Eau Duelle Eau de Toilette (2010)
by Diptyque

A beautifully light, fresh and aromatic vanilla. It’s not too heady, nice for summer.

Eau Duelle is the first fragrance I have smelt from this house. On my skin it opens with a very fresh and aromatic juniper, accompanied by spicy pink pepper. This is followed by the tea note and what must be saffron. Then, strong notes of vanilla and elemi follow.

ED is nice. It is pleasant enough. I do not dislike it, but it is not a stunning fragrance. It reminds me a little bit of Habanita EdP, although I find Habanita more appealing than ED. At moments it seems to approach gourmand status but not quite. It has a certain degree of sweetness, but the sweetness is tempered by the spiciness.

Eau Duelle is unisex and office friendly, welcome in almost any venue. I do not see it as a date night fragrance, though. I can imagine anyone from 20 somethings to 60 somethings wearing it. I think it would wear well year round, but it may be more comforting on crisp Autumn days and nights as the tea, vanilla, and elemi notes lend a snuggly dimension to it.

Overall, ED is pleasant but not especially memorable in my opinion. Of all the listed notes, I like the juniper most for its realism.

Fragrance: 5/10

Projection: 5/10

Sillage: 5/10

Longevity: 6/10

Stardate 20170929:

Vanilla fragrances are generally sweet and deserty. This one is a different take on Vanilla. Frankincense balance vanilla and you get a beautiful "oriental".
EDP is better as it emphasizes theses two facets of Eau Duelle. EDT is light and transient.

A dry, spicy, green, warm but not sweet vanilla fragrance that in the end satisfies me with its own beauty. It's not a gourmand one and not that much oriental either so some may fine it boring, but i like how it's balanced with both cold and warm sides. I get mostly pepper, then something like the scent of old books, and then dry and airy vanilla which is lovely. On cold days this scent does not project well, i have it around 3 hours before it totally disappear. i don't expect much though cuz it's EDT. However on warmer day the pepper lasts longer (somehow a little bit sharper but not that headache-inducing) and the vanille lingers for...2 days. Like it really lasts!

Overall i like it, special, simple and pretty. But not enough to spend on the whole expensive bottle.

scent 7.5/10
longetivity 6/10
sillage 6/10

My first Diptyque review, I don't recall being especially drawn to Eau Duelle when casually smelling a bunch of Diptyques, but this seems to have a good reputation as a vanilla/incense blend.

edit ***This is for the EDT version, not the EDP.

The signature note is vanilla, but other notes of note are cardamom, saffron, and of course, olibanum / incense. I don't quite regard it as a gourmand as the vanilla is the only sweet / food aspect of it, the incense playing second fiddle but still being impossible to ignore.

As with YT reviewer dracdoc, I don't find that this has much evolution to it at all, remaining the same harmonious blend throughout its life.

The downside of this type of blend is that it could be argued as either too spicy or too sweet, and while I find that it leans sweet, it's a good pairing.

Performance is great for a niche EDT, as it projects quite a bit early on and doesn't slow down, lasting a while. I seem to get better performance out of it than the consensus here, so go figure.

At $90 for 50ml / $125 for 100ml, it's decently pricey but not for its performance, which is unusually strong for an EDT (I'd be curious to try the $150 for 75ml EDP). Nonetheless, this strikes me as fitting into the category of needing to like it a lot in order to buy it. I'm not sure how the EDP option fares, by comparison.

Overall, I'm not nearly as moved by it as I am by another vanilla/incense mix, the celebrated Imaginary Authors Memoirs of a Trespasser, which I find to be a more interesting, unique composition. Another close comparison is to L'Occitane Eau Des Baux, a simpler vanilla/incense combo without the saffron and cardamom of Eau Duelle, and EDB is much cheaper, a surprisingly strong EDT at $60 for 100ml. I prefer the variance of EDB and MOAT to Eau Duelle, overall.

So while Eau Duelle is pleasant overall, I won't be pursuing a bottle of it as long as MOAT and EDB are around.

7 out of 10