Perfume critic Ksenia Golovanova on the best scents with vanilla notes: take note.
Eau de parfum Atelier des Ors, Lune Féline
Recently, a video filmed by a GoPro in Hawaii was posted on YouTube: the camera was covered with a stream of lava, but it continued to work and was found, and the memory card and video were preserved. It is impossible to tear yourself away from the screen with prominences of fire and crimson flashes, and the same hypnotic effect is produced by Lune Féline - smoky leather vanilla in hot streams of resins and balms. You breathe in and it looks like your nose is about to melt, like a GoPro lens.
Eau de parfum Tihota, Indult
“Death is yellow and smells of vanilla,” says Jean Rochefort's character in The Hairdresser's Husband, one of Patrice Lecomte's best films. Indeed, if you do not tolerate gourmand aromas, Tihota will kill you: its vanilla smells like silky dough, French flan - the golden part under the caramel crust and expensive ice cream with a lot of egg yolks. Those who love “dark” vanilla with woody and alcoholic undertones should look for something else.
Eau de parfum Vanille de Madagascar, Chopard
Recently, Vanilla's collection neighbor, Vetiver d'Haiti au Thé Vert, received the prestigious FIFI Award for Breakthrough of the Year. The wording is inaccurate: a breakthrough is when your ideas about beauty are disassembled into molecules, as if in a telepod from the Fly, and reassembled in a different way. And on the contrary, you check the new Chopard collection like a clock on the city hall: they always show the correct time, keep up, but don't run ahead either. Whether Vetiver, Magnolia or Vanilla - all new Chopard fragrances are made with great taste and understanding of the aesthetic agenda. They sit close to the skin (plus a hundred to the office karma), sound expensive and have no gender: the same "Vanilla", thanks to its green, cologne freshness and well-sanded cedar in the base, can be worn by a man. Contemporary classics - this is how the nomination for Chopard should be called.
Eau de parfum Vanille West Indies, Ligne St. Barth
On the island of Saint Barthélemy, in addition to beaches, palm trees and French millionaires, there is a small plantation where vanilla is grown for the delicate needs of local hotels and spas. And if bees pollinate vanilla in Reunion, on Saint Barth, where only butterflies are found, you have to do it by hand with a brush (as the locals say, “marry”): the job is delicate and well paid. The collected vanilla, in particular, is used to make Vanille West Indies - a flavor with the smell of salted caramel made from burnt sugar, cream and coarse sea salt.
Eau de parfum Aoud Vanille, Mancera
The protagonists of Aoud Vanille are, in fact, the title vanilla and guaiac, wood with a complex smell of smoke, tea rose and old monographs in the university library. Vanilla here is also quite "academic" and has no culinary connotations: it is forbidden to carry buns to the rare books department.
Eau de parfum The Architects Club, Arquiste
If we think of The Architects Club as a tag cloud popular in the early 2000s, the keywords would be vanilla, dry, transparent, alcohol, and wood. In whatever order you mix them, you still get The Architects Club - a dry martini with a drop of vanilla, or transparent vanilla mixed in half with dry wood, or a wooden floor in the ballroom, carefully rubbed with mastic and white spirit. Anyway, those who are looking for a vanilla-woody column in the spirit of Eau Duelle, Diptyque, but denser and more weighty, pay attention.
Eau de parfum Vanille Absolu, Montale
Classic "edible" vanilla, whose confectionery aspect is enhanced by cinnamon and cloves: for those who love to cook, both the spicy powderiness and the warm, filling, like the breath of a preheated oven, the warmth of Vanille Absolu will seem familiar to those who love to cook.
Eau de parfum Aziyadé, Parfum d'Empire
"Asiada" by Pierre Loti, or, as it was translated into Russian, "Slave of the Harem", is a novel about love and sex: the young concubine of the Turkish sultan was inflamed with passion for a French officer, and then tragedy and fragrant, oriental smoke with a yoke. The novel is nasty, but the vanilla dedicated to him is excellent and also about sex: surrounded by cumin, costus, honey and other things that in perfumery are responsible for the smells of the human body among the sheets, she gives out a downright animal roar. Try it at your own peril and risk - suddenly you like it, but you can't wear it to work.
Eau de parfum Brit for Her, Burberry
In 2003, Brit was presented as a "fresh and green floral scent," which is far from the truth - it is a very cute gourmet, collected from candied pears, candied almonds and vanilla cream. A little more sugar and Brit could turn into some Britney Spears, but perfumer Natalie Setto removes the spoon in time and takes out well-sanded, smooth pieces of wood: the main timing of the scent falls on warm vanilla wood.
Eau de parfum Majaina Sin, The Different Company
At the end of November, creative director of The Different Company, Luc Michel, brought the best perfume vanilla of the year to Moscow - a brilliant exercise in transferring textures. This vanilla is gourmand and "chewy": the nose perceives its consistency as dense, viscous and grainy, as if you breathe in the dark, moist core of a vanilla pod. Here is everything that the aroma of good Madagascar vanilla is rich in: smoke, wood chips, chestnut honey, maple syrup, balsamic and fruit shades - “homage to Madagascar,” in Michel's words. Keep in mind that in several cities the first edition has already sold out in its entirety.
