Vanilla

Vanilla may be the most popular ice cream flavor, and it is also a favorite ingredient in perfumery; there are hundreds of vanilla-based scents on the market, many of which are all about the vanilla note itself. Personally, I love it and have amassed nearly as many vanilla samples as roses. Here are two of my very favorite.

Jill Stuart
Vanilla Lust
Notes: Madagascar vanilla, coconut milk, neroli essence, caramel, tiare flower, sandalwood

I didn't realize I was looking for my Holy Grail of vanilla until I discovered Vanilla Lust. Forget the coconut milk, neroli, tiare, and sandalwood - I get none of these, at least not that my olfactory organ can pick out. What I do get is pure vanilla, not milky or creamy in the way some vanillas are, cloying and unctuous like being suffocated in a vat of pudding, but simple and sweet like caramelized sugar. And although there is no musk note listed, I get musk of a pure and innocent variety, so innocent it's deeply sexy.

Serge Lutens
Un Bois Vanille
Notes: coconut milk, dark vanilla absolute, beeswax, caramelized benzoin, licorice, marzipan, gaiac wood, tonka, sandalwood

Like Vanilla Lust, this scent has both coconut milk and sandalwood. Unlike VL, Un Bois Vanille does have the qualities of at least one of those two notes. The opening is sweet vanilla with a bit of woods in the background, a splash of coconut milk, and the bitter touch of licorice.

Though this scent may be named "A Vanilla Wood," the wood part is extremely fleeting on my skin, lasting on a few seconds after the initial application. It it, however, a deeply delicious fragrance, and had I not found Vanilla Lust first, I might have considered this one to be my HG.