Can I pick the winners? No, I most emphatically cannot. The success of Chloé’s 2008 comeback fragrance, Chloé Eau de Parfum, took me totally by surprise — I had found the juice average at best. Granted, we all know that sometimes, the right generic but likable juice, in excellent packaging with engaging advertising, can sell very well indeed, but I did not find Chloé all that likable, in fact, I found it so unlikable and dull that I did not bother to review it.

After it did so well, I tried it several more times to see if I’d missed something. Nope. On this one, I stand firmly with Chandler Burr:

Not only is Chloé an uninteresting, clichéd floral — why are houses still launching saccharine, vaguely unidentifiable composite flowers? — it smells like a perfume masquerading as a fabric softener. What’s worse is that there are some good fabric softener scents out there; this smells cheap and slightly chemical.¹

Perfumistas, by and large, seemed to agree — it has its fans, of course, but Chloé was never the darling of the perfume blogs. I confess I skipped the newer concentrations (they later did an Eau de Toilette and an Eau de Parfum Intense), and I further confess that the newest iteration, L’Eau de Chloé, got my attention mostly because of the pretty pale green color scheme…

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