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Thursday, November 22, 2018

CHANEL N°5: SPOTLIGHT ON THE ICONIC PERFUME BY CHANEL.
What scents are you loving at the moment? Personally, I'm a huge fan of French perfumes - How couldn't I? - and CHANEL N°5 is certainly my favourite.
Arguably, the world's most iconic perfume, CHANEL N°5 has been worn by lots of celebs from Marylin Monroe onwards. Developed in 1920 by the famous perfumer Ernest Beaux, it was the 5th blend out of several different options presented by Coco Chanel, chosen because 5 was her lucky number.

One of the first fashion houses to develop a fragrance, Coco Chanel aimed to create a scent resonating with her love of cleanliness and epitomising her as a modern woman. By adding the chemical aldehyde, Beaux was able to add light notes of soap and powder to the fragrance and make it last longer on the skin, thus creating a scent that was feminine yet delicate and characterful at the same time. Useless to say, the perfume was a success even before its launch - during a celebratory dinner with the perfumers's staff, Coco sprayed it around their table and every woman who passed asked about the scent.

The iconic bottle was equally pioneering with its simple design and label, a contrast to the lightly flamboyant and decorated bottles of the time. The ad campaign too was revolutionary, presenting Coco Chanel as the first "face" of the perfume in 1937.
From that date on, a host of glamorous feminine icons have followed up to most recently Lily-Rose Depp for CHANEL N°5 L'EAU. The scent was developed by Olivier Polge and features a prominent note of May rose from Grasse, together with top notes of lemon, mandarin, orange, neroli, and aldehydes, heart notes of rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine and a base of cedar, white musk.
I prefer this latest re-edition of the original, for its light and fresh interpretation of the traditional perfume. And the fact that its unmistakable sophistication hails from my favourite place in the world is just an added bonus!

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