Coco Eau de Parfum Chanel perfume – a fragrance for women 1984

I am writing this review, not to be mean to the folk that love this iconic scent, but to represent the likes of me who do not enjoy it. It seems to me that with these classic scents, the fanbase is extremely loyal. There is nothing wrong with that per se, but it does give a biased overall view of said perfume. It’s the same with Shalimar. If anyone eloquently writes how and why they don’t enjoy the scent – which might be helpful to people who share the same olfactory tastes as them – then the review is swiftly removed. Glowing reviews stay up, even if it’s just a few lines stating ‘I love this perfume’.

Well, I don’t love it. Sniffing the bottle and applied to my skin it smells like B.O. – mainly a distinct, armpit smell. This is possibly due to the cloves and civet, but maybe also because of the potent mix of Opoponax, coriander, and fleshy peach. I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to know, but what I do know is the whole thing comes together to smell like unwashed bottom and armpit, mixed in with the lingering aroma of stale clove cigarettes – the kind my granny used to smoke in the 80s.

If you’re like me, and get urine and burning rubber from Shalimar, the chances are you won’t go for this one, either. I’m only writing this to save someone from a potential disastrous blind-buy, given the extraordinary high number of glowing reviews that don’t properly reflect the dislike bar percentage.

I doubt very much this review will stay up – the reward system with the balloons here is deeply flawed.

ETA. I rest my case. (see above reviews) I meant no offense, passionate defenders of coco. It’s just what the scent smells like to me, and on me. I am allowed an opinion, please stop bullying people that don’t like the same scent as you. I have ‘lack of discretion’ because I don’t like coco? What on earth? I fell about laughing when I read that, that’s brilliant. And the implication that I am a ‘millennial’ that only likes ‘yummy, fresh, shampooish frags’ and Coco is obviously too refined for an immature girl like me. I could be 90 years old for all you know, don’t be so ageist and patronising. I don’t like coco because to me it smells like stale fags, dried-out flowers, last night’s curry thanks to the coriander and clove, and sweat. I stress, TO ME. This is MY opinion, not yours. I don’t like a perfume that you happen to like, that doesn’t make me immature or intellectually stunted in some way. I could be rude to you here, but I won’t. I’ll leave the rudeness, judgement, and condescending personal attacks to you guys, you do it so well.

I know I should ignore this, but I have to stand up to bullies. Please do not attack me on a personal level about my ‘lack of maturity’, my ‘discretion'(!) my apparent lack of ‘personality and style’ because I don’t like your favourite perfume, my inability to understand a ‘proper’ scent (I mean, who do you think you are? Who are you to say what is empirically and objectively the ‘best’?), my perceived age (I’m over 40, not that it’s any of your business.) At the end of the day, it’s just a perfume that I don’t like, I will not be bullied into silence over something so trivial. And out of the 1000s of reviews for Coco, it would be nice if just ONE negative review was allowed to stay up.