Review of Chanel Chance Eau Tendre by Mac789
Eau Tendre will go down in history as the "Pink Chanel." Chanel finally commits to the fruity/floral market with this latecomer that has very little to do with its progenitor. Eau Tendre makes me suspect that Eau Tendre is less inspiration and more the perspiration of pouring over just which fruit note sells and how much sugar must be added to the mix; the scent has obviously been made to appeal to a market younger than that of Chance's second flanker Eau Fraiche.
Chanel has made a delicate, pale-hued citrus floral that makes blushing virgins out of both grapefruit and jasmine. Everything has a modest quality to it, from the thin glaze of grapefruit at the top to the
angelic, non-indolic jasmine in the heart. The musk is a perfect oval at the bottom, mostly obfuscating an interrupted amber note. Cedar is a pleasing woody touch until it too is snipped, leaving room only for musk and remnant jasmine. At base level, the fragrance smells synthetic and unfortunately "modern," continuing to blur the line between personal fragrance and airliner lavatory. This is a terrible trend and someone ought to march against it, except that such an organized protest would be futile, since the stuff sells so well.
Surprisingly, the grapefruit note holds quite well and the floral notes do not. Eau Tendre has a brasher counterpart in La Vanilia Vanilla Grapefruit; if you liked the latter, you'll like Eau Tendre. Although Eau Tendre shares little with Chance, it does have (and is not openly admitting) to, the original's vanilla, dabbed through iris. Missing is Chance's sticky patchouli, which, in concert with vanilla, defines Chance for me.
Chanel hasn't reinvented the wheel here, but I am going to offer that they have improved it. Fruity-florals as a rule now seem to be in competition with one another for being the sweetest (Escada, which has the onus of an annual competition with itself), the stickiest, and the muskiest, and here Chanel has shown restraint. You won't want to jab a swizzle stick into Eau Tendre or to pour it over ice cream, but it may leave you baffled as to its birth family.