The best-known Old Lady perfume is probably the classic Chanel No. It's definitely a refined fragrance and anyone of any age can use it if they like the notes that make up the iconic scent. But the surprising thing is that 99% of modern perfume consumers probably still associate No. A very complex blend of aldehydes and flowers including rose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, lily of the valley and iris on a warm, woody base of vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, amber and patchouli, this perfume satisfies Chanel's request not to.
Chanel No. 5 is a long-lasting perfume with moderate performance, which is not bad at all when you consider a complex composition. In 1921, Parisian fashion designer Gabrielle Coco Chanel asked Russian perfumer Ernest Beaux to create something that smelled like a woman, not a parterre. 5 is the first perfume in the floral aldehyde group and the first because of the amount of aldehydes in its composition (another legend says that Ernest Beaux's assistant mistakenly overdosed the aldehydes in the composition).
Perfumer Ernest Beaux, while developing samples for approval by Chanel, created and used for the first time a synthetic component called aldehydes. The French fashion house Chanel was founded by Coco Chanel in 1909 as a hat shop at 160 Boulevard Malesherbes in Paris.
