Chanel No. 19 Chanel No. 19 Chanel No. 19 perfume was first marketed in 1971. The number 19 was chosen to commemorate Coco Chanel's birthday, 19 August. The perfume was launched a year before she died. The scent was created by Henri Robert. No. 19 is a balsamic-green scent, compared to the aldehydic Chanel No. 5, the floral Chanel No. 22 and ambrette-green Chanel No. 18. The pure perfume and eau de parfum have a slight greenish tint, and the eau de toilette is pale green. In a recent (c.2000) revamp of No. 19, Chanel has drastically reduced the products available: in the
Coco Chanel Balsan. At the age of twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan's mistress, supplanting the courtesan Émilienne d’Alençon as his new favorite. For the next three years, she lived with him in his château Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life. It was a lifestyle of self-indulgence. Balsan's wealth allowed the cultivation of a social set that reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites, with all the implied accompanying decadence. Balsan showered Chanel with the baubles of "the rich life"—diamonds, dresses, and pearls. Biographer Justine Picardie, in her 2010 study "Coco Chanel: The