Smell This

Posted by Carolyn

on January 9, 2009

Looking for a new perfume, but tired of spraying scents on a piece of paper and then sticking your nose in a jar of coffee beans? I don’t think I’ve lasted more than testing three fragrances at a time that way before my nose gets itchy and my eyes get watery. Well, Chanel has developed a new way to sample the wide range of their fragrance collection at an Olfactive Bar, exclusive to Saks Fifth Ave flagship in New York City. They use a patented ceramic blotting system (the same ceramic that is used in Chanel’s J12 watches), which allows you to smell the entire complex nature of a fragrance. The system is so precise that I could smell the subtleties between an EDP and EDT of one of my favorite fragrances Coco Mademoiselle (the difference is the omission of one singular note in the EDP).

Those who think that Chanel fragrances are limited to No. 5, Coco, Mademoiselle, Allure and Chance are in for a real treat. The bar houses 43 concentrates that encompass the entire range of Chanel’s fragrances. Did you know they have a scent called Cuir de Russie that contains leather and tobacco notes and No. 18 that smells the way you’d imagine a diamond scent to be?

Saks is also the only home of the Chanel Beige fragrance, a new scent that launched to wide editorial acclaim. Named after one of Coco Chanel’s favorite colors, Beige is the elegant scent of a “bouquet of hawthorn, freesia and frangipani, with shimmering hints of honey.”

The bar is located at the Chanel Beauty House at Saks, 611 5th Avenue New York.