Juicy cherries skewered and dipped in smokily scorched toffee. The snack of dreams to go with your fragrantly steaming hot chocolate as you wander around a Viennese Christmas market. Cheerily decorated wooden huts, glittering brass band oompah-ing, golden lights gleaming against the snow——all present and correct.
LES INDEMODABLES: VANILLE HAVANE First impression: This is a really dark scent in general, the cocoa is really the black raw cocoa without any sweetness, it is mixed with rich aromatic cognac and a little too much spices thrown in. The vanilla is the darkest and most masculine I've ever tried. The thick smoke of a Cuban cigar smoked for 3 hours hovers around all of this, and the aroma of dark, thick leather comes to the nose from the old Chesterfield leather sofa. The scent and the mixture are really well and qualitatively made, but first it feels completely impossible to even think that I would use it. I feel that it takes too long to evolve to that best moment, the best part of the scent. It is impossible to notice the sweetness until after about an hour and towards the end, when the scent is at its sweetest, the other aromas start to be quite weak. It’s truly an experience to wear this perfume. The difficulty of the scent is that it is infinitely deep, dark and strong in the first part of the life cycle and infinitely easy, sweet, plain and a little bit boring in the second half. I like complex scents, but it's hard to wear the scent which has two totally different personalities. In many very complex fragrances, the different phases merge smoothly and slowly together, and so they do nicely here as well, but the nature of the fragrance changes completely in the middle. In the case of this fragrance, I would rather choose a linear fragrance which is straight away in the beginning of the second half. There is an appropriate amount of darkness, cocoa, fruity rum, deep vanilla, mysterious smokiness and sweetness. On the other hand, if the scent was like that, it wouldn't be unique, because many of them have already been made. So this is supposed to be an artisanal fragrance with a very mind-blowing opening and a delicious, slightly seductive aroma after a couple of hours, depending on the warmth of the skin and air. I realised that the biggest problem with this is pre-expectations - at least I imagined this to be a rich vanilla scent. Of course, “Havane” tells me that there is tobacco and darkness, but the beginning of the scent has been made very difficult for everyone else, except for those who are used to natural scents that really take time to develop. I also love it when the vanilla is thick and creamy. There's no creaminess here at all, but stickiness and syrupy thickness appear in the middle phase of the fragrance. That's when the tender sweet fruitiness comes floating to the fore. If you could skip the first hour completely, I think this would definitely have a bigger audience. In conclusion, Vanille Havane is very skillfully made. For me, these kinds of scents are not challenging. I just want to emphasize in my review that the experience will certainly be difficult and maybe unpleasant for a more hasty tester. This needs time, passion and love. In my opinion, the beginning of the scent can be compared to (as a level of the challenge, not how it smells, and without Oud of course), for example, Sayat Nova or Lao Oud from Bortnikoff. Otherwise, the texture and style of the fragrance reminds me of Plum Japonaise and Plum in cognac. The scent described in few words: (First half) Spicy, Dark Cacao, Rum, Tobacco, Amber, Woody (Second half) Vanilla, Sweet, Fruity This is not gourmand imo. The scent is totally unisex after the first 1-2 hours but the beginning is masculine. The sillage and projection are moderate and the longevity is 8-10 hours. Thank you for reading and I hope you liked my review. I would appreciate if you follow my IG: @ninamariah_perfumes It gives me a lot of motivation to write more. 🤗
Absolutely glorious, life-changing opening swiftly dries down to a very lovely, but very familiar Tobacco-Vanille type base. Not bad at all, and if I didn't have Tobacco Vanille I might consider buying this, but the magic is in the opening and unfortunately it doesn't last very long.
Beautifully sweet, with warming boozy rum and rich tobacco. The sweet ripe dark fruits, and rich cacao are delicious.
The leather is subtle and the vanilla is sweet and indulgent but doesn't lead edible on me. .
The tobacco is something else I have to say. Smokey and rich. The leather is just the right depth to add a comforting familiarity of a well worn leather jacket.
Cosy, delicious, comforting, and amazingly masculine.