I tried. Really, I tried. I’ve worn this EDP on and off since the mid-nineties, the EDT in the eighties and again last year. I even hunted down a dab of vintage extrait.

It’s not you, No. 5, it’s me.

Chanel No. 5 doesn’t make me feel glamorous; it makes me feel like a shabby imposter in borrowed clothes.

It’s just too polished, like a hairdo that doesn’t move. If it’s the golden Brancusi that Turin describes, I yearn for a patina, even a few fingerprints to break up the perfection. Instead, I get a funhouse distortion of myself in the oleophobic surface. No.5 may be beautiful, untouchable, but it twists me into a warped little gremlin.

No. 5 feels like everything I ever rebelled against: being “ladylike”. It has no sense of fun, no sense of fire. I like the weird brainy ones, the ones who will risk failing to say something new, risk falling for the joy of dancing on the table, the messy bitches, the complicated ones, the ones who stand up and speak, the ones who will take to the streets and roar. Perfumes and people alike. No 5 wouldn’t even risk getting hiccups from laughing too hard.

It is a marvel of abstract perfumery and a sturdy survivor in these years of cheap and over-regulated reformulations. I admire No. 5 but I can’t love a perfume that thinks it’s better than me. So, I’m off to take a shower, and a post-midnight snack, and rampage around a while.

How do you get on with No. 5?

originally posted 14 June 2019