Robert H. Chanel No. 5 The Body Oil (l'huile corps)

With Halloween firmly behind us, we are careening headlong into the final stretch before the winter holidays. Even before the pumpkin carving started, the retail holiday specials were flooding my inbox full of new releases, but only one made me catch my breath; the recently issued re-release of a 2016 unicorn, the Chanel No.5 Body Oil 2018. Faster than you can say “Happy Hannukah” two bottles of this magic elixir were on their way to me. Why all the fuss you might ask? When Chanel first released their Chanel No. 5 body oil two years ago as a limited edition, it disappeared off the shelves at a truly astonishing rate. Released in late October 2016 and gone in a puff of scented smoke by early December. You could find the occasional bottle on Ebay, but by then it was almost double the retail price. I imagine the hew and cry from devoted Chanel fans must have deafened the decision makers at Chanel Corporate, for thankfully two years later it’s back for Holiday 2018 again as a limited edition. Chanel No.5 Body Oil 2018 is dry oil; it goes on smooth and silky without any oily residue. The scent is all the good bits of the Chanel 5 parfum drydown without the aldehydes or heavier base notes, and what’s left is a textbook perfect floral that positively sings on your skin. It is NOT particularly long-lasting or moisturizing; for that you’d use the creamy Chanel 5 Body lotion. What the dry oil is great for is acting as a perfumed “sub-woofer” if you will.

Gail's vintage Chanel No.5 collection©

I’ve worn it under all of the Chanel No. 5 variations in my collection; Eau de Cologne, Eau de Toilette, Eau de Parfum , Parfum, Eau Premiere and L’Eau among others and it provides a sumptuous base note that presents as a perfectly well rounded and realized accompaniment to an already world-class fragrance. If you love Chanel No.5 as a fragrance, then the body oil will provide that “jen ne sais quoi” oomph which rockets the perfume right up into the fragranced stratosphere. Chanel No.5 Body Oil 2018 comes in a beautiful and heavy frosted glass bottle and the best part is that it’s 200 ml. at the great price of $85.00. There’s a reason Chanel No.5 is one of the top-selling perfumes of all time (a bottle is sold globally every two minutes), so the only questions remaining are A.) how many bottles and B.) how fast can I order it?  Body Oil is available at Chanel.com and many official Chanel sales outlets.

Notes: (No notes given, but I suspect these are pretty close…) Neroli, ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, iris, vanilla, amber.

Disclosure: The bottles of Chanel No.5 Body Oil 2018 and opinions are my own.

–Robert Herrmann, Senior Editor