Perfect Vanilla

Notes: vanilla, blood orange, tobacco 

I'm not sure this fragrance by Creative Scentualization is the perfect vanilla.  At least not for me.  The opening is all orange and powder.  Luckyscent describes it as being smoky and not the least bit cookie-like - as if being like a cookie is a bad thing?  Ok, perhaps it's not like any vanilla cookie I've ever had, but it's still sweet enough to be considered in the pastry category.  Perhaps a orange-scented custard of some sort? Vanilla ice cream?  Yet somehow not at all like a creamsicle.

There's an unusual iodine quality to the scent in its early moments, way deep inside, not quite the pungent iodine of oudh but something vaguely akin to saffron. But I could be imagining things.  It's not, to me, tobacco.  I spent many happy moments at the local Tobacconist with my Dad, a pipe smoker, lifting the lids from the glass jars full of tobacco and enjoying the sweet fragrance.  I particularly liked the vanilla and other gourmand-scented varieties.  Perfect Vanilla doesn't have that quality at all.  

After the citrus note fades away, what's left is a nice vanilla, a sweet vanilla, the scent of marshmallows with their powdery cornstarch coating, or of vanilla frosting.  Vanilla-scented baby talc.  But definitely not cookies.