Brrr! This winter has outdone itself already, and it’s only mid-January. I started my year of vanilla last fall, and today I’ve got five suggestions for vanilla perfumes to keep you cozy and warm while winter does its worst. And as always, do add your own picks in the comments!
Guerlain Shalimar: Duh, you knew that, right? If you’re not sure which one to buy, see Angie’s Shalimar Face-Off, and you might also consider the flanker Guerlain Shalimar Ode à la Vanille…
A short spot from Firmenich Naturals on sourcing vanilla from Madagascar.
(Quick PSA: I am on the road today and heading to a place with very limited internet access. I’ll be slow to answer comments or questions all weekend long, but I’ll do my best.)
Fall is not my favorite season, but even I will admit that it’s probably the best time of year for perfume. You can wear just about anything, and for many of us, it’s a joy to finally pull out some of the heavier woods and orientals that we’ve been neglecting all summer. I’ve already done autumn posts covering iris, incense and vetiver, now I’m turning to vanilla (and Angela will join in the fun on Monday, with 5 fruity chypres for fall). As always, these are just my suggestions, and again as always, the line between the seasons is perhaps a bit arbitrary and/or personal: some of these fragrances wear just as well in summer or winter, and some of them work perfectly fine all the year round.
Indult Tihota: Vanilla cake, yes, but vanilla cake from perfumer Francis Kurkdjian…
tl;dr a decent middle of the road vanilla.
If you wanted a good illustration of the muddy distinction between niche and mainstream perfumery, you could hardly find a better example than Annick Goutal. The house mostly made its name with classic colognes like Eau d’Hadrien and Eau du Sud, and a handful of pretty feminine florals. When I reviewed Eau de Camille and Eau de Charlotte back in 2007, I noted that…
The Annick Goutal line occupies a rather in-between place among perfume fans — the company probably qualifies as niche based on their size and their limited distribution; still, they are available in a number of mainstream stores (three department stores in my local mall carry them),1 and the line doesn’t feel niche. The feminine perfumes are emphatically pretty, romantic even; they don’t, like so many niche perfumes, challenge traditional notions of what a woman ought to smell like.
What I perhaps didn’t emphasize enough was how few mainstream brands were making nicely done yet emphatically pretty fragrances at the time…
Morocco is a magical destination—I’m so inspired by its colors and culture. I also associate it with a cover shoot by Jonathan Becker I did, along with my father, for Town & Country magazine. I love those photographs, they really capture a sense of place—I wore an amazing brown and blue Rochas dress that echoed the backdrop of desert and sky.1
That’s Aerin Lauder, talking about the inspiration for Tangier Vanille, which she released under her casual-luxe Aerin lifestyle brand last year. Of the fragrance itself, Lauder promises that it “opens a secret door that leads you into the mystery and splendor of Morocco”.
Cultural appropriation is nothing new in perfume marketing, and Morocco, of course, is fertile ground. If there is any harm done by taking a nice deep whiff of Serge Lutens Chergui and imagining yourself in an exotic / romantic Moroccan landscape that glosses over colors and culture and plenty else besides, so be it…