This post was originally meant to go up next week but the fragrance is causing me such befuddlement that you’re getting it today.
This past week we had winter, autumn and spring in a three day period (1 degree Celsius with snow, then 7 degrees C and beautiful sunshine, then 15 and torrential rain with gale force winds). Today, the road into the village flooded – very badly. We’d had a rather mild autumn but now all hell is breaking loose and that’s how it looks going into winter. Sigh.
The new Victoria Beckham was going to wait till December. But, it’s not. I wrote about VB’s first three perfumes here. Tom covered them here.
I was impressed with what she had done given her history as a bit of a lightweight celebrity. These were adult, interesting, a bit unusual, well worth sampling. My fave of the original bunch was Suite 302. Incredibly sexy black cherry. But at £170 for 50ml it’s not going to happen because my heart just doesn’t go gallump, gallump, gallump – and these aren’t available in travel sizes. And it’s hard to find decants.
So, autumn 2024 and her next perfume is released. Again, Jérôme Epinette is the nose. This is a good working relationship – they do good things together.
21:50 Rêverie’s marketing material goes like this: “A sensory seduction. A faraway fantasy. The grounding essence of the earth. Victoria Beckham extracts the luxuriant ambience of Java nights in the memory of 21:50 Rêverie: the grassy scent of tobacco leaves carried by candles in the tropical evening wind; the plush trace of plum on the lips of another; the earthy rawness of vanilla pods and Tonka beans blending with the cedarwood of the land.” Ok. Not half as bad as some materials.
The core of this is vanilla. Everything else weaves around it. If vanilla is your thing Rêverie is well worth sampling.
Anyway, notes list: tobacco leaf, plum, vanilla, tonka, vetiver, elemi and cedar.
When I first sat down to write this, here’s what I said: This is a glorious vanilla beginning to end.
With more sampling it got stranger and more complex. I guess that’s what you expect with well executed fragrances.
21:50 opens peppery, burnt caramel vanilla — but not sweet. Really musky, and that muskiness carries through the whole development but it passes from note to note.
As it moves along, I get a herbal undercurrent, maybe pine (elemi?). And as it opens further, there’s definitely plum. A lovely, musky proper juicy ripe fruit.
Onward, and I think I smell a bit of seaweed. Again, something green, musky – a bit salty. A warm, humid night in … the dunes? the jungle?
And deep in the development, when things have good and hotted up, there’s a hint of Turkish delight.
And one day I even got Band-Aid under the vanilla. I think I’m starting to make things up.
Longevity is stellar. Like 10 hours down the line I can still smell it.
Drydown is where I get really befuddled. I love you? I love you not as much?
Mostly, this isn’t sweet, which is interesting for a vanilla. There is a period in the middle where I was expecting it to go over the edge into bakery but it never quite does that.
So, yes, in the drydown it’s still doing that tightrope walk but no longer bakery and more into malt, like proper malt-vanilla. Gone from hot and sexy to something else – and I can’t put my finger on that ‘something else’. Even after wearing it like 10 times.
I’ve now rewritten parts of this post three times and I give up. It’s a conundrum. An enigma. Do I really really love it or am I simply convincing myself that I do?
End result? I think I want a bottle of this – at least I do right now.
How I’ll feel in three months is another question. But, it will be interesting to see if I end up finding a way to justify forking out £170 for 50ml of perfume.
Ever feel that way about something – that psychological dance around I love you, I love you not? And has anyone else sampled this?
Pics: Pexels, mine
WOW! What a review Cinnamon.
I love Vic Becks, she was my favourite Spice Girl by far.
Maybe next time I’m in the UK I’ll get my sniff on these.
Portia xx
Are they not available — at least to sniff — over there? This is really worth the effort. I think Surrender to Chance has them …
Ooooooh! This sounds like something I’d love! But as Tom notes, probably not for $200, and in any case I don’t have anywhere near me I can sample it. But I’m going to keep these in mind next time I’m in a city that stocks them. Thanks for the review!
StC appears to have samples … VB is 20% off here for Black Friday (I generally try to avoid BF) which brings a bottle into more manageable territory. But I’m still on the fence. Maybe next autumn.
well you started off with me thinking “I don’t need yet another vanilla” but by the end of the review I kind of lemming it. But $200 for 50ML (at Neiman Marcus) makes me think perhaps I don’t need it after all.
It is silly money. Maybe StC will have large decants? But for me in thinking about what I’ve bought in the past year the one full bottle was, I believe, £170 (at least that’s what it costs now) and I would still buy it. I’m buying mostly travel sizes, decants and samples. I’m sort of justifying to myself that if I am only buying one really pricey bottle, then that’s ok-ish. Ish…
I’ve a newfound love for vanilla scents – SOME vanilla scents – and this one sounds intriguing. I have it in my Surrender to Chance basket!
Oooh, would love to hear what you think. To me, it walks an interesting line just to the right side of sweet.
This is an easy “no” for me because vanilla-based scents are not my thing, but I do totally relate to the push-pull emotions of your battle over whether or not you really love it! There have been times I diligently sampled a scent, THOUGHT I loved it, bought a honkin’ big ol’ bottle of it, and then figured out it had a note that I hated! (Miu Miu I’m looking at you!) It serves me well to do that intermediate step of large sample or small decant to really see if I love it.
Yes, the pull me/pull you thing. I think a larger sample (the place I found it doesn’t offer decants) will serve me to figure out where I actually stand on the perfume. I was looking for something I own to compare it to and realised I don’t own any other big vanillas. So, did Shalimar, which has vanilla, but it’s such a different animal the compare didn’t really help.
You got my interest when you said that 21:50 Rêverie is mainly vanilla. I don’t know where I would get samples of this though. I have definitely had perfumes – not many – that I can’t decide whether I like or not. Usually it ends up somewhere in the positive. And one of those I love and if I had a signature perfume, that would be it.
So, which one would potentially be the signature fragrance? I found samples of this at one place here (see comment on alityke’s post below) but the VB site doesn’t appear to offer them.
The probable signature fragrance is a big surprise to me because it’s not in my great love category , but it’s almost addictive to me. I always really enjoy it – a lot. MEMO Lalibela.
Maya, Surrender to Chance has it. http://www.surrendertochance.com
Now you’ve piqued my interest! Vanilla without sweetness turning malty? Count me in!
I emailed to see if VB offered single samples of this but never heard back. So, got one from a place called Small Aromas.
I’ll order when I’m back.
I did order some VB make up when the original four were released. Samples of those were allegedly being sent with orders. The samplers were peel back smears rather than samples. I contacted them saying that these were not appropriate for a luxury beauty line. Guess what? No reply.
Are you some place warm? You would think a brand like VB could be generous. And I find it off-putting their customer communication is so crap. I have a few Lisa Eldridge things and whenever I’ve contacted they have been stellar.
We were in Gran Canaria yes. Now I’m tucked up sorry for myself feeling like hell. Why do people with coughs not mask up on flights?
Because they don’t believe in taking the needs of others into consideration. I hope you feel better soon.
I’m on the mend now. Have order a sample of VB Reverie