and altogether happier. The structure of the Cristalle Eau de Parfum version is more feminine, with the floral offset of jasmine and ylang ylang bringing to the fore the more romantic elements. If the former is a brainy librarian, the latter is a brainy librarian with one button undone on her blouse. As you would surmise from my description, I like and respect both, but would personally find more cause for celebration in the latter.

Cristalle is a case in point where the genius of Henri Robert is fittingly corralled to that of Jacques Polge, the two perfumers responsible for the creation of the former and the latter editions respectively.

The 1970s were all about freshness, vivacity, a new energy with the youth movement and the female emancipation. A lively citrusy green scent like Cristalle Eau de Toilette sounds totally logical and expected of the historical context. Cristalle Eau de Toilette has endured and has gained new fans over the decades exactly because it is a triumph of mind over matter. It feels tinglingly fresh, yes; it feels brainy and perfect for sharing whether you are a man or a woman. It also fits its architectural packaging to a T, perhaps more than any other perfume in the Chanel stable. It feels sleek and sparse and 100% proud of it. It also means that when you opt for it you know you're picking the freshest thing in the shop; there is nary a fresher scent on the Chanel counter now or ever. Only the galbanum throat-slicing-blade of the original Chanel No.19 could be compared for sheer chill!

But what about the Eau de Parfum version of Chanel's Cristalle?

The 1990s have gained an odd reputation in perfume lovers' minds because they mostly contributed the mega trend of the "ozonic" and "marine" fragrances, scents cutting loose with the denser and richer French and American tradition and ushering a sense of Japanese zen into personal fragrance. At the time they produced a huge chasm with everything that preceded them; and fittingly one of the first to do so was Kenzo pour Homme in 1991. Suddenly one wearing such a quiet scent seemed like someone walking in velvet slippers contrasted with a Louboutin stiletto wearer, emitting Dior Poison, marking some poor 18th century parquet floor; you instantly knew who was going to get more sympathetic smiles and friendly nods of the head and who was to be greeted with wrinkled noses. Such were the mores then; we have become loud with our scent choices again of course. But the overindulgence in quiet can become deafening in the end and this is what happened by the end of that grunge-dominated decade. Still Chanel Cristalle Eau de Parfum managed to straddle the ground between quiet and loud, producing a composition between soft flannel wool and luxurious yet rough soie sauvage which was advertised with the immortal line: "Exuberance comes of age!"

Scents for a Good Hair Day: Is it Advisable to Spray Perfume in Your Hair?

Hair scenting has been a big trend for a few seasons now, eschewing the matter of potential allergens, since hair can't react, and providing formulae that won't dry out delicate hair cuticles like alcohol-based products such as eau de toilette or eau de parfum does. As the company claims, "a blend of moisturizing oils provide a veil of fragrance and subtle shine".

Hair Mist is a form of fragrance product that has been gaining in popularity for a reason. Hair mists in several fragrance lines are a wonderful and relatively newer product that can be applied on the hair without damage. They typically contain water, added scent, soluble silicones and emulsifiers and little else, so they bypass the main culprit of a regular bottle of eau de toilette or eau de perfume, namely alcohol. They come in the form of spray mists that can be directly applied on the hair or on the brush and they impart a light veil which holds its scent for more than a couple of hours.

There are several companies and brands that have invested in this market and I have some recommendations to make accordingly.

Tocca has come out with 5 scents for their Hair Mists: Florence (floral with violet), Cleopatra (ambery spicy), Colette (fresh citrus with juniper and musk), Liliana (fresh peachy neroli and gardenia) and Stella (refreshing freesia and lily with musk). The bottles look as cute, or even cuter than the actual eaux de toilette and the scents project credibly, if subtler.

White Moss Nourishing Hair Perfume by Acca Kappa was formulated to envelop the hair in a pleasant, delicate scent while at the same time contributing to its beauty. According to Acca Kappa, it “contains a hydrolyzed corn, wheat and soy protein complex chosen for its hydrating and nourishing action. The organic green tea and red grape vine extracts help protect the hair against damage caused by external aggressors. The fresh white moss scent will leave your hair pleasantly fragranced.”

The offerings in Thierry Mugler Angel and Narciso Rodriguez For Her are particularly caring and they smell very nice indeed. In the case of Angel, in fact, this is probably the very best way to carry this powerhouse of a scent; the hair product retains the wonderful gourmand and patchouli qualities without overpowering anyone in the vicinity.

Chanel is another company who regularly offers hair mist products and those come in a variety of fragrances: No.5, Chance and Chance Eau Tendre are available in hair mists as we speak and they come in beautiful bottles that adorn the dresser at a relatively lower price point; good news if you want some Chanel but are budget-restrained. There is also the dedicated Balmain Hair Perfume (shown above) which is a separate product that is constructed to be a scent that adapts well to use in hair, although the promise of a fragrance is probably a bit too much considering the simpler peachy nuance that recalls hair products. 

Dior's J'adore Hair Mist is another good product, retaining the characteristic bouquet of the eau de parfum, as is Miss Dior Parfum pour les Cheveux. Byredo Blanche Hair Perfume is a great long lasting option of warm clean musks, and Carnal Flower Hair Mist by Frederic Malle is the supremely indulgent option, great for those loving the green fresh tuberose scent and wanting to be surrounded by it all day long! Frederic Malle has recently also issued Portrait of a Lady in a Hair Mist formula; the gorgeous combination of rose, patchouli and incense rests on a bed of smoky amber that makes a deep impression and creates an intense mystery.

Chanel Les Exclusifs Boy: fragrance review

It's hard to go wrong with an aromatic fougere; men have been conditioned to opt for them and women to respond to them as "the natural scent of men" since at least the end of the 19th century when Jicky by Guerlain became the first to make an impact. Lavender and musk plus a spattering of sweeter notes is the basic recipe but each maker gives them their spin.

Chanel made Boy (after "Boy" Capel, a lover of Coco's) in their boutique range Les Exclusifs to appeal to those men who want that steadfast tradition in a sleek modern bottle and who don't mind a bit of a retro touch. This is what perfumer Olivier Polge (son of Jacques who was head perfumer for 3 decades) envisioned I'm sure.

What I smell distinctly after the top note of sharpness is the heliotrope and tonka which give a slight effect of marzipan paste; they elevate lavender from the usually medicinal territory into something softer and cuddlier. Hard to find this not fitting any occasion, casual, office or night out.

New Chanel Eau No.5 Flanker Perfume Later in 2016: Fragrance Rumor (Chanel No.5 L'Eau)

We've all been brought up in the legend of Chanel No.5. Books have been written about it, it topped best-selling lists and the rumor that a bottle is sold someplace in the world every X seconds has trailed sales pitches for ages. And yet there are two disturbing facts about it: one is that Chanel is exceedingly secretive of actual figures of sales; the other is that the perfume routinely performs badly in blind tests. What gives? A new fragrance is out later this year so as to combat this double-edged knife in the ribs of the French house. This is a PerfumeShrine rumor article. But let's take things at the top.

via wikimedia commons

The sales of No.5 have been steadily dropping, no matter the glossy campaigns. The French sales of No. 5 dropped from No. 1 in 2010 to No. 5 in 2015 in favor of Lancome's La Vie Est Belle, the incontestable top slot since its introduction a couple of years ago. The American market has been worse still. Young women find it too strong, too "matronly" in its odor profile; something they revere as a myth but not as a personal fragrance for themselves, perfume "for old ladies".
But it's also the rest of the Chanel fragrances which haven't been going that well either; Coco Mademoiselle seems to have run its culmination arc with a drop of 3.9% last year, the original Coco de Chanel perfume dropping a rather predictable 5.2% (nothing is as obsolete for young women now as 80s spicy orientals) and Allure dropping a whopping 8%. Only Chance and its various flankers are doing really well, woe to the discerning perfumephile: they have risen up to 6% only last year. Bleu de Chanel, another mainstream lukewarm soup, has become the prime choice of the banlieu, i.e. French suburbia material.

ADDED 16/5 via punmiris.com

Chanel has always been meticulously attentive to their treasured heritage. No.5 has been the emblem of the house and its advertising, stirring the fantasy and solidifying the reputation of a classy yet sexy fragrance, especially as boosted by Marilyn Monroe's infamous quote. In later years a string of advertising campaigns have tried to re-inject interest in the formula of No.5, sometimes with impressive if a tiny bit laughable results (the Luhrmann commercials, first with Nicole Kidman, then with Gisele Bundchen), other times with spectacularly laughable results (Brad Pitt...I'm looking at you) and on some occasions with truly fantasy-cart-wheeling side-effects (such as the Jeunet commercial with Audrey Tautou aboard the Orient Express).

The introduction of No.5 Eau Première a few years ago indicates that apart from rejuvenating the brand, through targeted advertising using the faces that people love to look up to, the jus needed its own rejuvenation as well. Highly praised critically, this new edition by then in-house perfumer Jacques Polge, however, didn't do as well as had been expected commercially.
According to reportage from Fortune, seeing the light of the day in late January 2016 and brought to my attention by an eagle-eyed friend, CEO Maureen Chiquet, one of the precious few women CEOs in luxury brands (a fact she was meaning to stress in an upcoming book, which might have created an unfavorable stir at Chanel) and a force to reckon with regarding the inspiring growth of the company at large in the last few seasons, stepped down "due to differences of opinion over the strategic direction of the company" after a 9 years long tenure. Alain Wertheimer, chairman and grandson of the original owners but also a recluse billionaire till now apparently, is taking control of the company's operations for the foreseeable future.

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There's no doubt in my mind that the seemingly disappointing commercial course of No.5 Eau Première (so bad that it had to change its bottle to reflect more of the legendary austere lines of the original No.5 last year?) didn't significantly deviate from the tried & tested skeleton of the immortal icon. Personal consultation with perfume seekers has painfully made me realize No.5 is considered a fossil; awe-inspiring more for its ability to withstand time than for its familiarity or appeal, a once beautiful intergalactic alien from another moment in the universe's timeline. 

With La Vie Est Belle cornering the top spots reserved for Chanel and with contesters Christian Dior (with the new Poison Girl fragrance heavily promoted) and Yves Saint Laurent (with the rather bad Black Opium as well as the rectified, while still very approachable Black Opium Nuit Blanche) Chanel has entrusted a major bet on the slender shoulders of its newer perfumer at the helm, Olivier Polge.
The new No.5 flanker must therefore reflect the legend, surely, but it should also get a slice of the pie of La Vie Est Belle buyers. September 2016 has been the rumored date of the introduction to the market, although Polge is said to have been working at the wings ever since Olivier's tenure starting in 2013, funnily the creator of...La Vie Est Belle. It's a battle against one's self. A William Wilson tale, if you will. A Chanel for millenials, that prized segment of the market aged between 20-35 whose tastes influence everything.

There is no concrete info on the finalized name yet: Chanel has re-copyrighted the old 1929 name of Une Idee, which could be a good fit for a No.5 flanker, as in "Une Idee de No.5, which has the added aventage of working equally well in the French and Anglo-speaking audiences, but this is pure speculation on my part.
It thankfully remains doubtful whether the extra strong, extra syrupy tentacles (don't get me started on Repetto or Flowerbomb) are going to engulf everything. Polge's Les Exclusifs Misia eau de toilette is super refined excelling in the "cosmetics accord" fragrance genre and his Chanel Boy sounds mighty interesting too. With No.5 holding its own in at least the "spirit of Chanel" maybe the bet won't be against all odds. Come September we will see, I guess.

EDIT TO ADD: Chanel has officially announced the new version Chanel No.5 L'Eau which is  supposed to be built upon Grasse May rose by perfumer Olivier Polge and aimed at millenials.

Chanel Boy, Hermes Muguet Porcelaine, Guerlain Le Muguet 2016 : 3 Upcoming Fragrances to Watch

In the ever increasing pace of fragrance launches some catch one's eye due to either exclusivity cachet or brand awareness. This is the case with the three fragrances I highlight today. One is so exclusive and posh that it can't possibly justify the jumping through hoops to get it, yet a vision of the bottle (and a sample from a lucky buyer) is de riguer. The other two are less hard to get, though still preserving themselves for marriage, but coming from such collections as to warrant some getting all hot and bothered with. Without further ado I present them to you.

First we have Guerlain's super-limited annual Le Muguet 2016 edition: this year it promises to be a new formula, not just a different bottle and concentration game. The company itself, after all, is historic., so extra care is given to accuracy. More info on Fragrantica.

Then there's Chanel's Boy (probably going out to play with Dior's Girl, engaging in puberty love. All right, Chanel is probably the ONLY firm who can graft such a gauche name to their Les Exclusifs boutique line; Boy Capel, after whom the new fragrance is named, is canon after all.
The fact that the scent is masculine but could be worn by women as well is an added bonus, like the boyish cut styles Coco Chanel made her own.

 And last but not least there's Muguet Porcelaine by Hermes, them of the scarves fame, in the boutique-only Hermessences line, a green lily of the valley. Since perfumer Jean Claude Ellena, he of best-selling fragrances fame, has been working on this idea for a long time, perhaps longer that he has ever admitted to, taking into account that Roudnitska was his mentor, it should be interesting. Lily of the valley has served for soap-clean references for ages, so let's see what happens.

Chanel in the Power of Two

Not one but two dedicated articles with gorgeous images of older and newer advertisements of Chanel perfumes are making an appearance on Fragrance.About.com

via vasilisa/goodfon.su

The first one tracks and reviews a top 5 of Chanel classics (excluding the largely unknown ones to the average consumer, I'm afraid, we will revert to that later on) and is posted on this link.

The second one tracks and reviews 5 contemporary, popular Chanel perfumes which are loosely inspired by other Chanel fragrances and puts them in their contextual position. You can find it on this link. Enjoy browsing! Related reading on PerfumeShrine.com : Chanel news & fragrance reviews

A Special Homage: Coco Chanel

Today would have been Coco Chanel's birthday, had she been around and withstanding the scrutiny for her infamous past. No matter what anyone has to say about the lady herself and her tumultous personal life, her enduring style has really changed the way we see fashion and how women dress themselves. That's you see the advantage of avant-garde; making history.

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Chanel's characteristic use of jersey fabric, pants for women, that do not resemble the harem, the trademark quilted handbags, two-toned pumps, pearls and costume jewelry, the freedom of fluidity & movement in her jackets, the stark usefulness of neutral colors such as beige, white, black and navy and her philosophy of function vs. decoration have made Chanel an icon of the 20th century and a true liberator of women from the constrictive garments of La Belle Epoque. We owe her that much.

Her fragrances of course couldn't but follow her unerring sense of style. The famous Chanel no.5 was followed by many others, notably No.19 commemorating her birthday on August 19th. This is what I am wearing myself today, reveling in both its sharp galbanum and vetiver cutting through the humidity (thick like it could be cut with a knife) and luxurious enough with its orris background.

So in her own honor, please find some related articles of mine on her style, beauty advice, iconography and of course perfumes.
And please share your own experiences with Chanel beauty & perfumes in the comments!

Coco by Chanel: fragrance review

Chanel No.19 & Heure Exquise: Twin Peaks

On Classifying Chanel No.19 & perfume review 

What's the True Story of Chanel No.5?

Cultural history: Exposition Chanel

Chanel No.5 Through the Years

Chanel No.46: fragrance review & history

I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire: Imaginative Fantasies

Chanel Les Exclusifs Misia: fragrance review [And a collective Chanel Les Exclusifs link.]