Chloe / Love, Chloe

...a tender boudoir scent.


It was with a sense of fumie duty rather than frothing anticipation that I approached Love, Chloé by Chloé. Requests for review were tumbling in on my YouTube channel, so I grudgingly obliged by spritzing my Nordstorm sample and poising fingers over the keyboard, waiting to be underwhelmed. Chloé eau de toilette, eau de parfum and Intense (which I'd liked the best of the three) had lulled me into a soapy rose stupor, and I'd assumed Love, Chloé was bound to be a snoozy harmony on the same old tune.

Wrong. Wrong! The cool new bottle holds a cool new fume, created by Louise Turner and Nathalie Gracia-Cetto, and built around violety iris and powdery rice. It is incredibly beautiful. The story goes that Love, Chloé is inspired by the scent of old-fashioned face powder, and that is charmingly apparent as the first few wafts lift off the skin.

Bottle design + juice color = severe gorgeousness

But wait — there's more! The nostalgic cosmetic accord is merely the gateway to a hazy, languid eau de parfum that becomes more intimate as the skin's heat pulses through it. The candied violet facet gives way to iris' woody/powdery aspect, and the sweetness of Love, Chloé's hyacinth and lilac is tempered by my favorite aspect of the perfume: the creamy, buttery rice note.

The rice thickens the scent, and adds a marvelously physical salty body smell. At the same time, a background rose starts pushing its way forward, and Love, Chloé slips right into the post-coital painted lady category alongside Etat Libre d'Orange Putain des Palaces and Juliette Has a Gun Citizen Queen.

As it settles into the fade-out, a soft, spicy musk, comfortingly masculine, drifts by. Love, Chloé's intersection of innocent and sensual puts me in mind of those soft-focus porny ballerina photos by David Hamilton that were big in the late 70s and early 80s:



Like Hamilton's sapphic fantasies, Love, Chloé simmers with powder, skin, sweat and sweetness. There's no sharpness here: the sillage is less of a trail and more of an atmosphere. This dusty iris/rose poem is both a tender boudoir scent and a promise of future nudity.


"Pause" by David Hamilton

30 comments:

  1. mmm, powdery, buttery, creamy rice? i had minimal interest in sniffing this one, but now i'm practically ready to throw down for a (super dreamy looking) bottle before one sniff! i felt the same about le mimosa. your enthusiasm is dangerously infectious.

    also, are you in a new room?

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  2. elizabeth, I *am* very enthused about this one, and it's not even my usual cup of incense/rose/patchouli over which I can reliably pop my top.

    And yes, I've moved from the dining room/office to the bedroom for the next series of videos.

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  3. I accidentally received a sample, I mean, trying it wasn't even remotely on my mind and I sprayed it on without hope I might like it.
    I was very pleasantly surprised! I'm not a Chloe fan but this one I could easily wear (and I plan on wearing my sample while it holds). :)

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  4. elisabeth said it well, this review really made me want to give this 'fume another go! I've tried it once when my nose was quite worn out by other smells. On the never ending list it goes:)

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  5. Thank you for reviewing this. I've been curious about it. I think I'll give it a sniff next time I'm at the mall!

    Any chance you'll be reviewing the new Oscar de la Renta fragrance, Esprit d'Oscar? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that one.

    Melissa

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  6. Musk is usually the kiss of death for me. More specifically, the increasingly present (blinding) white musk. Will I run for the scrubbing sink when Love, Chloe dries down? Because candied violets and creamy,buttery rice sound pretty dreamy to me.

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  7. Didn't Candy Violet and Creamy Rice do a bunch of soul duets in the 70's? I think so - one of those "I'll promise you my love forEVER!" type ballads.

    I don't know - I just remember growing up with them.

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  8. Stefush, no wonder this fragrance is calling my name! I danced to it at my high school prom!

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  9. Katie, I am a huge fan of this one, and just the other day suggested to a wearer of regular Chloe that she check this one out. It is like a mainstream Bas de Soie imho - more approachable, but with that same "silk stocking shimmying off a thigh" quality.

    I recently inherited a bottle of original Chloe from a friend who was having a clear out and had owned this since she was 12. Oh boy - tuberose jasmine civet monster. If you took away the civet, I could admire this as the proto-Nuit Noire that it is... ; - ) As it is, I couldn't help thinking that it was wildly inappropriate for a tween.

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  10. Julia and happythoughts -- Love, Chloe smells like it has integrity - like someone decided to make a perfume with its own identity and isn't playing catch-up with some blockbuster mainstream number. It's worth a second sniff if you've already passed it by.

    m61 -- I don't believe you will run for the rubbing alcohol at the drydown, here. I didn't go into this in my review, because I feared it may have been a little too specific to happy associations on my end and possibly not make sense to others, but the "comfortingly masculine" musk at the tail end of the fade-out reminds me of Old Spice, with its oriental rose burr. No sinus-clearing white musk.

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  11. By George, you're right, Vanessa - there's deffo a kinship with Bas de Soie.

    Wouldn't you know that I went through an original Chloe phase when I was about 18, so no wonder Nuit Noire and Manoumalia make beautifully-scented sense to me.

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  12. Katie, I ran into a bottle of this at Sephora today and you're right. It's a lovely scent. Not quite something I'd buy, but if someone gave it to me, I would happily wear it. I thought about buying it for my son's girlfriend. It would suit her perfectly.

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  13. m61, thanks for backing me up on this one - you're the expert in bourdoir scents, judging from your vintage Rochas Femmes and such. Love, Chloe works well as a youthful take on sensual sophistication.

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  14. Katie - have you tried Poopoo Pido? It has a rice note that's also very nice. Opens like a sugar covered lemon cookie and then moves on to a steamed rice. Is that the kind of rice you detect in Love, Chloe? Champaca and Kenzo Amour also have that same note I'm thinking of...

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  15. Kym, it's been a while since I've smelled Poopoo Pido, so can't give you a comparative analysis there. As for Kenzo Amour, the rice seems more folded into the other ingredients, whereas in Love, Chloe, the rice stands out a bit more. Now I want to revisit Poopoo Pido!

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  16. Hi Katie,

    Just wanted to drop back by to say that I tried Love, Chloe at Sephora today and got a sample to take home. It's just as wonderful as you said! At first I thought it might be too powdery and floral for me, but it settled down pretty quickly into that creamy rice smell you talked about. It's really subtle and sexy!

    Thanks again for your review, which encouraged me to seek out this fragrance. Not sure I'd have given it a try otherwise, but now it's #1 on my to-buy list.

    Melissa

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  17. This review is making me feel tempted to buy some without even trying it. DANGEROUS! It sounds divine.

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  18. Melissa - Yesssss! I diggeth Love, Chloe for being more tasteful and suave than it needs to be. I'm pleased to hear it wasn't just my imagination.


    Nora, that's me all under: dangerous.

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  19. Rice is one of my favorite things. Violets, not so much. But this sounds intriguing!

    I remember those Hamilton photos well. All the railroad stations in France in the 70's had racks of them. Not in Kansas any more!

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  20. See what you think, Olfacta. It's not *hugely* violet - it's more of a violet hello before everything else kicks in. Once it settles in, it becomes more rose-dominant.

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  21. One thing I like so much about your reviews, Katie, is that you give a full description of a fragrance. I love "Perfumes: The Guide," and it has been very helpful, but some of the descriptions just don't give you the best idea of the fragrance itself.

    I'm still kicking myself over missing Dzing!

    Also, concerning "Love, Chloe," it brings to mind words that have misleading connotations: demure, modest. It sounds boring, right? But it makes me think this fragrance is not, as you once said in your Shalimar review, "It's not *horn noise* skirt over my head." Just pretty in a tranquil, thoughtful way with a little secret of sessy. Sort of the idea of a Japanese aesthetic of pretty.

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  22. You got it: not *horn noise* raunchiness, but nubile femininity.

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  23. Went to Sephora last night to check Love, Chloe out. Bummer, they didn't have any. But gosh darn it if I didn't smell like a billion other things when I left. I took my five-year-old with me for extra wrist real estate. He left wearing Kate Walsh's "Boyfriend," which he said smelled like coconuts and some vanilla-grapefruit thing, which he also liked.

    Vanessa-it's interesting to me that you described the original Chloe as "inappropriate for a tween." I guess I never really think about scents in terms of "appropriate."

    Melisa-I hope your son's girlfriend likes your present!

    Stefush--yes, I was hanging out with Candy Violet and Creamy Rice just the other day. I told 'em Steve from Macy's sent me.

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  24. Nora, I don't usually think of scents in terms of "appropriate" either, but in the case of original Chloe and 12 year olds I will make an exception... I think you would have to have been at least a ballsy 18 year old to pull this off - much like Katie, indeed! : - )

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  25. I wanna smell porny ballerinas! Since I cant seem to find Mon numero8 to sample, maybe I can just head for the mall to sniff Love, Chloe? Ok- I was not familiar with David Hamilton's work before this ( just one of the many reasons I love this site, KP!)After having seen his work, now I really want to smell some "porny ballerina" scents! I think there are probably a few men who wouldn't mind trading places with that guy- perhaps just long enough for one full photo session..Admittedly,some of those pics are definitely pushing the envelope- the age of the models, being the most provocative aspect- but, must admit,his work includes some lovely images. Katie, you sure have a way of stirring up the olfactory curiosity !To, think, just yesterday, I had no idea that there was this great empty void in my life which I now know is a lack of porny ballerina scents! Must fill void!

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    1. Yes! Desperately Seeking Porny Ballerina Perfumes!

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  26. Oddly enough, I stopped in a big old warehouse- discount gimmicky place yesterday evening to do some sniffing/ refreshing of some old mainstream faves, and I sampled original Chloe- one I wore my jr year of high school along with Calyx...haven't smelled the original in some time and was weird re-visiting that old friend- she was so much stronger than I remembered..they had a super reasonably priced gift set that I thought I might buy to relive some youthful memories, but alas, the scent was not enticing enough to override all the teen age angst ( ALGEBRA II) memories that came flooding back when I smelled it....What I did find I liked, was the aromatics elixir..I thank you for steering me back to that oldie, KP!

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    1. Aromatics Elixir really does stand the test of time. I like it in the body lotion, too. I know what you mean about the volume control that's missing with original Chloe!

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  27. I stumbled upon this review only recently and decided to order a small bottle without sampling. I am pleased to report that I was not disappointed! I have worn it to work today and I could smell a kind of purple/powdery/rice atmosphere around me all day! (Although at one point during the day, I had forgotten that I was wearing any perfume and wondered what that glorious smell was in the office - then I realised it was me!). ;)

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    1. Domestic Goblin , my first, day-long wearing of this coincided with a jury duty stint, and I had the same experience: what is this wonderful perfume I keep smelling from my fellow juror? Oh...it is I!

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