Guerlain – Winners and Disappearances?

First, winners of the Guerlain Iris Torrefie samples – Jennifer and Brigitte. Just click on Drop Us a Note at the top, send me your address and remind me what you’ve won (I’m old, and can’t remember anything anymore!) and I’ll get them out to you.

But can we share our collective perfume knowledge and figure out where some Guerlains are going or if they are going? Unsubstantiated rumors are welcome in this blog exercise.

Guerlain Apres L’Ondee is disappearing.  Every now and then a little stash shows up on eBay, but it is getting so hard to find except at the boutique, the little under $100 bottles are just gone.  Is it for sure discontinued or are they pulling it back into the boutiques in the refillable colored bees? I’m never sure if a comment I read somewhere is old or current – and that was one, it is going back to the refillable colored bee bottles.

And some of the La Matieres are gone – SDV and Bois d’Armenie. Now I’ve heard for years Bois d’Armenie is going, but it seems to have hit that GONE space.  SDV looked like Saks had it, but, oops, nope, cancel that order, they do not.

So with adding new things to the Matieres line, are they dumping old ones or are some materials just harder to get right now?

I heard something – yes, who knows the accuracy of the “heard” – that vanilla as a material was getting harder to get, at least for now.  Would that explain that, or did they just disappear them?  Okay, I’m going to go cry now if that’s true.

  • Dina C. says:

    Well, it’s news to me, so I’m glad I bought a bottle of Apres L’Ondee from a friend about a year ago. It’s not a primo old, vintage bottle, but I’m very glad to have it nonetheless. Like many perfumistas, I have that daydream about finding a thrift store/junk store/antique store with old vintage Guerlain bottles for $5 each. I’ll keep hoping!

  • Tara C says:

    I just emailed my local Montreal Guerlain counter and the SA did tell me she heard Bois d’Armenie is being discontinued, hasn’t been able to get any replenishment stock. So that rumour may be true.

    • Patty says:

      I think it is just gone for sure, maybe temp, but guessing it is permanent. Oh, well, but i did snag SDV from Guerlain. all the dept stores are out of it, but they had it. Weird. Same with Apres, they still have it in boutiques. Maybe they are pulling back distribution.

  • Jennifer S says:

    Oh yay! Thanks so much!
    I can imagine it must be scary and hard to own a frag that you just can’t live without and wonder if it will always be available in the future without having been changed.

  • monkeytoe says:

    I don’t know specifically about perfume vanilla, but vanilla prices overall have been sky high for the last two or three years, exceeding the price of silver for a while. Guerlain may have finally finished the most recent batch of SDV and are working on a reform to lower the cost of the juice.

    • Patty says:

      Maybe! They had some on their site, but nothing in dept stores, which is unusual. It could just be some weird thing going on with the times now, though. I had heard vanilla – the good stuff – was getting ridiculous.

  • Fernando says:

    It’s frustrating to get so little advance warning. I would have bought an extra bottle of Arsene Lupin Dandy if I could.

  • Tara C says:

    Ok, I just checked the Guerlain Canada site and all three of the scents you mentioned are still listed, Après l’Ondée only exists in edt now, parfum is discontinued.

    • Patty says:

      wow, I thought parfum had been gone forever. I still have a little bit of the vintage extrait that I have set back for a special occasion or ten. I did find the SDV, but no armenie.

  • Tara C says:

    I just bought SDV in Montréal, so no, not discontinued. I didn’t inquire about Bois d’Armenie because I don’t care for the current reformulation.

  • Brigitte says:

    Thank you!!! Just dropped you a note.

  • Charlie says:

    This is one of my major frustrations with Guerlain, the not really knowing what’s going on. The Guerlain US site shows both the EdC and EdP of L’Instant for women under their last chance to purchase category. I snapped up a couple of EdP quick from another online retailer since I cannot be without this fragrance. Monsieur Guerlain used to be so reliable for this kind of information. Such a shame Guerlain made him cease and desist.

  • Eldarwen22 says:

    It could very well be on backorder. I don’t think Guerlain would just up and decide to discontinue SDV for fun. There seems to be so many people that love vanilla dominant perfumes. Eventually I will get a bottle.

  • Janet in California says:

    Guerlain still has SDV available on their site. You scared me and I just ordered a bottle!

    • Patty says:

      guerlain is weird. I swear, I went to their site and could not figure out how to order anything, so I kept looking. Today, bam, easy as pie to order. I’m blaming my browser. 🙂