Beige

Chanel launched Beige in 2008 in its Les Exclusifs collection. Jacques Polge and Christopher Sheldrake, the house perfumers, interpreted it around a color dear to Gabrielle Chanel: “I take refuge in beige because it is natural,” she used to say.

The house evokes a color of elegance whose shades recall sand, earth and honey, a soothing hue that enhances the women who wrap themselves in it. The name revives that of an old Chanel fragrance, sold in its founder’s lifetime alongside Rouge and Bleu.

One collection, several forms

Launched as a 200 ml eau de toilette, at first exclusive to Saks in New York according to Elena Vosnaki, Beige is now sold as an eau de parfum. The house also offers it as a scented body oil and as an extrait, in the Les Extraits de Chanel collection.

It specifies that the eau de parfum and the extrait are distinct olfactory interpretations, each highlighting its own materials or accords; the extrait is therefore not simply a more concentrated version of the eau de parfum.