Green notes
Citrus fruits
Jasmine
Mediocre
24 Reviews
Translated · Show original
Mediocre
Top Review
38
Green Gardénia
Une Fleur de Chanel was launched on the occasion of the Chelsea Flower Show in 1998.
Karl Lagerfeld designed a garden in honor of Mademoiselle,
which reflected the prevailing baroque style in her private rooms on Rue Cambon.
This garden was executed by Tom Stuart-Smith and cost the enormous sum
of over 1,000,000 GBP.
In particular, the white camellia, which Coco Chanel had chosen as her signature flower,
ensured that the effort was immense and thus the planting of the garden was extremely expensive.
The bloom had to be delayed so that the camellia - whose blooming period is in the later winter weeks -
would instead unfold its full splendor in May.
There is a romantic rumor that the last bouquet
Coco received from her great love Arthur "Boy" Capel before his fatal car accident
was a bouquet of white camellias.
Now Jacques Polge was tasked with creating an Eau de Toilette
that would symbolize the iconic camellia for Chanel on the occasion of the presentation of this Chanel garden.
This proved to be difficult because there are very few camellias that are fragrant.
In most camellias, the flowers are scentless.
(Apparently, no fragrance is extracted from camellia flowers?!?
I would be very grateful for any contrary information)
So Monsieur Polge had to create a fragrance
that would prove worthy of the beauty of a white camellia bloom.
On one hand, he had the freedom of expectation due to the lack of a scent expectation for a camellia perfume.
But on the other hand, this also carried the potential for grand failure in this creation,
because he might not meet the expectations of an audience that imagines
what a camellia should smell like.
To get straight to the point: Jacques Polge was, in my opinion, very successful!
UFdC is a fresh green and floral, cozy scent with a jasmine
that is extremely pleasant to my nose.
Often I find jasmine to be piercing and slightly urinous.
This is not the case here; the jasmine is, if I may trust my nose, embedded in other white flowers: gardenia, a hint of white lily, and orange blossoms.
The whole composition is very harmonious. The white flowers, which can quickly veer into the narcotic
and provoke severe headaches, are soft, round, and slightly creamy to luxuriously soapy in UFdC.
The green notes, which incidentally bear no resemblance to the green notes of the green Chanel classic No.19,
I unfortunately find difficult to dissect.
The citrus fruits are nowhere prominent,
they merely tame the green note before it can shoot into the herbaceous.
The relationship to Chanel Gardénia from 1926 is very close.
I have tried both 2 extracts from different eras
as well as a vintage EdT in comparison.
However, this does not apply to the Gardénia from the current Exclusifs line,
which I find piercing, sweet & unbalanced/superficial and therefore wholeheartedly
abhor like the plague *grin*
In my opinion, Mr. Polge forgot the essential headache pill in the Exclusifs-Gardenia and instead stirred in a cheap coconut sunscreen.
I like UFdC and find the composition very pleasant and successful.
Given that the fragrance is not produced in large quantities and production
has now been completely discontinued, the sparse remaining stocks are auctioned off at exorbitant prices.
(35ml EdT for example for $250)
A blind purchase seems quite unreasonable given such horror prices.
There is also the slightly cheaper option of bidding on a vintage Gardénia EdT
or buying the Gardénia extract at Chanel.
For fans of fresh, green Chanels, there remains the option of reaching for Cristalle
and Cristalle Eau Verte. However, here the floral and creamy roundness of UFdC is missing.
For those who have fallen in love with UFdC, unfortunately, these are rather inadequate options.
Even though UFdC was not continuously available and production was briefly resumed, it seems unlikely that the fragrance will be resurrected in the Chanel lineup.
RIP
Karl Lagerfeld designed a garden in honor of Mademoiselle,
which reflected the prevailing baroque style in her private rooms on Rue Cambon.
This garden was executed by Tom Stuart-Smith and cost the enormous sum
of over 1,000,000 GBP.
In particular, the white camellia, which Coco Chanel had chosen as her signature flower,
ensured that the effort was immense and thus the planting of the garden was extremely expensive.
The bloom had to be delayed so that the camellia - whose blooming period is in the later winter weeks -
would instead unfold its full splendor in May.
There is a romantic rumor that the last bouquet
Coco received from her great love Arthur "Boy" Capel before his fatal car accident
was a bouquet of white camellias.
Now Jacques Polge was tasked with creating an Eau de Toilette
that would symbolize the iconic camellia for Chanel on the occasion of the presentation of this Chanel garden.
This proved to be difficult because there are very few camellias that are fragrant.
In most camellias, the flowers are scentless.
(Apparently, no fragrance is extracted from camellia flowers?!?
I would be very grateful for any contrary information)
So Monsieur Polge had to create a fragrance
that would prove worthy of the beauty of a white camellia bloom.
On one hand, he had the freedom of expectation due to the lack of a scent expectation for a camellia perfume.
But on the other hand, this also carried the potential for grand failure in this creation,
because he might not meet the expectations of an audience that imagines
what a camellia should smell like.
To get straight to the point: Jacques Polge was, in my opinion, very successful!
UFdC is a fresh green and floral, cozy scent with a jasmine
that is extremely pleasant to my nose.
Often I find jasmine to be piercing and slightly urinous.
This is not the case here; the jasmine is, if I may trust my nose, embedded in other white flowers: gardenia, a hint of white lily, and orange blossoms.
The whole composition is very harmonious. The white flowers, which can quickly veer into the narcotic
and provoke severe headaches, are soft, round, and slightly creamy to luxuriously soapy in UFdC.
The green notes, which incidentally bear no resemblance to the green notes of the green Chanel classic No.19,
I unfortunately find difficult to dissect.
The citrus fruits are nowhere prominent,
they merely tame the green note before it can shoot into the herbaceous.
The relationship to Chanel Gardénia from 1926 is very close.
I have tried both 2 extracts from different eras
as well as a vintage EdT in comparison.
However, this does not apply to the Gardénia from the current Exclusifs line,
which I find piercing, sweet & unbalanced/superficial and therefore wholeheartedly
abhor like the plague *grin*
In my opinion, Mr. Polge forgot the essential headache pill in the Exclusifs-Gardenia and instead stirred in a cheap coconut sunscreen.
I like UFdC and find the composition very pleasant and successful.
Given that the fragrance is not produced in large quantities and production
has now been completely discontinued, the sparse remaining stocks are auctioned off at exorbitant prices.
(35ml EdT for example for $250)
A blind purchase seems quite unreasonable given such horror prices.
There is also the slightly cheaper option of bidding on a vintage Gardénia EdT
or buying the Gardénia extract at Chanel.
For fans of fresh, green Chanels, there remains the option of reaching for Cristalle
and Cristalle Eau Verte. However, here the floral and creamy roundness of UFdC is missing.
For those who have fallen in love with UFdC, unfortunately, these are rather inadequate options.
Even though UFdC was not continuously available and production was briefly resumed, it seems unlikely that the fragrance will be resurrected in the Chanel lineup.
RIP
9 Comments
DANA17
