Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum

Bleu de Chanel began in 2010 as an eau de toilette generally credited to Jacques Polge, who gave thirty-seven years to the house as its in-house perfumer, and became one of the most widely worn men's fragrances of its decade. The eau de parfum followed in 2014, and it is not a simple concentration increase. Where the eau de toilette is bright, metallic and grapefruit-led, the eau de parfum takes the same skeleton and warms it: more incense, more resin, a rounder wood base. Chanel classifies it as aromatic-woody with ambery and musky notes, and names cedar and New Caledonian sandalwood as the woods doing the heavy lifting.

The opening is citrus, but a dry one. Grapefruit and lemon rather than orange, with mint and pink pepper giving a cool prickle and aldehydes lending that faintly soapy, expensive lift. Coriander runs underneath. The heart is where the eau de parfum separates itself, with ginger and nutmeg bringing a warm spiciness and a whisper of melon keeping things from getting too solemn. Then the base arrives and stays: incense smoke, amber, cedar, sandalwood and a clean patchouli, dry and slightly smoky, with labdanum adding a leathery resin. It smells expensive in a way that is hard to argue with, which is precisely the point.

This is a fragrance without a difficult season. It is dark enough for a Cape winter evening and dry enough that it does not turn cloying in coastal humidity. It reads professional, so it works for interviews and boardrooms, and polished, so it works for dinner. The usual criticism, that it is everywhere, is true and beside the point. It is everywhere because it works.

Performance is a genuine strength. Expect eight to ten hours, with strong projection in the first two and a persistent skin presence after that. Two sprays is plenty and four is inconsiderate. Worth knowing before you commit: Chanel has built the family out considerably and currently sells an eau de toilette, this eau de parfum, a parfum and an L'Exclusif parfum, each meaningfully different. The eau de parfum is the middle path and, for most wearers, the right one. Olivier Polge, who joined Chanel in 2013 and succeeded his father as in-house perfumer in 2015, is the name Chanel credits on the line today.