ernest beaux
Editor’s note pending — every credited perfumer eventually gets a written profile here.
The compositions
Bois des Iles
The opening is a soft, peachy brightness tempered by neroli—more gauze than glitter.
Les Exclusifs de Chanel Cuir de Russie
The opening is sharp and austere—bergamot cut with something dry and smoky, like the first strike of a match in a cold room.
Chanel N°22
N°22 opens with an almost austere clarity—white florals stripped of their sweetness, neroli cutting through tuberose like citrus through cream.
Chanel n022
The opening is a white floral rush—tuberose and neroli tangled with lily of the valley—immediate and almost indolic, but held in check by a crisp, citrus-tinged brightness.
Les Exclusifs de Chanel Cuir de Russie 1924
Cuir de Russie opens with a flash of bergamot and clary sage that quickly gives way to its true character: birch tar leather, austere and nearly medicinal in its severity.
Les Exclusifs de Chanel No 22
No.
Soir de Paris (Evening in Paris)
Soir de Paris opens with a dusky, powder-soft bloom—violet and peach blurred together like twilight through gauze.
Gardenia
One of Chanel's earliest-surviving white florals, Gardenia never quite smells like gardenia — the flower is nearly impossible to capture directly — but invents something gardenia-adjacent through orange blossom, tuberose, and jasmine working in concert.
Chanel No 5 Eau de Cologne
A lighter, more transparent interpretation of the iconic formula, this eau de cologne opens with a brisk citrus-ylang greeting that feels almost soapy in its clarity.
Chanel No 5 Eau de Toilette
The eau de toilette lightens No.
Chanel N°5 (Vintage)
Chanel n05 Vintage
Chanel No 5 Parfum
The first spray feels like stepping into a room where aldehydes hang in the air like champagne bubbles—bright, soapy, almost abstract.
Kobako
A dry cinnamon haze opens Kobako, spiced and slightly dusty, as though carried from an old lacquer box lined with powdered bark.