by English Nurse

Created on: April 07, 2007   Last Updated: April 17, 2007

When you think Chanel you probably think of their more famous perfume No 5, being a total perfume junkie I'll admit to having a bottle of this, it's not a firm favourite at all and for many years I did avoid Chanel perfumes due to the fact I thought No5 was slightly medicore and a little bit dated in all honesty! Chanel Allure on the other hand is definetly a more sophisticated 90's perfume. Allure was created by the Chanel nose - a posh word for perfume maker Jaques Polge, his aim was to create a sophisticated, seductive perfume which Chanel launched in 1996. Polge was also responsible for the making of Coco Chanel and Egotise in the 1980's.

Chanel packaging has always been simple and so easily recognisable as such. Coco Chanel stated "Always remove always strip away, never add" her maxim carries true today with the Allure packaging. There is no fancy box with roses or the like entwined round it, no weird and wonderful shaped bottle what you get is trade mark Chanel - stark but catchy and functional with an expensive look to it as you have the Chanel trade mark embellised on the box! The box it's self is pretty functional - I'm not a big packaging person it&# 39;s the goods inside that matter more to me. With a background colour that is reminiscent of a pinky foundation you have a gold edge and in true stark fashion the name Allure is printed very simply in white capitals underneath it is the trade mark Chanel in black! The bottle itself is plain with a simple silver and gold top. It wouldn't win any awards for design of the year but as I said before it's the product inside that matters to me.

Now I was hooked on this perfume due to how it smelt on someone else, but we all know that just because a perfume smells heavenly on someone else it doesn't mean it's going to smell divine on you does it? I speak with the voice of bitter experince here I once rushed out and spent far too much on a bottle of Ystatis without testing it on me. On a friend it smelt wonderful on me it smelt like some cheap copy perfume you'd buy on a market stall! With this in mind I took myself off to Boots and doused myself liberally in the stuff and waited to see what it smelt like after the intial first notes died down.

On first sniff this perfume smells strong but if you give it about 10 minutes you'll get the true smell as it dries on your skin. It has a sophisticated smell to it, ever so slightly seductive but not too heavy that it couldn't be worn as a day time perfume. Ever so slightly flowery but not that flowery in that you wouldn't start to think it was a perfume your Gran would wear! It's subtle but lingers would be one way to describe it. Jaques Pogle used six facets when creating Allure they are: "Fresh, woody,orinental, fruity, timeless flower and imaginery flower" In my opinion he did a pretty good job of creating a wonderful perfume!

Allure comes in Eau De Parfum in 100ml, 50ml and 35ml bottles, Eau de Toilette again in 100ml,50ml and 35ml as well as a pack of 3 15ml handbag sizes. There is also a range of body products including a body lotion, bath gel, talc and a body mist spray.

Should you have a birthday coming up then this would be one perfume I'd suggest you added to your present list! Boy's if you want to make the love of your life feel like a million dollars then you know what you have to do!

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