PERRIS MONTE CARLO
VANILLE DE TAHITI

2020

PERFUMER
Gian Luca Perris

Champaca
Ylang-Ylang

Vanilla

Sandalwood
Amber Musk

Vanille de Tahiti is not your average vanilla scent. I love vanilla in all it’s fragrance forms, but there’s a tendency for them to get overdone and become redundant in a sea of other vanilla releases. Vanille de Tahiti tackles that with skank.

Skank you say? To my nose Vanille de Tahiti opens unquestionably fecal (but it’s wonderful). It resembles a bit of the DNA from Perris’ Ylang Ylang Nosy Be as it shares the indolic ylang ylang note, giving this a barnyardy edge that lingers around at least in the first hour.

It’s not challenging overall, because aside from that fecal element, the vanilla is there in loads right besides it. The vanilla itself is very sweet, milky/custardy, but it and it’s supporting notes lean floral. It’s unmistakably a sweet vanilla, but combined with the indols and the tropical floral tinge, it’s not a straight up gourmand like a Casamorati Lira drydown.

Vanille de Tahiti will be a divisive one, but that’s what makes it more interesting than many of it’s industry counterparts. That is why I love a lot of the Perris’ line; their osmanthus is still my favorite and it’s almost animalic, their ylang and vanille are indolic, their jasmine might be even more skanky, their tuberose is daringly vegetal. Perris keeps their concept rather straightforward with ‘one main note centric’ releases, but they push those notes towards the edge of excitement.