The Lagos Girl and Her Coco Mademoiselle

She saved for three months. Not secretly — her flatmate knew, her mother knew, the woman at her office who always asked too many questions about her personal finances definitely knew. She had put ₦15,000 aside every month from her salary with the discipline of someone saving for a house deposit, except she was saving for something her accountant brain could not justify and her human brain could not resist.

The first time she smelled Chanel Coco Mademoiselle was at a wedding — her cousin's, Lekki, the kind of wedding where the aso-ebi was excellent and the small chops were plentiful and the woman who sat next to her at the reception smelled so extraordinary that Chinwe had asked, slightly rudely, mid-conversation, what she was wearing.

“Coco Mademoiselle,” the woman said. “Old love.”

Chinwe went home that night and looked it up and looked at the price and closed her laptop. She opened it again the next morning.

Three months later she walked into the BettyWhyt shop in Lagos with the exact amount saved, bought the bottle, took it home, and sat on her bed and held it for a moment before she opened it.

The way you sit with something before you begin it when you know it is going to matter.

She spritzed it once. Sat with the opening — bright, citrus, a flash of something sharp and alive. Then the rose came. Then the patchouli underneath it, warm and grounded and completely assured.

She went out that evening in the yellow dress and the Coco Mademoiselle and felt, for the first time in a long time, like the final version of herself.

Her flatmate said: “You smell expensive.”

“I am,” Chinwe said. “Finally.”

Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. Worth every naira you saved.