Sweet smell of youth

Can a scent make you smell younger,  or does your good old favourite spray give your age away?  This vexing question occurred to Crone as she sniffed new versions of grand old classics currently gracing beauty counters now. 

Thanks to a generous puthering of iris, Chanel No.19 Poudré is a softer and more, well…powdery version of the 1971 original.  Ah, 1971.  Biba,  loons (remember falling over those ludicrous, flapping 22 inch flares?) and the sad demise of Coco Chanel, just months after her 87’th birthday the previous year. 

A green and gamine chypre, Chanel No.19 (Mlle Coco was born on 19^th August) became the bra-burning kid sister to grown-up aldehydic floral No.5.  Nothing sissy about this - Gauloises-puffing intellectuals loved No.19  for its bracing, tomboyish edge. It seems an irony then, that this pioneering ‘youth scent’ should be powdered down for a post-post feminist generation raised on amorphous  fruity florals. But Crone reluctantly admits that pumping up the iris (powdery bit) has put No.19 back on trend in a beautifully suave, easy-on-the-nose kind of way

Around the same time as No.19’s launch, Crone discovered Guerlain’s magnificent oriental, Shalimar.  Created in 1925, the year of the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts (Art Deco) in Paris, exotic Shalimar went perfectly with the ‘20s and ‘30s frocks Crone snapped up from Oxfam. (Can’t get them for love nor money, not even on Portobello these days!).  Crone’s beau de jour never failed to point out that the billows of vanilla reminded him of custard powder.  (Was she apple crumble of his eye? She didn’t stick around long enough to find out). Yet according to Guerlain nose Thierry Wasser, his 17-year-old neice found the original scent intimidating. Fair enough, beneath vanilla’s sweetness lurks a darker, more hormonal vibe.  Vanilla is, after all, an aphrodisiac - Jacques Guerlain used to say that he made Shalimar like an outrageously low-cut dress.  Wasser’s redesign, Shalimar Initial, is simpler, lighter, a little bit fruity and even more powdery.  It’s that iris riff again.

So the big question. If we loved the originals, will we embrace these new versions too? It’s been 85 years since the first Shalimar and 40 since No.19. During that time, many of the original ingredients used have now been restricted or banned.  So no, it’s not your hormones or failing sense of smell - your old favourite fragrance is almost certainly not what it once was.  Times have changed, too - and brighter, more vibrant new ingredients have given many old classics a new lease of life.  So can your scent make you smell  younger?  It’s worth a go…

• Chanel No.19 Poudré, 50ml Eau de Parfum, £61 available nationwide from July 15^th 

• Guerlain Shalimar Initial, 40ml Eau de Parfum, £37 available nationwide from August 1^st