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Browsing by tag: vanilla

DSH Perfumes Snow Angels, Kelly + Jones Chardonnay Disco & Jazmin Sarai Fruitful ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Jessica on 22 December 2025 2 Comments

There’s a certain pleasure to be had in following a favorite artisanal perfume brand over an extended period of time, just like following a musician or visual artist or film director whose work means a lot to you. You can see their work evolve, recognize certain recurring themes or motifs, watch them trace new paths. Lately, I’ve been regularly wearing recent releases from three artisanal perfumers whose work I’ve followed for years. All three have turned out to be mood-boosters for me, in different ways, and I’m appreciating these tiny vials of optimism at the end of a tricky and unpredictable year.

Snow Angels is Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s twenty-fifth holiday fragrance as DSH Perfumes. I’m partial to a few of her previous holiday releases (including Pomegranate Rouge, Ruby Candlelight and Winter White) so I looked forward to trying this one…

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Ormonde Jayne Vanille des Afriques Intensivo, Babylonia & Xi’an ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Jessica on 4 September 2025 6 Comments

Earlier this week I heard that MakeupAlley.com, the message board and online community founded in 1999, is shutting down at the end of September. This news brings out some really deep feelings in me. I created a MakeupAlley.com account in June 2003 hoping to learn more about a newly launched fragrance, and I ended up making so many long-lasting friendships — and, in 2006, finding out about an opening for a writer at this very blog — along the way. 

Even if I hadn’t met so many special people through that site, I still would have learned more about perfume than I ever could have expected — new fragrances, vintage perfumes, everything from drugstore cheapies to cult classics to hard-to-obtain “niche” lines. I certainly learned about Ormonde Jayne on MakeupAlley, because the brand wasn’t available in the United States in those days. I’m not even sure how I did my initial sampling of the “OJ” (as we abbreviated it) fragrances I still know and love, like Ta’if and Champaca. Did another MUA member send me some hand-decanted sample vials in a swap? Or did someone circulate a sample set acquired on a London shopping spree? 

In any case, I’ve kept up with the brand’s doings ever since, and made my own visit to the Ormonde Jayne boutique in London’s Royal Arcade about a year and a half ago…

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Toppling the orchid blossoms

Posted by Robin on 6 August 2024 Leave a Comment

Most commercial production of vanilla is in Madagascar, Mexico and Tahiti. As the world warms, cyclones and storms in these regions are growing stronger, toppling the orchid blossoms and vanilla beans before they get a chance to fully mature. In 2017 a Category 4-equivalent cyclone devastated an estimated 30 percent of the vanilla vines in Madagascar, which produces 80 percent of the vanilla used around the globe. As a result, the price of vanilla bean pods surged to nearly $300 a pound.

— Read more in This Is How the World’s Favorite Scent Disappears at New York Times.

Something really big

Posted by Robin on 8 April 2024 Leave a Comment

“There is something really big happening with vanilla right now,” says [perfumer Bérénice] Watteau. [Perfumer Rodrigo] Flores-Roux agrees, noting that there are many different types of vanilla as well. “When you think about a vanilla bean, it doesn’t really smell like sweet, fluffy, yellow Häagen-Dazs,” he explains. “They smell very leathery, very smoky and very oily. That’s why we have musky vanillas, solar vanillas— meaning they have a sunny, beachy vibe—and also burnt, smoky vanillas.”

— Read more in These Are the 3 Biggest Fragrance Trends of the Year, According to Perfumers at NewBeauty.

Friday scent of the day 3/15

Posted by Robin on 15 March 2024 183 Comments

Happy (Vanilla) Friday! It’s also the Ides of March and World Consumer Rights Day, and there are 4 days of winter left to go. Our community project for today: wear your bestest vanilla for spring (or fall, if you’re in the southern hemisphere.) (This is a repeat from 2018, when we did it in January.)

What fragrance did you pick? As always, do chime in with your scent of the day even if you’re not participating in the community project.

I’m commando at the moment for an appointment, but before the day is out I’ll be in Aedes de Venustas Cierge de Lune (from 5 perfumes ~ vanilla fragrances for spring)…

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