{"id":959,"date":"2026-02-11T22:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/11\/fyi-tiktok-classic-fragrances-like-chanel-no-5-are-not-grandma-perfumes\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T22:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:36:07","slug":"fyi-tiktok-classic-fragrances-like-chanel-no-5-are-not-grandma-perfumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/11\/fyi-tiktok-classic-fragrances-like-chanel-no-5-are-not-grandma-perfumes\/","title":{"rendered":"FYI, TikTok: Classic Fragrances Like Chanel No. 5 Are Not \u201cGrandma Perfumes\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>When I was a little girl in the early \u201890s, I spent a lot of time hanging out in the home of an old woman named Alyce, a distant relative who was something of a second mother to my mom. I loved padding across her plush cream-colored carpet, admiring her knick knacks, and breathing in the trail of rich, spicy amber scent that was unmistakably \u201cAlyce.\u201d Her signature fragrance was Est\u00e9e Lauder\u2019s Youth Dew\u2014a scent that, despite being a remnant of the \u201850s, played a crucial role in my future fragrance palate.<\/p>\n<p>As I write this now at the wise, womanly age of 38, I\u2019m directly facing a shelf in my home office with a selection of favorite fragrances from my collection\u2014the ones I always keep at arm\u2019s reach for mid-day refreshes. Sure, there are a few newbies present in there, like Lore\u2019s passionfruit- and mezcal-inspired Disfruta and Liis\u2019s tea-scented Ethereal Wave, but for the most part, my selection looks more like that of a glamorous senior citizen than a trendy thirty-something: old-school Chanel, Guerlain Shalimar, original men\u2019s Stetson, Clinique Aromatics Elixir, Prada\u2019s original (and sadly discontinued) Amber, and\u2014you guessed it\u2014Est\u00e9e Lauder Youth Dew, resplendent in an opaque turquoise bottle just like the one I imagine Alyce used. While these scents run the gamut from floral to spicy to woodsy, they\u2019re all bold, unforgettable, and, in my opinion, timeless.<\/p>\n<p>But my admittedly old-school fragrance palate is not a popular one at this exact moment in perfumery.<\/p>\n<p>Perfume TikTok has been popping since the beginning of the pandemic and continues to be a thriving community of fragrance fans who want to share their enthusiasm for all things scent\u2026 except, apparently, when it comes to classic fragrances like my beloved Chanel No. 5 and its compatriots. Everyone knows No. 5 is a legend, but the resounding conclusion\u2014primarily among Gen Z\u2014is that it smells \u201clike a grandma\u201d or an \u201cold lady.\u201d And they often don\u2019t mean that as a compliment.<\/p>\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"PullQuoteEmbedWrapper-sc-TKIUW kKNLCl\" data-testid=\"pullquote-embed-center\">\n<div class=\"PullQuoteEmbedContent-sc-lixSTo cQciWx\">\n<p>\u201cAppreciating classic perfumery is like sitting down to listen to your elders\u2019 stories and absorb their knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>To be fair, I can see how No. 5 or Youth Dew may feel dated to some, the same way 2010s sandalwood scents smell very \u201cof a time\u201d to me. Mainstream perfume preferences fluctuate with time, ping-ponging from light and fresh to sweet and gourmand to woody and spicy and back again. Right now, we\u2019re in an all-gourmand-everything phase, where vanilla sillage bombs are forming the fragrance palettes of our youths. But what I don\u2019t understand is why bathing in a grand bouquet of symphonic florals automatically constitutes &#8220;grandma&#8221;\u2014or more importantly, why people are so opposed to being perceived as one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was a little girl in the early \u201890s, I spent a lot of time hanging out in the home of an old woman named Alyce, a distant relative who was something of a second mother to my mom. I loved padding across her plush cream-colored carpet, admiring her knick knacks, and breathing in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasgai.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}