I don’t have much today. I’m working on a post for next week but it won’t come together till then.
I’ve been wearing Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille because well, I have a sample and I thought I should play with it. (I took it on holiday but didn’t pay much attention – Tauer Sundowner got more love.)
Tom wrote about Double Vanille in May.
Launched in 2007, with Jean-Paul Guerlain as nose, Fragrantica calls it an amber fragrance. I guess. Notes include pink pepper, bergamot, cedar, ylang, rose, jasmine, vanilla and benzoin.
It’s not tooth-achingly sweet – smoky vanilla, a bit of citrus up top, weird green juicy as it moves along (that phase doesn’t last long), then there’s a short period of really weird vanilla juicy pine. I’m thinking the jasmine is doing weird stuff. It all resolves itself into a salty vanilla drydown. Yeah, seriously. This is not what Tom got from it.
One day last week, I layered it with Masque Milano Madeleine just to see how out there I could get.
I ended up with madeleines to the max. Just vanilla almond chewy much. It was fine – I really like the chewy feel — but I won’t do that again – even though it meant I lost the salty aspect.
Then, I did Shalimar and Double Vanille. It was … not bad. I end up with a very peppery vanilla. One dimensional, strangely, given both Shalimar and DV are not.
If I owned Lutens apple pine thing Fille en Aiguilles I would have put Double Vanille over that.
On its own, this is not my type of vanilla. But it sure was fun to muck around with it.
Do you like Double Vanille? Do you feel the need to play around with it? Do you ever have those perfume days when you need to make messes?
(Pics are from Pexels)
As you know I do love SDV, but don’t wear it often.
I do like layering, but am not as adept at it as some- I went to the Lutens counter at Bergdorfs years ago with Gaia and they showed us combinations I promptly forgot. So my “layering” is pretty much putting something on in the AM and just deciding to put something else on in the afternoon.
I don’t know why I did this really. It just happened. Must of been a wonderful thing Bergdorf with Gaia.
I’ve never tried SDV but I’m lucky enough to own a supposed dupe of it: Cologne of the Missions by Couvent blah blah Le Parfum. I found it on clearance at Ulta for $16, I kid you not! Must have been my lucky day. I’m one of those few people that’s not crazy about vanilla, but I like this one. It’s dry and spicy. Not sickly sweet. I don’t layer scents usually. But I like hearing about other people’s successful experiments.
$16 … a bargain is always a pleasure. I will enjoy using up my SDV sample and then move on to other pastures.
I love SDV I’ve never thought of layering it with anything else
I think it is good for layering. I was, however, a bit surprised by what happened with Shalimar — ie, not much.
I have 2 decants of SDV that I don’t wear too often but do love it. The price tag for a full bottle gives me hives. Still mad that L’Artisan discontinued Havana Vanille.
L’Artisan ditched so many great things. It’s incomprehensible.
The closest to making a mess is when I go bonkers and decide to wear four perfumes at once. Sometimes there’s not even a theme. Sometimes it’s it is a cacophony.
In general I’ve only done multiples when sampling. Last week was really an anomaly. But I can understand going mad with perfumes simply because it feels like that kind of day.
SDV is the vanilla I suggest when people ask for a non-gourmand vanilla to try. I’ve never bought a full bottle but have had a smallish decant & a large decant I’m still working my way through.
As for playing & making messes, nope it’s never really appealed to me. If I spend hard cash on a scent then it better be completely worked out. The layering concept of early Jo Malone London didn’t sit well.
I do appreciate the thought process you used with your experimental pairings being a science nerd though
I’ve never really been into layering. It just happened last week. Jo Malone stuff has never been my thing. Nothing really works on me so never got into the brand’s layering ethos.
Yes, I do have those days when I need to play around and make fragrant messes. Today I went on an orange flower tangent and wore Roberto Cavalli EDP, then for comparison spayed Givenchy Harvest 2008 Organza Fleur d”Oranger and Jean Paul Gaultier Classique. Heavy spritzes all around 🙂
I’ve never sniffed SDV and I think I need to. Vanilla is always a good base to mix with other fragrances.
I love the idea of orange flower but don’t own many OF fragrances. Actually, I think only one. Maybe I should try layering the DV over the orange flower to see if I get a creamsicle.
Hey Cinnamon,
I have an SDV old bottle that never gets worn.
It’s luscious and glamorous but packed in its box and I always find something else before I get to it.
Thanks for the reminder.
Portia xx
At a vague guess, how many bottles of perfume do you have?
A few less than 2000, it’s ridiculous.
Oh.My.Goodness.
Good lord, girl! You are WAY braver than me! Though I did just layer Love & Toast’s Gin Blossom over an elderflower body creme… then zzuzhed it up with a spritz of Lubin’s Gin Fizz, which made me a bit melancholy for a nanosecond, thinking of how miserable Princess Grace was purported to be, within her marriage to Prince Rainier… then I decided to get over myself and go get some weeding done.
xoxoxo
It just sort of happened. I also craved sugar last week so maybe they married up. Grace always did look wistful. Why did she marry him anyway?
On my skin SDV is mainly whisky with the smallest hint of vanilla and not much else. It’s like a big shot of whisky with a drop of vanilla extract in it. I’d prefer drinking the shot than wearing the perfume.
Whisky sounds good. Definitely not what I get from DV though.
I love SDV and don’t layer it with anything, although it works well to layer any other oriental-type thing over top of it when SDV has burned off.
I just really didn’t do a lot of good things on me on it’s own. It sure was fun to play with though.