Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum by Chanel (2014)

Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum by Chanel (2014) - Basenotes

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 09:17 AM PST

I said my piece on the whys and wherefores of the Bleu de Chanel (2010) line on the entry for the original eau de toilette that launched it, and despite every indication from the learned and scrupled crowd of male fragrance connoisseurs here on Basenotes pointing toward Bleu de Chanel being a vapid generalist sell-out, the overall effect of wearing the late coming Chanel entry into the aquatic genre by making a non-aquatic blue juice was actually pleasurable. Granted, an aquatic is an aquatic is an aquatic, even if it technically is not, as all the myriad children of Davidoff Cool Water (1988) have a very narrowly-defined blueprint to which they must adhere whether they have an aquatic note or not, if they wish to be recognizable for what they are to the layman, and that makes even Chanel's uncommonly sophisticated entry still a victim of the "if you're not a beer drinker" argument that states if you don't like the style, Bleu de Chanel still won't change your mind. With that having been said, taking the alternative concentrations route instead of the flankers route was a surprising move for Chanel here with Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum (2014), as everyone just so intently expected a sport, intense, eau fraîche, la nuit, or something other than just an eau de parfum option of the best-selling masculine. If you know anything about Chanel's practices with concentrations as per what they usually do with their feminine lines, you'll probably have already guessed that this is a slightly different composition and not just more perfume oil. Chanel had initially done this with masculines too right around the end of the 20th century, with entries like Chanel Pour Monsieur Eau de Toilette Concentrée (1989) or Égoïste Cologne Concentrée (1992), but it hasn't been since then that something like what we have here has appeared.

Four years after the release of the original mega-popular Bleu de Chanel, comes this EdP, and there still wasn't much competition then since Prada Luna Rossa (2012) didn't really light anyone's world on fire, plus we were still a year away from the launch of Dior Sauvage (2015), the biggest challenger Bleu de Chanel has in the ambroxan and norlimbanol loudness wars. The composition to the EdP therefore doesn't feel like a marked improvement or variation from the original release, much like Égoïste Cologne Concentrée wasn't much different from the original Égoïste (1990), but had a few of it's graphic equalizer sliders moved up a few notches while a few others are slid down. In practical terms, this means a similar but dialed-down opening achieved by a few top notes being moved to the heart for sustain, then more notes stuffed into the heart, which is where eau de parfums work hardest, then a shuffled-around base to make the dry down feel differently than in the eau de toilette to (attempt to) warrant a purchase. Drier and lighter notes like lemon and bergamot, join the peppermint in the top, while grapefruit, vetiver and pink pepper move downstairs to live in the middle here alongside the nutmeg, labadanum, and cedar, with jasmine and ginger also intensified a bit. The only new addition to the composition is an old-fashioned composite amber accord, which provides a vanillic sweetness that hides the scratchy harshness otherwise caused by ramped-up ambroxan and norlimbanol, which is something later perfumes in this style by other houses would seldom even try to do at all. Sillage is lower than the EdT but the burn is expectedly longer on skin, but is it really better? No, and in fact, I find this iteration of the 2010's Chanel masculine pillar to be less dynamic and therefore less interesting.

I've always sort of felt that the very nature of "blue juices" goes against them lending themselves well to being perfumes. Colognes or toilet waters in a synthetic but breezy crisp style definitely have their place and have obviously resonated with the general public for three decades now, but their lightness is actually where their appeal lies, and to take that away is to doom their effectiveness as what they're intended to be. Simply put, Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum is a freshie that isn't fresh, and there will never be wisps of that effervescent and bouncy top past the opening 15 minutes like there is with the original eau de toilette, just a DMV waiting room of sweet florals, spices and synthetic base notes meant to simulate the comfort of real woods and animalics like cedar or ambergris, and it's all very "Glade Plug-In" at that point once the top is neutered on their behalf. If Chanel had wanted this to work better, they should have asked Jacques Polge to just totally reinvent it as a new scent like he did with Pour Monsieur Eau de Toilette Concentrée, which is a warmer, richer, altogether different experience than the original Chanel Pour Monsieur (1955) from Henri Robert. This isn't bad, but has the olfactive effect of digitally remastering an album to be louder, squishing the dynamic range in the process, and losing both crisp highs and deep bass to clipping in favor of terrorizing you with a crackly midrange vocal track which makes even the best set of speakers sound like a muzac system in the very same DMV mentioned above. Come on Chanel, you know better. More of a "good" thing isn't always what we want.