Can Chanel’s New Eau Splendide Perfume Be The Next Big Chance?
It’s Chanel, but make it effervescent —the kind of scent you throw on before saying yes to an unplanned adventure.
Gabrielle Chanel was a woman who took chances. After all, the maison's era-defining N°5, launched in 1921, was one of the first perfumes to feature an abstract, complex composition, rather than a single floral note; unlike the delicate scents of the time, N°5 was bold, powdery, and unapologetically feminine.
But of all of Chanel's many perfumes, the range that encapsulates the founder's daring spirit best is arguably a Y2K baby — Chance. Introduced in 2003 by Jacques Polge (Chanel's former in-house perfumer who worked from 1978 to 2014), the Chance (French for "luck") collection is popularly known as the free spirit in the maison's perfume universe — the fun, flirty, slightly unpredictable little sibling to her elegant sisters like N°5 or Coco Mademoiselle.
Chanel's latest perfume - the Chance Eau Splendide - comes packaged in the Chance collection's signature round bottles. The design itself is a break away from the rectangular and boxy shapes that typically characterise Chanel perfume bottles; another nod to how the Chance collection was conceived as one for risk-taking.
The latest addition to the Chance line-up, Eau Splendide, is a fragrance built on the art of surprise — both in scent and spirit. Concocted by Olivier Polge (yep, he's Jacques' son), this fruity-floral number opens with an effervescent raspberry accord, but it quickly softens into a heart of rose geranium that's partly grown in Chanel's fields in Grasse.
But as with any Chanel scent, it doesn't end there; the dry-down reveals a grounded, almost meditative base of cedar, white musk, and powdery iris, adding a layer of nuance to the lively top notes. The result is a surprisingly sophisticated fragrance, one that feels light and spirited yet deeply rooted in its complexity.
The entire Chance family to date, together with new entrant Eau Splendide upfront and center.
Unique to the Chance family is how each flanker — the original (2003), Eau Fraiche (2007), Eau Tendre (2010), and Eau Vive (2015) — has been coded with a distinctive hue. After yellow (the original), green (Eau Fraiche), pink (Eau Tendre) and orange (Eau Vive), comes Eau Splendide's purple - a colour that's been associated with nobility since ancient times, as well as magic and mystery (we told you this perfume likes to surprise).
“Sometimes I’m asked what is the link between each of those Chance (fragrances). Of course, you could always find (some mutual) raw material, but I think it’s more correct to describe these perfumes as a state of mind," says Polge in an interview with trade publication WWD.
To which we say, this is the kind of scent that nudges its wearer to shed some inhibitions and live a little more spontaneously — after all, who couldn't do with a bit more magic in their lives?
The new Chance Eau Splendide eau de parfum retails for $208 for 50ml, and $296 for 100ml, from April 15 at Chanel Fragrance and Beauty boutiques in ION Orchard, The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, VivoCity, JEM, Parkway Parade and Raffles City.