Chanel N°5 (Vintage) Chanel perfume – a fragrance for women 1921

Now this is a challenge! A review of the most known, most popular, most loved and most sold perfume ever. Even in 2012! The most iconic fragrance ever. ‘The One’ fragrance that is synonymous with ‘Perfume’. The one and only ‘Madame’ Chanel nr 5 EDP!

I’m reviewing the vintage EDP with ‘real’ civet and ‘natural’ oakmoss that in the most current versions will certainly be replaced due to new regulations by ‘artificial’ civet and oakmoss. Please keep this in mind while reading. Thank you.

What is there left to say about this stuff of legend? The only thing (a few drops of it) that Marilyn Monroe religiously wore in bed during her affairs with her many lovers? Only that all the praise is justified. ‘Too Powdery’ or not, ‘Cat pee’ or not, ‘not understood’ or ‘deliberately misunderstood’ and vilified… yeah yeay yeah… Like you would say about a Rolls Royce: it feels like a Tata Nano or Mini Cooper, or about a bottle of Chateau Petrus: it tastes like gut rot and bum wine. The Grande Dame simply sniffs and says rightfully: ‘F… you’. ‘The Five’ keeps on selling and selling. It even makes a comeback because people get tired of overpriced generic weak run of the mill celeb scents, despite what showbizz mags want us to believe. People want value for their money in these economic tough times. And you certainly get this with Chanel 5 EDP. Killer sillage, merciless longevity, balanced and mixed to perfection as only ‘old school Chanel’ could.
Anyway crass commercial shenannigans have as result that classics like Chanel 5 simply keep enthralling every new generation of women to apply and men to enjoy this masterpiece of perfumes. You don’t get it? ‘No problem’ says the Grande Dame: ‘Move on to another fragrance’. This Grande Dame will not shed a tear and will not sell one drop less. You find it ‘Too perfume-y’? Well that’s the whole intention of ‘a perfume’! It makes you ‘sick to your stomach’? Well the Grande Dame says: ‘Stay sick and go vomit on somebody else’s lap’.

As somebody else here said: this is simply ‘The Scent of The Woman’. This is the scent of ‘Forever Young, Forever Classy, Forever Fantastic, Forever and Ever Feminine Magic’. Sure it is not for a girl, not for a fickle teenager, not for a fashion follower without an own taste, or the perfume hipster police patroller who follows trends religiously and because Anna Wintour or some paid perfume blogger (or poor old dear me hahaha!) says this hard to find and obscenely priced nicche is top, just buys it blindly. Chanel 5 is for ageless women -with the emphasis on ‘Women’- who know what they want and who have their own taste. A woman who maybe reads the reviews descibing the grande Dame as ‘musty’ ‘old lady’ ‘over fifty’, then shrug and just say: ‘Et alors?’ (‘So what’) and she moves on from the pimply pre menstrual reviews to test it herself to for her own opinion. There is no cure for difference in tastes. You don’t like Chanel 5? Too bad for you! Others will savour the magic for you. And this fragrance doesn’t depend on favorable or unfavorable reviews, or big media campaigns, or on girlies whining: ‘It smells like my grandma’ or ‘My boyfriend hates it’. Et alors? Let’s move on. This Grande Dame has earned every accolade and praise that has been granted to her. Because she is a one of a kind member of the highest class of classics, together with ‘Opium’, ‘Joy’, ‘Shalimar’, ‘Poison’, ‘Angel’, ‘Classique Gaultier’, ‘Obsession’, ‘Alien’…

La Grande Dame has an ego allright. But she is allowed to. Because she is ‘It’. She has ‘It’. She’s not a on hit wonder fickle ‘it girl’ that’s there for a year and then gone. She is ‘The Eternal Woman’ who was there since 1921, is still here and will be here as long as people use fragrances. Because she is one of the Best. Comparing this Grande Dame with ‘soap’, ‘old lady’, ‘granny’ is so silly frankly, it doesn’t need any further comment. Nr 5 haters, please leave the Grande dame alone. Just don’t buy the ‘old lady catpee’. That leaves more for us, lovers of this eternal timeless fragrance. Please buy the latest one week wonder, advertised by paid bloggers, hipsters and ‘beauty editors’ with goodie bags. Please buy up all the celeb scents, please indulge yourself in the niches written up by beauty scribblers who always needs a ‘next week’s thing’ to fill their blank pages. But leave the Grande Dame for us, millions all over the world, who fell in love with her, who will always treat her with the respect she deserves and who say to the ‘granny-haters’: ‘Et alors?’

The formidable Chanel nr 5 about which there have been written entire books, is a true phenomenon, whether you like it or not. It is the Classic of the Classics. 90 years young and still so much alive, still capable as a nonagenarian to stir controversy. Some fruity floral girl: ‘Ooh: cat pee, ooohhh, dirty underwear, ooh, BO, aargh’… Well sweetie, stick your litchis, kiwis, white chocolate, sugar, vanilla and berries where the sun don’t shine. You’ll then know what true BO is! Chanel 5 is for women who have at least menstruated once and are older than Justin Biever. It is for the real women and also those girls-of-all-ages that are proud of their womanity. If sniffing a Jessica’s ‘Fancy’ or Katy’s ‘Pussy Purr’ is high school, Chanel nr 5 is a doctorate in proud femininity. If you like Prada’s ‘Candy’ as a sugar lolly for boys to lick you off or a peachy celeb frag that gives you the fantasy that you are ‘sexy’, while in reality you reek like an opened can of inlaid peaches in heavy syrup and have trouble swatting the bees and the boys away, thenby all means Chanel 5 is definetely NOT for you.

‘The Five’ doesn’t have time for such trivialities. This is serious business by a serious perfumer who made s seriousy classy and innovative perfume in 1921 for women in all kinds moods, ages, colors and cultures. You can be 21 years young and wear Chanel 5 like Marilyn, you can be 25 or 50 or 90 and create magic in the air around you with Chanel 5. It is not a fragrance, it is a feeling, the feeling of being a vibrant alive woman, not a plasticky doll who blindly follows trends set out by marketing Mad Men. Chanel 5 is about being a woman and liking it a lot. It is about the sensual power of a woman. Beyond the pimples, the puberal tantrums and toilet level insults. Et alors? You’re with the real women know. Let the Jessica’s be and let them enjoy their lollipops and their milkshakes and their boy-troubles. Chanel 5 is a very old vivacious lady that still irritates the hell out of the cotton panty brigade with printed figures of Minnie Mouse on their knickers. Chanel 5 is a glass of Veuve Cliquot or Cristal Roederer champagne compared to the cookies and milk of most fruity florals. Chanel 5 is going to a restaurant, not hanging out at the local Dairy Queen with acned Axe boys looking full or repressed desire. This is for women who threw the ‘the Silver Ring Thing’ away, no offense intended, and discovered love, passion and pleasure. Chanel 5 is not a virgin anymore, she is a woman. ‘Daddy’s little girl’ from the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ grew up to be a smashing and classy ‘femme fatale’. With Chanel nr 5 you have moved from that ‘Little house on the Prairie with cow’s pee’ to the NYC of ‘Sex in the City’. Youngsters, you who sometimes insult this Grande Dame as’ old lady’, you’ll be very happy that this ‘old lady frag’ will still be around, when you have become an ‘old lady’ yourself!

You know the story of Chanel nr 5. Nose Ernest Beaux had ten numbers perfume samples to present to Madame Coco Chanel. Madame chose the vial with the number five as her favorite and Chanel nr 5 was born. A brave choice of Madame Chanel. We’re in 1921 after all, and the serious ‘Nr 5’ was then not the most commercial choice to make in the roaring twenties after WWI. But on the other hand it was still a time when the artistry and originality of a fragrance played a bigger role than filling market gaps, and when marketing studies hadn’t overtaken perfume artistry. So ‘Nr 5’ it was! And perfume history was written that fifth day of the fifth month of 1921 when the superstitiousGabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel presented her new fragrance. The superstition paid off and the rest is perfume history.
What makes ‘The Five’ so special, timeless, ageless, leaps the boundaries of cultures and is the first ‘global’ fragrance?

Top: Aldehydes, neroli, ylang ylang, bergamot, lemon
Middle: Iris, orris root, lily or the valley, jasmine, rose
Base: Amber, sandalwood, musk, patchouli, civet, vanilla, oak moss, vetiver.

Almost everybody concentrates on the aldehydes in the top. ‘Nr 5 equals aldehydes’. But the secret to the Nr 5 success IMHO lies not in the aldehydes in the top but in the unsurpassed base! And the notes of that Chanel Nr 5 base have been raised on steroids. OMG! Look at that. AND amber AND sandalwood AND musk AND patchouli AND civet AND vanilla AND oak moss AND vetiver. Eight heavy hitters in the base! With that alone nowadays they fabricate 4 different fragrances. At least. The craftsmanship of nose Beaux was to fuse every of those eight Schwarzenegger juggernaut notes together to a shiny, strong, uncompromising, non sweet machine. Never done before, never done since. It is animalistic (civet, musk), woody-green (sandalwood, oak moss, patchouli, vetiver), creamy-smooth (amber) combined the indescribable smoky smell of non sweetened vanilla. This is like the script of Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’: whatever happens next, you can’t seriously go wrong anymore with that rock solid base. Unless you are an accountant or an ad man or a stockholder instead of a perfumer.

Second general observation: no sugar! Nothing artificially sweet. The sweet whiffs are the natural ‘sweet’ flowers like ylang ylang. But if you want a sugar rush or smell like a lollipop with or without bling bling you have to look up the recent fragrances of chubby but photo shopped-to-death 41 year old Mariah Carey. Not Coco Chanel.

Third general observation: the legendary and rich use of aldehydes in the top, that came to define this fragrance. Aldehydes are organic (so originally natural carbon) compounds that are very fragrant. Think about formaldehyde that belongs to the same family. Yes, I’ll pause here to give you the opportunity for some ‘formaldehyde-old lady wisecracks…’ OK, let’s continue. Aldehydes produce an orangey, creamy, full and yet sparking fresh smell and ‘feel’ to a fragrance. And you have neroli in the top, made out of sweet orange blossoms.

So everything starts with that monolithic base that gives Number 5 its weight. It is not a fresh aquatic for sure. Thankfully! But a full bodied fragrance. Killer longevity, lethal sillage, mixed and balanced like fine tuned dish of a five star chef.
Opposite of the killer eight-notes-on-steroids-base, we have the quite fresh and orangey top with the orangey aldehydes, the orangey neroli, the lemon, the bergamot and to break all this too much freshness the sweet, slightly spicy ylang ylang. So we have the two opposites: super solid base versus fresh top. Clever move of nose Beaux: the solid base reinforces the aldehydes, so that the first blast of Number 5 is solid orangey, creamy aldehydes. But the rest of the fresh top chips away at this full bodied base-aldehydes combo.

At this point we the accent is still on the dense side. Then the middle comes to the rescue of wearability and is the key to the unsurpassed mass appeal: flowers to brighten the heavy top-base up. Rose, lily, peppery jasmine, the flowery and woody orris root (the root of the iris flower and also used as taste-maker in the alcoholic drink gin), and the delicate lily. These flowers are like the sun that breaks through a dense cloud layer. So that the sun rays are visible but combine with the clouds a stirring combination of light and deep, contrasting colors. Neither light or dense, but in between. Like the sun that breaks through the heavy colored clouds after a rain pour or a lightning and thunder attack.
And then: let the games begin! The heavy base tries to tone down the freshness of the top. The orangey aldehydes and neroli in alliance the ‘fresh brigade’ of bergamot and lemon put up a fierce resistance. The ylang ylang in the top collaborates with his flowery friends in the middle to make a bridge between the two opposites. The jasmine, rose, orris root, iris and lily in collaboration with the ylang ylang are strong enough to hold the base back from overthrowing and swallowing the top whole like Linda Hamilton did with Arnie Schwarzy in the ‘Terminator 2’ and at the same time manages to put itself between the warring base and top so that the flowery middle is clearly noticed. Killer heavy base, frisky fruity aldehydic top and steadying flowery middle: the key to Chanel 5.
All this is careful orchestrated by nose Ernest Beaux. He weights the notes so that all these inner workings come alive to the fullest, but don’t degenerate into an all out fight. The result is a full bodied ‘weighty’ and intricate fragrance that like all great classic evolves on the living skin.

It is indeed a man magnet, as MM already knew too well. But because of its peculiar composition, I can imagine that people who are used to flowers-vanilla-sugar-fruit combo’s are intimidated by this Grande Dame. It sure weighs in more than your average celeb five-in-a-dime frag. This is no pushover or wallflower. Nr 5 wears you, you don’t wear Nr 5. But if it suits you, the result is spectacular and unforgettable.

For me, Chanel Number 5 is as alive at 90 as are much younger modern classics like ‘Hypnotic Poison’, ‘Angel’ or ‘Organza’. Of course it is not a fragrance that is gone after one hour, of course you don’t have to reapply after one hour, of course it has balls and an own face and a stubborn personality. That’s why it is a perfume benchmark. It is not generic run of the mill, it can’t be interchanged with some other fragrance, it isn’t cheap. But I bet you do longer with one 50 ml Nr 5 EDP than with several big bottles of fruity floral celeb juice. And that’s about the same price.

It is also a fragrance that young people who want to stand out from the vanilla-fruit crowd, can wear perfectly. And even more so. The combination of youth with this Grande Dame of 90 is sexy as hell, IMHO. Under 17, I wouldn’t wear it, but from 18 on (which is still young in my book) it is perfect. Why don’t you try a sample, then you can judge and speak with authority about the most famous and successful fragrance of all times. Dear 20 year old girl: you’ll probably even like it. A lot. So live dangerously and try Chanel Nr 5. Those celeb fruity florals are so common, safe and boring! If you are used to contemporary fruit florals, if you want know what blows your socks off, try No 5. And I bet, for a bottle of Chanel nr 5 100 ml EDP, that you’ll come back for more…