Monday, May 25, 2009

Coco Chanel: Just when you though pink was getting old!

Just when we all thought that maybe pink juice might finally be starting to fall out of fashion, the last fragrance in the world I thought would ever become pink actually has: My beloved Coco Chanel. Soon we will start seeing this pink version replacing testers and displays everywhere, and ending up in our homes. Since the testers are very new I had to struggle to find a shop which would allow me to take a photo of the new bottle. Finally I got one who was nice enough, although I won't mention where it was as it is of course against every stores policy to allow photographs to be taken within the store. The photo above is of the EDT although the EDP is now also pink, and is sold in the same bottle as the 100ml No.5 bottle.

It seems that the colour is not the only change, as we would expect since the colour of a fragrance can also yield many clues as to what is inside. We can pretty much deduce that our new juice is made with clear raw materials and then dyed pink, which means that either naturals have been replaced with synthetics, or that more expensive colourless absolutes are now being used instead (I wonder which one is the case!)

Alas, the fragrance itself has suffered, the first word that comes to my mind is "diluted", and when I say diluted its really quite a pale lifeless version of what it once was. Baroque? Opulent? Dark ? no more! It is now sweeter, a lightly spiced floral, with just enough of the essence of what it us to be that we can still recognize it. It appears also that a large portion of the changes have appeared on the bottom end; I have had the EDP on my right hand for a few hours now, and it has fallen apart. What a shame!


Another one of my favourites, has also recently suffered the same fate. Boudoir by Vivienne Westwood was once a rich dark brown juice, and a very powerfull fragrance - it is now pink and a just a shell of what it use to be.

This marks a very sad day for me, as I can now for all intents and purpose consider Coco a parfum disparu, looks like I will have to stock up! Also, my mother who has been wearing this perfume for over 20 years will be very disappointed - At least I can take comfort in the fact that I presented her with a vintage 60ml pure parfum of Coco just about a year ago and it should last her for a while. My only question is; does Parfums Chanel really bet this new version will bring in more new customers than the loyal ones it will alienate ?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The pink "coco" is coco mademoiselle, a younger, fresher, not nearly as hot and sexy version of the classic coco. The old coco is still around and is still the "yellow" or golden color

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh, I am wrong. It is the eua de toilette that is the pink shade, ) as well as Coco Mademoiselle) the eau de parfum is still the golden (amber) color. The eau de toilette has always vanished in a few hours. Not worth the money in my book.

Parfum said...

Hi Anonymous, it looks as though the pink is moving across the board on Coco as I have also seen the EDP in the pink colour - perhaps the amber tester that you saw is still from the old batch. I am 99.99% sure I have seen both the EDT and EDP in pink :)

My theory of course is that this coincides with the IFRA regulation reformulations... and I'm sure it didnt hurt Chanel's bottom line to cheapen the juice a bit too, seeing as they had to reformulate anyways ;)