29-04-2025
Chanel released a brand new perfume after eight years - here's our beauty director's verdict on the spring Chance fragrance
The one gift we'd never say no to? A bottle of Chanel perfume. The luxury brand is as renowned for its fragrances as it is for handbags and tweed jackets, and with good reason – the scents themselves are iconic, beloved by perfume-wearers of all ages.
It's been a long time since we've seen anything new from Chanel's fragrance line; eight years to be exact. But good things come to those who wait – and now, Chanel has expanded the Chance collection with a new perfume: Chance Eau Splendide.
Chance Eau Splendide
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With its lilac shade and tart raspberry top notes, Eau Splendide is a sunshine-filled, girlish scent, one that Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge describes as 'direct', with a 'hook that grabs you almost immediately'.
After originally considering other fruits such as cranberries for the new perfume, he chose raspberry because of its blend of sweetness and rosiness. 'I like that the fruitiness is not too sweet and that there was something enveloping and fresh at the same time.'
The cranberry is combined with rose geranium, which gives the fragrance depth. However, there are no darker spices such as clove or cinnamon because Polge wanted the perfume to be 'easy… the scent of optimism,' he told Elle US.
Of course, when the You magazine beauty team heard about the new Chance Eau Splendide we had to try it – a Chanel launch is not to be sniffed it (or in this case, it simply must be sniffed).
You's beauty director Rosie Green and deputy beauty editor Alice Robertson both had a good smell of the scent – and both have shared their verdicts.
'This is a fruity-floral – which as someone who is averse to flowery fragrances, I was worried about,' says Robertson. 'My overwhelming takeaway was fruity raspberry notes, which felt clean and crisp rather than juvenile thanks to hints of white musk.
'It's also not too saccharine, which from the description you might assume but there is a bit of freshness there. It's not one I'd personally wear – I'm a tonka/wood/herb kind of woman – but it's also not one I'd be horrified to be sat next to on the tube.'
Green says: 'A true summer scent, Chanel's latest offering is vivacious and refreshing. Think a sparkling fruity cocktail on a hot day. It's made more sophisticated with the addition of soft musk and powdery iris and more desirable by the spherical bottle and lilac hue. I'd throw it in my bag for instant cool when the temperatures rise.'
So there you have it – a strong contender for your new summer scent.
