BYREDO
VANILLA ANTIQUE

2022

Plum
Musk

White Wood
Labdanum

Amber
Vanilla

Vanilla Antique is a massively missed opportunity and disappointment in my book. As with many sweet, vanillic scents lately, the hype was there. The extrait line is usually a highlight as far Byredo goes for me and the notes looked great.

For a moment it seemed to live up to my expectations; it opens really nice with plum and a sort of honeyed woods, more so than vanilla. It’s slightly pepper and smoky, but definitely also uplifting. It could’ve become a great sweet plummy scent of which there’s room for a popular one (Tom Ford’s Plum Japonais being discontinued).

Sadly, the drydown is a massive letdown for me. It grows into a metholated, cough syrup sweetness with a generic cardboard-ish woody and musky base. Vanilla Antique has been compared on Fragrantica to Goldfield & Banks Silky Wood and that has that same generic woodiness. The combination of the sweetness and woods reminds me of a cheap, synthetic Middle Eastern style oud oil and I was not a fan of it at all.