Orchidée Vanille
Seven materials sit in the middle of Van Cleef and Arpels Orchidée Vanille Eau de Parfum 75ml and there is nothing above or below them, which makes Randa Hammami's 2009 composition unusually direct. Vanilla is the anchor and it is the soft creamy kind rather than the boozy or smoky kind. Around it, lychee and rose do the work at the brighter end: lychee is sweet and slightly watery with a rose like edge of its own, and together the two give the fragrance a juicy, pink quality in the first half hour that is genuinely charming.
Almond and tonka bean then take the sweetness into a drier register, the first nutty and faintly bitter, the second powdery with a biscuit tin warmth, while violet adds a cool, sweet dustiness that keeps the whole thing from becoming heavy. Cedarwood is the only dry material in the list and it is what stops the composition collapsing into pure sweetness in the second hour.
Because everything arrives at once, this is a scent that announces itself fully from the first spray and then simply softens over the following hours. It is comforting rather than complicated, and that is plainly the intention rather than a failure of nerve.
Cold weather suits it, and so do evenings, though it is light enough on the skin to be worn to work by anyone who likes sweet fragrance. It reads feminine, and at this concentration it holds on through a full day, with the vanilla and tonka bean still detectable on a scarf long after the fruit has gone.
Behind it is a Paris jewellery house that has been trading since 1906 and making scent since 1976, with the fragrances arranged into collections.
Please note: images are a guide only. Packaging and bottle design may occasionally differ from those shown due to manufacturer updates or promotions.
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