Chanel’s New Raspberry Perfume Smells Like Girlhood

When I was a girl, I wanted to smell like a woman. I sought out perfumes that had Lady or Woman in the name and scents that were deemed classics by magazines. As a teenager, I once wore one of these legendary fragrances to church, and my mother was so horrified by how strong and grown up it smelled that she banned me from wearing perfume on Sundays. Now, as a woman, I want to smell like a girl (and I wear fragrance on any day of the week that I desire).

Wanting to smell like a girl is a tricky thing, because as Britney Spears once sang, “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman.” Powdery florals nor smoky ambers are not really my cup of Taiwanese oolong, and I don’t want to smell like the equivalent of a high school going-out top (Victoria’s Secret body splash-style). For that in-between, there is Chanel Chance Eau Splendide.

I’ve always been drawn to the playful, fun spirit of Chanel Chance and their novelty products, like their Perfume Crayons (now discontinued). Eau Splendide comes in a shade of purple that’s almost like periwinkle, and smells like an earthy garden with a top layer of tart raspberries. It is a scent for drinking in sunshine and feeling hopeful. Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge described the scent to me as “direct” because, like a young girl that says whatever comes to her mind first, it has “a top hook that grabs you almost immediately”—a specially developed raspberry accord. After originally considering other fruits, such as cranberries, he was drawn to raspberry because of its perfect blend of sweetness and rosiness. “I like that the fruitiness is not too sweet and that there was something enveloping and fresh at the same time,” he said.

But “the main character,” says Polge, is the rose geranium, which is often described by perfumers as a “rose with a bite.” A special varietal grown by the brand at their fields in Grasse, France, this particular note really grabbed me, smelling like dirt in 76-degree weather, roses on the stem, herbs, and mint. It is the heart of the fragrance and what gives it its depth; it’s what lingers on the skin after hours of wear. Sniffing my arm at different times throughout the course of the day, I alternated between smelling sweet, tart, earthy, rosy, and fresh, like the many facets of a woman.

The glittering, sunshine-y nature of the scent was a particular focus for Polge. In combining the notes, he was wary of “darkening the identity of the scent,” and wanted to always retain its brightness. Eschewing notes like vanilla, or darker spices like cloves or cinnamon, he calls Eau Splendide “easy.” “It is a scent of optimism,” he says simply—both girlish and womanly at the same time.