Chanel goes green with recycled glass for Nº5 fragrance

By Becky Bargh | Published: 21-Sep-2021

A first for the luxury beauty house, the new packaging is an extension of the brand’s celebration of 100 years since the fragrance’s launch

Luxury fragrance and beauty house Chanel is proving luxury beauty can be green with the launch of a new recycled glass flacon for its Nº5 scent.

The launch is an extension of the brand’s 100-year celebration since Gabrielle Chanel’s iconic scent graced beauty shelves, and is the first of the brand’s products to adopt the packaging.

The bottle, created in partnership with Pochet du Courval, is said to retain ‘incomparable purity, shine and transparency’, while being better for the planet.

But, according to Chanel, developing the technology was a genuine challenge, as glass’ transparency stems from the purity of the raw material used.

However, Pochet du Courval was able to develop an industrial process in order to guarantee a transparency ‘close to crystal’.

“Faithful to the high standard of the House of Chanel, each detail was considered in depth: the colour, the qualities of transparency, purity and shine, as well as the resistance of this glass, were rigorously evaluated,” a spokesperson for Chanel said in a statement.

The Nº5 limited edition 100ml edp is the first to adopt the new pack, which is expected to be applied to other Chanel perfumes in 2022.

“Our objective was to develop a high-end recycled glass that would meet the qualities of excellence and creativity,” added a member from Pochet du Courval.

Meanwhile, the Parisian group said that for every one million bottles of its recycled glass adopted, more than 25 tonnes of raw virgin material is saved.

Chanel, however, is not the only high-end brand adopting sustainable forms of packaging for its products.

A number of scents in Mugler’s fragrance line, licensed by L’Oréal, have been setting the refillable trend for two decades.



Taking inspiration from 18th century refilling stations, the brand has set up an in-store refill Fountain for its Alien, Angel and Aura Mugler scents.

Meanwhile, Carolina Herrera, owned by cosmetics giant Puig, embraced refillable packaging for the launch of its 36-strong colour cosmetics line back in March 2020.

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