Chance

Chanel launched Chance in 2003 and broke two of its own habits at once. The bottle is round, not the severe rectangle the house had used since the 1920s, and the fragrance itself refuses to sit still: Chanel calls it unpredictable and in perpetual movement, an unexpected floral that sweeps you into a whirlwind. The name comes from a line Gabrielle Chanel liked to repeat - that she saw an opportunity and took it. No nose appears on the product page. Jacques Polge, who ran fragrance creation at the house between 1978 and 2015, is the name usually given.

The eau de toilette is the original and the strangest of the family. It opens on pink pepper and a bright, almost fizzy pineapple, with hyacinth and iris giving it a cool green edge that most fruity florals never bother with. Lemon and jasmine hold the middle, rose sits underneath rather than on top, and then the whole thing settles onto patchouli - earthy, a little dusty, softened by vetiver, vanilla and musk. Chanel's own summary is a floral with spicy and gourmand facets, which undersells how odd and how good the patchouli backbone is.

It reads young without reading cheap, and it is the version to reach for when you want the Chance idea with some grit still in it. Warm weather flatters it; on a humid Durban afternoon the pineapple-pepper opening stays lively far longer than it does in the cold.

Performance is moderate rather than heroic. Four to six hours is typical from the eau de toilette, with the first hour doing most of the projecting before it turns into a skin scent that lingers on clothing much longer. Chanel keeps several readings of Chance in its range beside this one, among them an eau de parfum and the Eau Tendre, Eau Fraiche and Eau Vive variations, and the eau de parfum is the one to pick if longevity is your main complaint.