CHANEL Coco Mademoiselle L’Eau Privée – eauxSILLAGE

“A shiver of citrus, the sensual vibration of patchouli… This tension gives rise to addiction.” And what an addiction it is, CHANEL Coco Mademoiselle. 

Fearing the drastic decline in sales of Coco (1984) in the late ‘90s would lead to its removal from upscale department stores in the United States, Coco Mademoiselle was launched in 2001 at the behest of CHANEL’s American division who wanted a Coco flanker that might attract a younger buyer. A floral-fruity-patchouli composition said to have been composed with little effort and interest by then CHANEL perfumer Jacques Polge – his focus at the time was on Chance, later launched in 2003 – CHANEL is rumoured to have been as surprised as everyone else when Coco Mademoiselle became a runaway success at launch, eventually overtaking N°5 to become the bestselling perfume in the world, a title it retains to this day.

Opening with an abundance of luminous citrus – orange, mandarin and bergamot – before a floral heart built around Rose de Mai leads into a spicy, oriental, borderline masculine base of peppered patchouli, vetiver, tonka and vanilla, Coco Mademoiselle’s 2001 Eau de Parfum set the precedent – created the signature – that spawned an entire collection on the back of its success. First came the Eau de Toilette (2002) that further sweetened the composition with the addition of light-as-air grapefruit and syrupy lychee; in 2012 the Extrait de Parfum reorchestrated the Coco Mademoiselle signature in favour of the rose; then, in 2018, Coco Mademoiselle Intense rendered the orange warmer, the patchouli much more prominent, and the base more heavily ambered with vanilla and tonka. 

With the launch of Coco Mademoiselle L’Eau Privée in 2020, CHANEL presents a new take on Coco Mademoiselle, proposing too a new way to wear perfume; perfume for bed.

CHANEL offers only these notes for Coco Mademoiselle L’Eau Privée:

mandarin, jasmine, rose, white musk

These might be the notes most amplified in L’Eau Privée, thus presented by CHANEL, but the perfume is still very much a flanker of Coco Mademoiselle with many of the same notes as its kin. My experience suggests a notes list closer to this:

mandarin, orange, lychee, jasmine, rose, mimosa, patchouli, tonka, vetiver, vanilla, white musk

“With L’Eau Privée I wanted to create a light and delicate version of Coco Mademoiselle, imagining a night fragrance like a soft and sensual veil” says Olivier Polge, current CHANEL perfumer. And on this, I couldn’t agree more. Taking Coco Mademoiselle’s ever recognisable olfactory signature and drastically softening it behind veiled layers of weightless jasmine and musk, L’Eau Privée is an ethereally delicate perfume with all the softness of a fine silk négligée… just as you’d want for the bedroom.

Meant to be worn to bed, L’Eau Privée opens with the expectedly luminous mandarin, syruped lychee and rose accord that adorns that ever-recognisable patchouli base, though unlike other Coco Mademoiselle iterations, L’Eau Privée does not fill the room with its profuse sillage. Rather, L’Eau Privée whispers its presence on skin, as it does, slowly revealing its heart with the layer-by-layer undressing of its opening; first to go is the citrus, revealing more lychee fleshiness, forgoing next the soft greenness of mimosa, and finally the patchouli’s woodiness.

Left behind is a heart of jasmine and rose petals, soft and velvety on the skin, veiling a less green, more crystalline patchouli-musk accord that remains true to the Coco Mademoiselle signature, now with a delicacy one would never have expected of Coco Mademoiselle before now. This delicate, almost translucence is at the core of L’Eau Privée; CHANEL says, “the focus of this interpretation is not on an extraverted personality or an incredible diffusion, but rather the promise of a soft and endearing fragrant touch”. This isn’t to say L’Eau Privée underperforms in terms of sillage or longevity though; heavily weighted with white musk, it sees its wearer through a full night’s sleep to reveal the next morning a jasmine and musk skin scent.

I have worn perfume to bed as long as I can remember. Admittedly though, the practice has always felt something of a perfumistas indulgence. With L’Eau Privée CHANEL delivers the concept of bedtime perfume to the masses, albeit in an infinitely pretty frosted bottle, and for that we should expect this to prove the first of many bedtime perfumes. Bravo.

Year of Release: 2020 (August 30 in Australia)

Perfumer: Olivier Polge

Alternatives: CHANEL Gabrielle Moisturising Body Lotion

Available: CHANEL Beaute boutiques, www.chanel.com, MYER and David Jones for $198, 100ml