Perfume-Chanel-Chance, Chance Eau Fraiche, Chance Eau Tendre

I guess Chanel is getting smarter and smarter in their commercial perfume marketing, besides the old charms, after the let-sex-sell Coco Mademoiselle, Chance and its flankers has been rather popular, among many who were previously not that much a Chanel fan due to the rather refined (somewhat old fashioned) association that yonger (20 something, or even 30something) group have with fragrances from this house.

I guess years ago, before I start my perfume world exploration, one of the first perfumes got my attention (and even fascination) is Chance Eau Fraiche from Chanel. However, after tasting a bit more others, nowadays I might look and laugh at how naïve I was.

Recently I revisited the Chanel counter, well, brilliant marketing! The sales woman told me, the Chance range were designed to reminiscent the feeling of holding a wedding ring. LOL. However, it does get you, in a millisecond scale or a larger, year scale. I guess most woman are somewhat romantic creatures; dreaming about the moment of saying ‘I do’ might appeared in our fantasies since an early age due to all the media etc. Then here comes Chanel, the perfume literally mean ‘Lucky’ in English, with the above marketing trick, well, smart! Maybe that’s what leads to the weird phenomenon among younger Chanel users whom literarily claim that Chance is the best Chanel perfume ever. :S

However, to be honest, the scent might be nice/tolerable, but it’s far from what greatness, not to mention marvellous.

So…How what do I really think about the Chance flankers?

• Chance Eau de Parfum

Chance starts with the sweet, nearly-watery, yet non-commercial aquatic kind of clean feel, which is refreshing yet warm enough to make me picturing it be worn for some romantic summer balmy nights. It reminds me a lot of Coco Mademoiselle, for both of them have this nearly sporty patchouli-sweets-chypre blend.

Gradually the watery fresh sweetness goes fainter, leave the perfume to develop in to something rather balmy, a bit gourmand, sweet. Somehow, it oddly refinements Chanel No.5 Eau Premiere for the bright yet a bit powdery aldehyde-pushed floral notes; Coco Madmoiselle for the fresh sweetness-infused patchouli note and Coco for the slightly spice sweet accord which comes and goes.

Then the dry down is a bit rushed in my opinion, it’s like a bunch of aged and muted typical white flowers mixed with some rather warm, balmy, gourmand sweet and a little bit orange-y notes, and every now and then, there’s this busy slightly woody accord comes and goes.

Somehow, I find Chance, the original might be the best chance among the three, for it actually have some rather defined structure and more well-,mannered and the notes are rather nicely blended.

• Chance Eau Fraiche

Chance Eau Fraiche, true to its name, it is a more fresh, sparkling, summery, citrusy version of the original Chance. Both Eau Fraiche and the originally has this patchouli-sweets-chypre yet non-cloying bone structure there, while Eau Fraiche goes max on the citrusy part in the start, it’s so sparkling, so fresh as if you can actually inhale the juice (and this is one of the rare perfumes which really makes me feel like to inhale it in a hot summer day, to cool myself down). Somehow, it’s like a granda version of the popular Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana, because both of them are rather citrusy in a summery breeze way. However, since Chance Eau Fraiche is a Chanel, it does retain the typical Chanel heaviness (or maybe I should say, elegance?) rather than the free-spirited carefreeness.

After the initial breeze of freshness, Eau Fraiche is actually not that fresh. It becomes more stale in the orange-tart-sweetness (I find Eau Fraiche is sweeter in the sharper, citrusy way than the original which has more the bright aldehyde-y floral sweetness in comparison), with well blend floral notes.

The dry down of Chance Eau Fraiche is quite bright, still sweet tart citrusy and to me, it’s not really the type of elegant dry down I would expect from a house like Chanel. Well…it’s still wearable, especially if you were gifted a bottle of this.

• Chance Eau Tendre

Chance Eau Tendre is a disappointment to me. It does start really nice and gives me the similar optimistic vibe that Eau Fraiche does, but in a sweet, pink, nice girly way (like most of the popular fruity floral pink la-la perfumes launched this days). I did fall at that moment, in the same fashion as most people would find/fall for most pleasing fruity post-2000 scents. It’s not offensive, somewhat fruity lolly-ish, harmless till you inhale too much. If it stayed that way, it could be a really pretty daytime perfume, or even an office scent if applied with a light hand.

However, here comes the horror: in less than 10 minutes, it smells just like Daisy by Marc Jacobs with a much longer Daisy strawberry/clean phase (I’m not a Daisy fan as the oddly synthetic strawberry notes and hay-like smell make me really nauscious).
Well, there is a floral-fruity infused musky dry down, which isn’t too bad, but…to live pass about 4-6 hours of the Marc-Jacobs’-Daisy-replicate reminiscent nightmare, I don’t think Chanel has done a good enough job to keep their latest release unique (a.k.a Daisy’s twinsister) nor generically pleasing (for I know quite a handful of people who are rather allergic to MJ’s Daisy).

It might be a nice perfume to some, especially to those who can pull off Daisy, but too generic to be a Chanel.