The best-selling perfume of all time is none other than a great classic. Zoom in on this iconic fragrance with such a unique history.
There are smells that we would recognize among a thousand. Olfactory signatures that have spanned the decades without ever aging or going out of fashion. This is indeed the case with this perfume, the ultimate symbol of French elegance. Created over a hundred years ago, this revolutionary fragrance remains at the top of global sales today. Immerse yourself in the history of an eternal legacy that no one has ever managed to dethrone.
It all began in 1921, on the Côte d’Azur, with a fierce desire to shake up the perfumery codes of the time. Coco Chanel then decided to create the very first perfume for her house after years of success in haute couture. Tired of demure scents that only revolved around a single flower like rose or violet, she called for an extraordinary juice, a feminine scent that was unlike any other. For this, she calls on the nose Ernest Beaux who will use natural materials but also synthetic molecules: aldehydes. The latter give perfumes a unique dimension, at once sparkling, metallic and effervescent, and give incredible diffusion power. The perfumer offers a juice composed of 80 different ingredients. A first for the time.
Among the various numbered tests presented to Coco Chanel, she chose the sample bearing the number 5. This is how the legendary Chanel No. 5 was born, which would, without knowing it, invent modern perfumery by combining the natural and the artificial for the first time. It opens with lemon accords accompanied by neroli flower. Then come the heart notes: jasmine, rose and ylang-ylang. They finally give way to iris, vanilla, vetiver and musk, for an effect that is both powdery and sensual.
Today, Chanel N°5 remains the best-selling perfume of all time. Just that. If this bottle sits in the pantheon of beauty, it is not only for its sillage, but for its impressive statistics. It is estimated that a bottle is sold every 30 seconds worldwide, or around 10 million bottles per year. Although the house of Chanel keeps its sales figures secret, N°5 is regularly cited as the best-selling in history, having generated billions of dollars in turnover since its creation.
What makes it even more exceptional are indeed the icons who have in turn embodied it: from the legendary Marylin Monroe (who slept with it), to Catherine Deneuve, including Audrey Tautou, Gisele Bündchen and even Lily-Rose Depp… This juice represents femininity, luxury and complexity. “If this perfume were a material, it would be silk velvet. If it were a color it would be a golden beige or a bright off-white“, even declared Ernest Beaux at the time. A trail that crosses generations without ever making compromises, today as yesterday, the world continues to dress itself in a few drops of Chanel No. 5.
