Chanel no 5 eau de toilette 100ml

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Chanel No.5 EDT was literally my very first adult fragrance, though I was a mere child of 11 or 12, around 1987. I know, I know. You are now thinking, "Excuse me....what?" Well, this was given to my mother as a gift by someone at that time, and my mother, who was a very young mother, really hated it upon first sniff. My mother was wearing Giorgio dupes at the time (and eventually the real thing). Sorry mom, but I LOATHED that scent. So anyways, you can see how Chanel was not exactly her style. We were also pretty poor I should mention, and the Chanel was one of the most expensive things she ever owned, and so, she could not bring herself to waste it and gave it to me. I never wore it to school, but I would wear it around sometimes. I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it. I acknowledge that I really did feel like I smelled like an old lady, but still, I felt rich when I wore it being the most expensive thing I ever owned. Eventually I stopped "playing' around with this scent and stopped wearing it, but did keep it around because it was a sleek container that I loved (better than the EDT bottles of now). It was all black, with a gold band around the area where the lid detached and the Chanel interlocking C's stamped into the top of the cap. Sadly though, eventually I lost that bottle. It didn't bother me much for a very long time, because I never thought in terms of my future and this becoming vintage. But the sadness of it being gone now really washes over me sometimes lately!

Fast forward to high school and I started liking different kinds of scents- the Gap scents (Heaven, Grass, etc). I sometimes would wear cheap musk oils, or Jovan White Musk. I did somehow come into a bottle of Ralph Lauren's Lauren which I did love (and still do). I never was a fan of any celebrity scents though they were popular and inexpensive at the time. I just never could be bothered with them. I also wasn't a daily fragrance wearer. Which I came to find out some girls/women consider "odd". But whatever...I just did my own thing.
I remembered my old Chanel again though. This time I wanted something more modern and found myself blowing a load of money from my after school job on Chanel Allure. Oh I thought I loved that scent at the time, and I felt so sophisticated wearing it (but not old!). However, truth be told it never reacted well on my skin. But I wore it, and wore it...because it was expensive! Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and gave it to a friend. I really dislike Allure now because of that experience. I wasn't actually being "me".

Fast forward again to around 2002. I'm now married and have my own home. I'm around 27 years old. I begin wearing things like Estee Lauder Pleasure's and Clinique Happy. They smelled nice enough, but really they were never really "me" either. And I sort of now despise those scents as well (Happy makes me absolutely ill and not at all "happy"!). I still really wasn't a faithful wearer of fragrance either, sometimes it just felt like I was trying to be someone else in fragrances and it was never comfortable to me. Sometimes I felt like wearing it, sometimes I did not. I always spritzed on something when going out in the evenings though. I started to feel like I wanted something more sophisticated and mature, I wanted to find "me" in a fragrance. I remembered my old EDT that was long gone. I revisted it and tested it and low and behold, it didn't make me smell like an old lady anymore! It was classy and soft, and it really did react well on my skin. But as I was still not a faithful wearer of scent, this EDT more or less has just sat around for the last almost 20 years now. Only pulled out on occasion for evenings out. Never did I wear this during the day. No5 was somehow closer to being "me" than ever before, but not quite there. I stumbled one day upon a magazine sample of Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely, and for the first time in my life, I immediately HAD to have a fragrance. It felt like ME. I bought it around the time it first came out around 2006/2007 or so. It's taken many years to discover, but that is my signature scent. So for a very long stretch in the the Aughts (2006 or so to 2020) I owned only Lovely, Chanel No 5 EDT, and then eventually Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet and Origin's Ginger Essence with a Bath and Body works scent thrown in here or there. That is all. For YEARS.

One day, during the hellscape that was 2020 and truth be told still is in 2021, I found myself cleaning out my bathroom where I have a little vanity type cabinet. And randomly picked up my Chanel No 5 and just sprayed it on me. At around 10 a.m . on a random Wednesday. I inhaled deeply and I just couldn't stop smelling myself. I felt so comforted now by this scent, why haven't I been wearing it? Just deep nostalgia and comfort and a sense of ease in my own skin suddenly descended upon me. I reached for my Lovely the next day, which I really wasn't even wearing anymore, only on special occasions. And well, there were NO special occasions in 2020 so...
Again, why do I not wear these scents? It just felt like a warm embrace. And I found myself interested in all things Perfume suddenly. Like a hobby! And well,here I am....

I've discovered that while Chanel No 5 isn't my signature, it is "me" quite a bit, it depends on my mood. She is at once loud and soft. Rich and classy but understated at the same time. It does smell soapy as some have said, but not soap like Dial or Jergens, but as the most expensive, luxurious soap you can find at a department store. After awhile, the loudness dials way down (which is the initial burst of the aldehydes I've discovered) and it's almost a skin scent. But it lingers around you in a soft, luxurious cloud all day, and while you think only you can smell it, I assure you, others do get wafts from you and you will get compliments. A lot of people don't actually know what they are smelling because of preconceived notions of what No5 is. I cannot say that I can pick apart the notes in this scent, other than the aldehydes. It is just so well blended that I would never have guessed any of the notes that are in here, are actually in here! And I'm ok with that....

So this EDT has now made my daily scent wearing rotation. Yes, DAILY! It's helped me a lot through these times, as I said, a sense of comfort. Oh and since my bottle is around 20 years old now, it's on it's way to vintage ;-) I may buy a newer bottle to spray more regularly and save my almost, not quite vintage bottle to make up for past discretions against this beautiful creation.

What is Chanel No. 5 supposed to smell like?

What does Chanel No. 5 L Eau smell like?

What makes Chanel No. 5 so special?

What is the difference between Chanel No. 5 and L Eau?