Fragrance du mon vie: Serge Lutens Un Bois Vanille

Vanilla has been a popular perfumery note for a long time. However, with the recent trend towards ‘gourmand’ or food-smelling fragrances, Vanilla scents are a dime a dozen. Don’t get me wrong – I love vanilla when it’s done well. But it’s just so easy to pile on chocolate, caramel, rich fruits, until you have a sticky, gooey, stinky mess.

Maitre Lutens has obviously not succumbed to this trend. His catalogue includes many provocative, yet wearable scents like Chergui, Arabie, Daim Blonde, Tuberuse Criminelle. The scents are expensive – $100/1.7 oz at Neiman Marcus.

I say Maitre although the scents are actually created by Christopher Sheldrake (you do know that Jennifer Lopez didn’t just come up with J.Lo EDT, right?) but they all have a certain foreign or exotic scents-ability to them.

In perfume, as in art, many revolutionary works are often transgressive. Lutens’ scents are transgressive in a way that a bad-boy boyfriend is transgressive – at first, you recoil, but then you relent, and the utter sexiness and his confidence make you somehow think that it’s alright, it’s better than alright, and you want more.  Un Bois Vanile is described thusly:

An opulent vanilla fragrance inspired by a Mexican beverage recipe from 1519. Black licorice, sandalwood, and coconut milk enhance the seductive, sensual character of vanilla.

In short, Un Bois Vanille is a gourmand for a woman who doesn’t suffer fools lightly, yet finds herself always drawn back to that one tragic love affair that she knows is not healthy but she can’t forget…the sweetness is ultimately tamed by the slight bitterness of licorice and the astringent/earthy tones of sandalwood.
I can’t quit you, Un Bois Vanille.