Annick Goutal Vanille Exquise

It wasn’t very long ago that I disliked Vanille Exquise. I think that any true fragrance fanatic would have to admit to changing her mind on occasion or even frequently.

Prior to November, 2009, I didn’t wear many vanilla focused fragrances but lately I’ve been having a vanilla renaissance. It started with The Different Company Oriental Lounge, then PG Felanilla, then L’Artisan Havana Vanille, then Montale Chypre Vanille and now Annick Goutal Vanille Exquise. Somehow it took liking these four non-foodie vanillas for me to understand Vanille Exquise.

Vanille Exquise (2004) came years before Felanilla, Oriental Lounge, Havana Vanille and Chypre Vanille and it’s another vanilla scent for those who don’t like foodie vanillas. Initially there was a note in Vanille Exquise that was too harsh for me – I think it’s either angelica or gaiac wood – but this harshness is no longer there, it has magically disappeared or more accurately I’ve taken a liking to this jarring slightly nutty, woody, dry and herbal quality in combination with sweet vanilla.

Vanilla Exquise (VE) also reminds me a bit of Guerlain Angelique Noire, but again, for the record, VE arrived on the scene 1 year before Angelique Noire. I find VE better than Angelique Noire because it’s less sweet and foodie. Like many Guerlains, Angelique Noire has that sweet vanillic/Play-Doh “Guerlainade” that I’m not fond of. You either love that Guerlainade or you don’t and my favorite Guerlains are the one’s without it. I’m pointing out that Annick Goutal VE came before many of the interesting non-foodie vanillas on today’s market for a reason, and that is, that Annick Goutal is a phenomenal perfume house and Isabelle Doyan a brilliant perfumer . The more I focus on scents from Annick Goutal, the more I realize there are plenty of gems and not just boring pretty stuff.

The vanilla note in Vanille Exquise is always present but it’s in the background like a pair of delicate hand made curtains framing a picture window. The vanilla here is sweet, but it is blended with angelica and gaiac wood which are dark, dry and incense-y. The longer VE stays on my skin the better it gets; the blending of vanilla with this incense-y dryness is sublime. As I’ve mentioned in my last few posts, some fragrances require me to ‘spray myself wet’ and VE is one of them – but once I do it lasts all day and the sillage is nice.

I’ve come to realize that Annick Goutal is one of my favorite houses. Spray yourself wet with a few from AG and you might find you missed the beauty before.

Notes include: vanilla, angelica, almond, benzoin, gaiac wood and white musk.

Above photo courtesy of Decomprose on Flikr

Montale Chypre Vanille

Montale is not my favorite line. I enjoyed Sandflowers last year, but as much as I still like it, I’ve grown tired of it and never wear it. I’m not a fan of Aoud so this rules out a good portion of Montale fragrances. Blue Amber is nice but I have too many other amber orientals I like better. Steam Aoud is one of the strangest fragrances I’ve ever worn. Granted there are loads of Montales I haven’t tried – simply because there are so many – and they’re expensive and can never be found on discount. But, I’m here to tell you, along came Chypre Vanille and I find myself oddly drawn to it.

For me, Montale Chypre Vanille is NOT a chypre nor is it a typical vanilla fragrance. I don’t smell anything like oakmoss nor patchouli which has come to be the ‘modern chypre’ base. I’ve read as many reviews of Chypre Vanille as I can find and I don’t agree with most of them. The vanilla here is not foodie but I would also not call it dry. It’s a sweet vanilla, but not a foodie vanilla, if that makes sense. Think of the sweetness of Shalimar – I would say it’s sweeter than that – but the vanilla here is similar to the type of vanilla in Shalimar (sans the citrus edge). I do not mean Chypre Vanille smells like Shalimar – it doesn’t. I’m just trying to describe this type of vanilla.

Overall, once dried down, I think Chypre Vanilla smells like the most buttery sueded vanilla LEATHER imaginable. It starts off syrupy and potent, like most Montales, with a hefty dose of powder. But this isn’t Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder – it’s more like an orris root powder. You’ll have to be a hardcore Scent Junkie to make this sort of powder distinction but if you can imagine what I’m describing, you’ll get it. Once you get past what I think of as a rocky start, it becomes a gorgeous soft vanillic suede. There aren’t any spices jutting out, it’s all about being smooth, creamy, cozy and sublime. I’m just so oddly attracted to it.

The past few months I’ve found myself enjoying vanilla fragrances when I don’t normally like this category at all. TDC Oriental Lounge is a nice take on vanilla and L’Artisan Havana Vanille is excellent. Montale’s Chypre Vanille is probably my favorite take on vanilla of late – it’s wonderfully unique and I can’t say I’ve ever smelled anything like it.

Chypre Vanille is easily unisex. The longevity is excellent.

Notes (borrowed from Luckyscent): vanilla, rose, amber, incense, sandalwood, iris, vetiver, tonka bean

And the wait is over: L'Artisan Havana Vanille

Man, it took long enough for this stuff to show up! I pre-ordered Havana Vanille in August and just received it Monday (12/21). I admit that during this long wait I became thoroughly disenchanted. I’ve been reading very negative posts on MUA & POL and I became less and less interested in it ever gracing me with it’s presence. Many noted it’s lightness, suggested it was fleeting, thought it smelled like something wet and moldy. Now that I have my bottle I gotta ask: what on earth are you smelling out there? Havane Vanille is simply gorgeous.

I’ve been wearing Havane Vanille for two days. One thing is for sure; this is not a fragrance you can judge based on a dab from a 1 ml vial. You need to spray HV – and I mean several big, bold sprays of it. Today I scanned MUA and read a post by DorothyEm where she wrote this in response to someone asking how to make L’Artisan scents last longer:

DorothyEm: “I read a post on another board from a L’Artisan representative and he suggested that you spray enough so it "pools" on the skin. In other words, spray liberally and enough to make your skin WET.”

It now occurs to me that I should do this will all L’Artisan fragrances, not just Havana Vanille. Maybe I should be ‘spraying myself wet’ with Annick Goutal, Chanel and Jo Malone, too. Just a thought. Anyway, back to HV. The fact that I wasn’t particularly interested in Havana Vanille ever showing up combined with the second fact that I don’t get excited by vanilla fragrances in general makes me recommend HV highly. Or perhaps this means HV is a vanilla fragrance for those who don’t care for vanilla scents. Case in point: I love Guerlain Spirituese Double Vanillle but this is perhaps the only vanilla I go crazy for and I wear it about 3-4 times per year, usually when I’m on a diet or when the weather is frigid and I need to olfactory equivalent of a big down comforter. My taste in vanilla scents pretty much runs toward ambery woods and not straight vanillas at all. My favorite ambery woods are Givenchy Organza Indecence (amber, cinnamon, and woods, woods, woods), Theorema (clove, orange, spices, and woods, woods, woods), Annick Goutal Ambre Fetiche (gorgeous ambery woods), Serge Lutens Rousse (cinnamon & woods) and Parfum d’Empire Ambre Russe (decadence bar none). So, as you can see, vanilla fragrances are pretty much not in my collection (well...I really dig Cristobal by Balenciaga and I think of it as a highly vanillic oriental). But, in general, I prefer ambery woods. So, if you are like me, you might also love Havana Vanille.

Havana Vanille begins like an after dinner drink heavy on the booze, specifically rum, and it's a very dark rum. Think of something along the lines of a Black Russian or Baileys Irish Crème. Something thick, boozy and spiked with milk. I might be hallucinating but I also smell something like almond liqueur – along the lines of Frangelico. Havana Vanille transports me to a dark retro lounge with me draped in the corner leather booth and, yes, on this occasion, I'm smoking a cigarette (maybe even a clove cigarette, it’s been years, give a girl a fantasy indulgence). Havana Vanille simmers down and loses it’s gourmand quality once the rum note dissipates but it never leaves entirely. Once the rum simmers it becomes a veritable spice fest; clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, dry smoky woods and burnt sugar. I know there is tobacco here but it’s so mild mannered I can’t pick it out. I can’t say I smell anything that resembles straight up vanilla, or vanilla as I know it in perfumery, and this is likely why I enjoy HV so much. To me, it smells like the idea of vanilla, and those I asked to smell me the past two days did not say I smelled like vanilla (fyi: they said I smelled really good, but didn’t know what it was). I don’t find much resemblance at all to Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille, which is good, because I’m not a fan. I think of Havana Vanille as a love child, a result of the coupling between Guerlain Spirituese Double Vanille and Givenchy Organza Indecence. It’s a blessed child – born from good parents. If you like ambery, spicy woods as I do, you ought to check out HV.

Notes include rum, clove, dried fruits, narcissus, tonka bean, helichrysum, vanilla, smoked woods, moss and balsamic notes