Orchid Vanilla

Ok, this is very damn pretty!!! This is one I would've completely disregarded had I only went by the notes listed above. But I received a decant of this and I'm pleasantly surprised. Very pretty floral vanilla. Smells like spring. Reminds me of Roses Vanille. I like it.

The second fragrance in the discovery set of the 4711 Collection Absolue, Orchid Vanilla, started very much as I would expect a 'typical perfume' to smell. There are lots of florals, there's a good amount of non-cloying sweetness, and there's a bit of soapiness in the background. Fruitiness only if you want to experience it that way. You could interpret Peach if you will, but quickly, the whole perfume went into a classical "milk and honey scented soap" kind of direction. Here, while not unpleasant, Orchid Vanilla gave me not particularly much as a perfume. The smell was nice enough and I do enjoy these kinds of soap, but as a fragrance, it just didn't do much outstanding. It reminded me of - as said - soap, cheap scented candles that you find in home decor stores and body lotion. All of that was not bad. But I wouldn't want a perfume I wear to smell that way. However, it's not where Orchid Vanilla stayed. For the next 2-3 hours, the florals, the vanilla-sweetness and some abstract peachy fruitiness played with each other, all on the base of a soapy background. Sometimes I got clear vanilla, sometimes the scent went back into the milk-and-honey direction, and sometimes I got the peach again that I could already detect in the beginning if I wanted to. This oscillation was kind of enjoyable, even if the overall nuances weren't particularly outstanding. However, I do believe that as far as sweet-floral scents go, Orchid Vanilla did do quite a decent job here. They often quickly devolve into murky sweetness and here, the fragrance avoided that pitfall. Over time and later down its drydown, other nuances got more prominent. While some faint powderyness could always be detected through the drydown, those got more pronounced until Orchid Vanilla became a very powdery, lipsticky vanilla-dominated scent. Once the florals dissipated and nothing of them was left, what remained was a makeup-like, vanilla-heavy perfume with a rising amount of sour and sharp musk behind it, which only appeared as a detectable note once most of the perfume had gone already. And in this final phase, I just did not like Orchid Vanilla anymore at all. Overall I believe there are many worse sweet-floral scents than this and I am always happy to see a perfume going through significant development over time. I don't think Orchid Vanilla is particularly outstanding but if you're looking for something sweet-floral that goes into a bit more of a 'mature' drydown over time, this might still be worth sampling. For me personally, it didn't give me anything I would like to own as far as perfumery goes.