CHANEL COCO NOIR Eau de Parfum

Sad sad sad - this is like hearing about the reunion of your favorite band to record a new album, only to have them come out with a remixed Greatest Hits record. My friends, Coco Noir is Chanel's Greatest Hits album, with the hits of the past 30 years all remixed into an insipid midi-player synthesizer melody. This is the olfactory equivalent of easily digestible, commercialized synthetic soundbytes, mixed into a 30-second ringtone. This is an all-too-brief and confused medley of Coco, Allure, Chance, Allure Sensuelle and Coco Mademoiselle, which lasts at most about two hours after spraying. Is this a joke? Are Chanel's corporate honchos laughing at our expense, watching us buy the diluted and repackaged dregs from the vats of every other recent Chanel perfume, mixed together and decanted into what looks and feels like it should be a Chinese-counterfeit bottle? There is nothing "Noir" here. There is nothing original here. This is counterfeit Chanel being sold by Chanel itself! This is hamburger being sold as tenderloin to the newbies uninterested in or conscious of what real Chanel is - or was. Dior may have a longer history of pissing off loyal fragrance devotees with its reformulations, renaming and flanker-proliferation antics, but with Coco Noir, it looks like Chanel caught the same corporatist cancer that Dior did. It's just at Stage 1 instead of Dior's end-stage corporate lymphoma. Hopefully Chanel's tumor of a fragrance (Coco Noir) responds to chemo...

UPDATE: Sucked it up and tried it on my skin today. The sillage is big at first spray - once on the chest (while in the restroom at the office) is enough to give you a cloud of Coco Noir - rose and bergamot at beginning, segueing into sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla and barely a hint of tonka. After two hours though all that's left is a skin scent with ambery traces. It's a good rendition of the classics I'll admit - it has the Chanel DNA in there somewhere, like a half-sister. The poor longevity and utter lack of originality is not worthy of Chanel though, and definitely not worthy of the marketing blitz they've put out. How much do you think they had to pay the magazines like Allure and Cosmo to include it in their "Year's Best" lists?

WOW, this is one incredible fragrance. I have worn Coco for years, yes I am a guy. I read that Brad Pitt also loves and wears Coco eau de Parfum. If a man can easily wear Coco, a man MUST wear Coco Noir. Coco Noir is warm, spicy, sexy, intriguing and very similar to Coco, but there is an underlying "greenness" that comes out, especially in the beginning. When I first apply Coco Noir, and I know this might sound odd to some, but I get a very prominent whiff of vintage (and awesome) Magie Noire :) Coco used to be a Powerhouse, but of course since the 80's it has been reformulated. Luckily, it still smells almost the same but longevity and sillage are not strong anymore. Coco Noir lasts longer, much longer, on me. Coco Noir is a Chanel Masterpiece!

I have so much love for Coco Noir. This is my all time favorite so far.

Every single time I pick up the bottle and smell it, I get this face that people have when they smell or eat something they really, really like. Then I make this sound: "AHH". Inside my head I think: "Oh my god. This smells so good im gonna die".

Guys like it too. At least the kind of guys I like. When I wear this I feel confident, sensual, charming and in charge. It brings my mood up and my pulse down. The longevity is very good in my opinion, and on my clothes it lasts forever. I hope everyone out there has a perfume that makes you feel the way Coco Noir makes me feel.

“Vous n'auriez pas vu Coco?”

Not everyone is going to like Coco Noir. After all she is not what they expected. Coco has a reputation in town for being uber-chic and almost always a perfect thing. But tonight she just wants to have fun.

THE OPENING: Bergamot, Grapefruit,

Where is the party Coco? It all begins around 10 pm in a cabaret in Pigale .Coco Noir is a party girl ripe and ready for flaming a night on the town from one end of Paris to the other. Don’t let the little black dress fool you or the gold jewelry so artfully placed lead you to think she is above scandal and a little naughty fun. Liquor sweet as cotton candy is passed around the club to girls for rent by men who light their cigars with 10 franc notes. Coco likes to mix it up with the hoi polloi and in so doing she finds herself dancing on the bar and singing her old song to the rough customers down from Montmartre.

“You have not seen Coco?
Coco in the Trocadero
Who has seen Coco?
Hey! Coco! Hey! Coco!
Who has seen Coco?
Hey! Coco!”

The crowed is singing along with her, hands grabbing at the hem of her skirt. They are laughing. She is laughing and ready to move on.

THE HEART: Rose, Jasmine, Narcissus.

It is after midnight when Coco makes her escape in a taxi to the elegant calm of Maxim’s. Her entrance causes a stir among the well dressed upper croissant of Paris. They are ALL talking about her. Some say she is too much, others that she is not enough and a few that she is heading for a fall. Where she is heading is to a private table for a late supper with a certain special Englishman. Here in the posh Maxims Coco Noir relaxes and enjoys the glamour that she infuses into the scene. All eyes are on her cool elegance as she flirts with the Englishman and sips Champagne cool and bubbly. She may laugh a little too loudly but she doesn’t care.

DRY DOWN: Sandalwood, Olibanum, Vanilla-Tonka Bean, White Musk, Patchouli.

Always the capricious coquette it is now on to the left bank. She and the English man along with a few Coco fans cross the river on foot singing her song, this time not quite so fast or as loud.

“Qui qu'a qui qu'a vu Coco?
Eh! Coco!
Eh! Coco!
Qui qu'a qui qu'a vu Coco?
Eh! Coco!”

Ending up in Le Chat Noir jazz club just off the Boulevard Saint Germain Coco leans lazily into the crook of the Englishman’s arm. Softly, dreamily she hums along to the cool slinky jazz sax. She could stay this way for hours, luxuriating in the lush smoky atmosphere of the end of a perfect night on the town. When the hangers on drift away she smiles up at her Englishman then winks.

As they walk arm in arm across the Pont Saint-Michel in the chilly pink dawn Coco Noir rests her head on his shoulder and sings softly to him.

“Qui qu'a qui qu'a vu Coco?”

The opening of Coco Noir is very bright and fizzy with bergamot and grapefruit. There is the pink fuzzy feel of cotton candy to me in the opening. That passes very fast as the bottom note olibanum snakes up to take its sensuous hold. Then the heart notes rose, jasmine and narcissus come in to play softly and with a stayed elegant enhanced by the grounding geranium and the upwardly moving bottom notes of vanilla and tonka bean. All through this center you get the arrival of the final dry down notes. Fist the sandal wood followed closely by the white musk and patchouli. It has a fine silage and last very long on my skin.

Coco Noir is not dark and mysterious as one might expect from the name and the beautiful black bottle. It is all about fun. This is a scent for a night out including anything from the Opera to a nightclub. Aside from the early cotton candy sensation that is only there for 10 minutes it really is not that overtly feminine so I would say it could be worn by both sexes.

Coco Noir is the kind of mademoiselle that when you wear her at night, anything could happen.

FIVE GOLD STARS ****

Dated a guy who I was/am in love with and he pretty much terrorized me emotionally on a daily basis for a few years, I know he loved me but I was never really sure he liked me, he gifted me this perfume on my 29th birthday after a particularly rough summer. I had mentioned once in a store that I loved Chanel Coco Noir but had never spent the money on it. Cut to the night of my birthday while laying in bed watching a movie he gives me this little gift and I unwrap it and find my beloved Coco Noir. I was on the verge of tears that he had paid attention to me enough to buy it for me. This perfume smells to me like a tender moment with someone who you adore but is typically very hard on you. It’s warm and inviting but not in a cuddly way, in a way that says you can come in, but you cannot stay the night. My experience with my ex boyfriend kind of tainted this perfume for me but didn’t take away my love for it, I look at it now the way I looked at him…as beautiful, and enticing, but unattainable and kind of cold but still warm, like a campfire inside an igloo. When I wear this it lasts decades. I get so many compliments as well. I don’t smell citrus in this like everyone else, but I do get hints of beautiful rose, clove and benzoin. My feelings for Coco Noir are much the same as my feelings for that boyfriend, I’ll never get over them, and that’s fine with me.