1957

The house presents an ambery eau de parfum made of neroli and iris, paired with a cedar-musk accord softened by white musks, for a powdery trail. Its American page says it opens with bergamot and neroli, with a heart of iris and woody, honeyed and powdery accents.

The notes released at launch placed pink pepper, coriander and white musks at the start, white musks and orange blossom in the development, and vanilla, honey, white musks and cedar in the base. Musk thus runs through all three stages of the composition.

Musk worked like a material

Olivier Polge explains that each Exclusif explores a path the house had never taken. Enveloping, white musks give off, in his words, a more or less pronounced light and vary in their soft and sensual effects, so that 1957 reveals itself differently from one person to the next.

The perfumer also describes it as a musk to layer with other fragrances. At its release, 10 Magazine spoke of a blend of eight white musks, a play of transparency and opacity through which woody, honeyed, spicy and floral vibrations pass.

What the label declares

On Chanel’s ingredient list, tetramethyl acetyloctahydronaphthalenes, a synthetic woody molecule, comes right after alcohol, fragrance and water. Further on appear bergamot and orange peel oils, bitter orange flower oil, which is neroli, and hexadecanolactone, a macrocyclic musk.

The list also names the allergens that regulations require to be declared, among them linalool, coumarin, eugenol and isoeugenol, down to camphor and carvone. The label mentions neither sunscreen filter nor colorant.