Vanilla Vibes by Juliette Has A Gun

Are you a fan of the deconstructed food styling boards over on Pinterest? That is what the image above reminds me of, and I find them helpful for giving a quick and clear interpretation of ingredients, in this case of a perfume. Juliette Has A Gun has introduced a new perfume for the summer of 2019, Vanilla Vibes. The best news for me is that the vanilla is subtle and actually very wearable for warm weather. I am not the biggest fan of foody vanilla scents in perfume and the only time I can bear them is in cold weather when the richest element of the vanilla scent are somewhat subdued by the frigidity outside. Romano Ricci who founded the perfume brand maybe says it best:

I have been wanting to work with vanilla for some time.But not being a fan of sweet notes, I needed to find a twist. I chose sea salt. This transports the vanilla into a mineral dimension. Far from being overwhelming, the vanilla becomes suddenly more atmospheric, more elegant.

Ricci definitely achieved his brief. Vanilla Vibes is pretty much what you see pictured above; vanilla, orchid and sea salt in a bed of white sand. I don't love the very fist moment when I spray. I get a whiff of alcohol until it either evaporates or is absorbed into the skin. This happens quickly and once the perfume has a chance to warm on the skin the top note of fleur de sel becomes apparent. This gives that sense of sun-warmed skin, drip-drying after a dip in the ocean. Since there is no coconut you don't get the Coppertone suntan vibe, it is more skin/saltwater/sun. Heart notes of vanilla and orchid give the scent a slightly sensuous, but innocent, feel. These two notes were combined very effectively in Van Cleef & Arpels Collection Extraordinaire Orchidee Vanille and that same subtle beauty is present in Vanilla Vibes, but the addition of sea salt tempers any tendency towards sweetness. Base notes of benzoin, brown musk, sandalwood, and tonka bean are all used with a light stroke of the brush, whispering rather than boldly announcing their arrival. These notes all merge to further enhance the skin scent and it evolves into a golden amber glow, a scent that remains for several hours.

Photo from A Nice Little Tumblr

The bottle is getting a lot of love on the fragrance forums and fragrance Facebook sites. It gives the appearance of sand, fading to sea, fading to sky and really pictorially represents what's in the bottle. I enjoy this scent as it is light and very easy to wear, the vanilla is very muted on my skin, and it really does represent what my skin naturally smells like after a day at the beach. It reminds me somewhat of Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess without the coconut, Jennifer Aniston without the jasmine, or Jo Malone Wood Sage and Sea Salt without the sage. There is nothing profoundly new here. You may already have something similar in your collection. But it is well done and immanently likeable. I can see it being a staple for someone who lives by the sea or wishes they did.

Burning Man, which takes place every year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, was Ricci's inspiration for the scent. The scent is very unisex and if you are a fan of sun/skin scents I would consider this a pretty safe blind buy.

Here is a behind the scene look at the video promo shot for Vanilla Vibes introduction on May 1.



Photos are from the Juliette Has A Gun website. I bought my own sample at Luckyscent.