Five is a lucky number in the world of Chanel. So when it came time to expand the beloved Chance fragrance line, one of the world’s best-selling women’s fragrance lines, the brand once again turned to in-house perfumer and creator Olivier Polge. “Chance has an air of optimism,” he told Harper’s Bazaar. His latest creation is Eau Splendide, a floral-woody fragrance that launched this April and is the fruitiest Chance fragrance yet.
Eau Splendide features red raspberry as the main note, complemented by geranium grown by the brand in Grasse, France. Distilled sandalwood adds a casual, grounded base to this soft yet all-encompassing fragrance. Bazaar spoke exclusively to Polge to get all the details on this season’s most anticipated fragrance launch.
What do you love about the Chance line? How do you think it compares to other Chanel fragrances? Is it younger? Fresher? Or more of a state of mind?
It started in 2003. For those who don’t know it as well as you do, I always remind them that it’s made from five completely different fragrances. You can look for certain common raw materials, but I think that’s wrong. I think they all have the same spirit. I love that freshness. I think they’re very colorful. They’re very bright. They’re very direct. At the end of the day, perfume isn’t intellectual. You have to feel it; you have to have a connection to the scent. With Chance, I think that connection is made very quickly. It does have a youthful vibe, but I prefer to think about the state of mind. I think it transcends any actual age.
Tell me about the making of this fragrance. What feelings or a specific type of woman did you have in mind?
I didn’t have a specific woman in mind. I think the Chance collection is very strong. Even though I started with a blank slate, I have four other bottles of Chance on my desk. I was looking for ingredients that would give that same freshness. For the top note, I was looking for a fruit that would have a similar note and hook to the other fragrances. The original Chance had a lot of pink pepper. Chance Eau Fraîche has a lot of citrus notes, so that’s how I fell in love with the red berry notes. Little by little, I developed this raspberry note, which is high-pitched and fruity. But what I found interesting was that one day it had a rosy undertone, a bit of violet – that was the beginning of an interesting fragrance.
So I developed the floral notes around geranium, which is an important ingredient for Chanel. It’s one of the very few ingredients we grow in Grasse in the south of France, and it gives off a rose scent – but in a simpler, more casual, more fluid way, which I think is very appropriate in the composition of the fragrance. In the base, sandalwood plays an important role. The sandalwood is lightly distilled to remove the dark side that wood usually has. In other words, I tried to gather these key elements in a way that would not bring any shadow to this colorful fragrance.
I find the raspberry note very interesting. You talked about its tone, but how would you describe its relationship with the other fruity notes in the fragrance?
I thought it would be the top note, but at the end of the composition, it takes up more space than I thought at first. It’s made up of red berry type notes, but also black currant, and the slightly bitter taste of rose and the warmth of violet.
This makes sense because when I think of raspberry, I think of it as being a little sweet, but also a little sour.
It’s not too fruity, but not too sweet. I’m not falling into a vanilla scent, right? It’s both fresh and fruity and enveloping, it’s a perfect balance.
Can you tell me more about the process of removing the darkness from the wood?
At Chanel, we create and produce fragrances. So we work a lot with the raw materials. It’s like a second distillation, and you can choose the characteristics of the essential oils that you like. So sandalwood is usually very dry – maybe a little too dry – and sometimes it smells like paper, like a pencil. With this distillation, I tried to clean up that characteristic a little bit and make it softer. This gave me a whole new note in the background.
How does Eau Splendide compare to the other four Chance fragrances on your table?
I wanted it to be comparable to the other fragrances in terms of color, sillage, and freshness, but at the same time be different from the others. I think it had to stand out. I think it’s the fruitiest of the five fragrances—a fruity floral.
When developing the juice, did you consider a certain color?
No. In the end, when I finished the formula, we decided by smell. If you imagine a mixture of raspberry and geranium, it reminds you of violets. I think for a fragrance to be successful, everything has to be relevant and go together perfectly, so we developed the color last.
Chance has been around for more than 20 years. How do you think the Chance line will develop or evolve in the next 20 years?
I like this quote from Gabrielle Chanel: “Fashion is always changing, but style is forever.” So, I think there are new ways to express the idea of [Chance]. I also like to think that you can express it in many different ways. I can’t foresee what will happen in the next 20 years. There are many ways to express your style in a period. I think there is something to be said for a fresh and colorful fragrance like this.