Un Bois Vanille by Serge Lutens Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido, 2003

Vanilla is a key component to both the contemporary dessert/gourmand and the classic amber oriental. Vanilla is almost inescapable in perfumery, but its usually found in the familiar company of labdanum, balsams, resins, spices or ethylmaltol in the above genres. It takes effort to dissociate it from the foody, cuddly feel. Despite its brief plastic/cotton-candy camouflage topnote (wonderful!), un Bois Vanille does just this. After the foody misdirection, BV avoids the expected. The tease of edibility shows itself as a licorice note, not cotton candy. The licorice also keeps BV from going the amber/oriental route since the genre is almost by definition warm, round, thick. Licorice here comes off as anise-like not candy-like. Its cool and focussed and it brings out vanillas sharp, bitter side, making it more potent than plush. After the expansive opening the heartnotes are fairly quiet, with a dry, airy feel that I would think to associate with frankincense, not vanilla. By drydown BV is dusty but still taut, reinforcing the point that vanilla can be strong and direct without being lush. BV stays cool as it winds down and resists becoming a skin-scent, further bucking a vanilla stereotype. BV solves a problem for me. One of very few in perfume fan-dom, I dont like Carons Pour un Homme. The lavender/vanilla combo has no synergy and reminds me of the feel of a stuffy head. In BV, the cool side of the licorice fuses with the vanilla in a way that I imagine Pour un Hommes minty lavender and vanilla combo works for the rest of the world.

Okay, I just bought a 5ml decant of Daim Blond after being impressed with a card sample (not bloody cheap at $16 - four times the cost of Heritage!). I love this stuff. I like feminine-leaning scents. So I figure I'll probably like other Serge Lutens stuff, right?

So, I'm at House of Fraser in Cheltenham, a rare one (perhaps) with an SL stand. Although, weirdly, they only seem to display the really feminine scents. I recognise Bois Vanille, squirt some on a paper tongue, and sniff.

I'm immediately confused. What IS this stuff? Some kind of sick JOKE? It doesn't smell of vanilla to me. All I smell is sickly, oversweet toffee. And cheap toffee, at that. You know the kind you get at souvenir shops on holiday? All the same, wherever you go, individually wrapped and in a bag printed with "Greetings from Portsmouth". Horrible, cheap, tacky (I'm sniffing it now..) - urggh. I can smell something slightly finer and subtle in there, but I can't tell what it is. It's like sniffing one of those woody acorn car fresheners that girls like, sticking it right up to your nose and sucking in deep.

And unisex? No disrespect, but if one of my friends wore this, I'd take him aside and treat him gently, as if, say, he were wearing Speedos at the seaside. No, my friend. No.

Seriously though, I'm really surprised at the positive reviews (though I probably have a lot to learn). This is not Champion the Wonder Horse. It's a one-trick pony.