I had little hope Guerlain Shalimar Ode à la Vanille would be a good perfume. Ode à la Vanille PR didn’t stress the fragrance but the Jade Jagger redesign of the Shalimar bottle, which Guerlain is using for Shalimar Eau de Parfum and Shalimar Ode à la Vanille. Harrods even had an online feature showing Jagger, looking a bit uncomfortable at a desk, ‘sketching’ her designs. Harrods listed the iconic perfume as “Shalimar by Jade Jagger”!
Guerlain house perfumer Thierry Wasser developed the new, vanilla-enriched Shalimar Ode à la Vanille; it includes fragrance notes of lemon, bergamot, rose, jasmine, iris, incense, opoponax, tonka bean and two types of “infused” vanilla: Madagascar vanilla and Mayotte vanilla. Shalimar Ode à la Vanille starts off with a wonderful leather-tinged bergamot-lemon note. Quickly, Shalimar Ode à la Vanille begins to smell “creamy” — like a chilled vanilla-citrus custard. The florals, especially the rose and jasmine, are discernible in mid-development but really become apparent in Ode à la Vanille’s extreme dry-down. As Shalimar Ode à la Vanille segues from middle to base notes it becomes amber-y-floral — first, with dark vanilla, opoponax, a hint of frankincense, some tonka bean and leather-musk notes, then with a vanillic flower accord. (There’s also a transitory indolic note that stays close to skin.) Shalimar Ode à la Vanille smells natural and delicious…
