Raw Vanilla

Recently, I made a trip out to a local department store to wrap my nose around Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille. As a former pipe smoker who used to love settling down with a nice bowl of vanilla Cavendish--and who was in need of a new scent for the fall, I wanted to buy a bottle of this stuff if it passed the sniff test. I was once again chasing something new, something exciting, something to take me where I had never been...or had I? The too-cute perfume girl at Neiman Marcus handed me a tester with a smile and as I gave it a squirt and let the smell envelop me it INSTANTLY set off a series of synapses long unused in my brain. The memory of a particular scent came first, then a memory of lots of nights of passion (mind you, I still didn't remember what scent or with whom I had had sex--I was just getting a wave of..."vanilla and sex memory" from the vanilla in the scent. Weird, I know!) I put the $200+ bottle down as the memory hit me. My mind said, "screw this," and my lips said, "no thanks," to the clerk. I pretty much RAN home to hit the internet and try and research what the name of the fragrance that I kinda-sorta-remembered attached to this memory was. It took me two days but I finally found it...Raw Vanilla. Then the full memory came back...how I bought it on a Sunday at a Genovese (now Rite Aid) drug store back in the mid-90s. How it got me LOTS of attention from girls at school (I attended at night) and women at work (I worked the graveyard shift at a call center, then slept during the day). How, in particular, it got me attention from a woman at work (Ms. V.) who was 20 years my senior, and it lead to a long, fruitful fling. How, after school and after that job I abandoned this scent for more expensive, supposedly “better” fragrances. So now I had found it but the bad news was it was out of production...I rush-ordered a sprayer from eBay (twice the list price but still under $20 for 1.7 oz.) and...wow. Just...wow. If I was rating it based on personal experience and on the sexy-times I got from it (not only from Ms. V. but from many other women and girls who would fall victim to its spell), I would give it a 6-out-of-5. But as a fair, unbiased rating, it is a legit 3.5-to-4-out-of-5. And this rating is coming from the frame-of-reference of someone who's owned dozens of scents including $100-an-ounce snooty stuff. What can I say...besides loving it today for nostalgic reasons, this cheapo department store brand was truly ahead of its time. Back then in the days of Fahrenheit and Drakkar Noir and Cool Water, BOLD was the way to go. A scent for men by Coty (who made cheap stuff for old ladies) that was very subtle wasn’t likely to get on anyone’s radar. I wound up buying this only because 1) it was cheap, AND 2) it was on sale making it cheaper, AND 3) I liked vanilla (usually in cakes, not on my skin). I couldn't be happier that I got it: the panty-dropping effect of this guy was legendary. Seriously...whereas it was pleasant and comforting to me personally, it had an aphrodisiac effect on women (maybe because it was borderline feminine and out of the realm of male scents of the day? Or maybe because women like cake?). If you re-introduce this today and throw in 1 more note for complexity's sake, it would be all the rage. Let me rephrase that: even though it's got green leaves and bergamot and musk and sandalwood and a lot of other notes and it's a near-perfect formulation, many would call it too "simple" to rate five stars in today's fragrance world, and I agree. While something like Encre Noire can be a 5-star masterpiece with very few notes just because Nathalie Lorson hit upon the perfect combination of notes, Raw vanilla settles into "woody vanilla" mode after a rather quick green opening and just rides it out (this, by the way, is intentional as vanilla is in the topnotes and basenotes). Back in the 90s there wasn't a whole lot of, "what do you want to smell like now? What do you want to smell like later? What would you like to smell like inbetween?" Actually, I think the 90s is when things started to get a bit over-the-top (do we blame Acqua di Gio?). Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah--not complex enough. But if you throw some coffee in there and call it New Haarlem, people would line up to pay hundreds. Or throw some tobacco in and call it Evasion Digo de Havane and they'll do the same. Besides the extra note (leather, spice, whatever) you would have to improve the sillage and projection (they are both decent but not good--longevity is OK though) and you would have a $70 modern masterpiece. With that missing note in mind (and also because I was intrigued by the tobacco and vanilla combo that had set everything in motion), I set out to find a good, cheap tobacco scent to mix it with (mixing it with an expensive scent would defeat the purpose of the experiment). After much research, I settled upon Cuba Red, ordered it, tried a bunch of different ratios in my Travalo and...drumroll...TA DA!!! I mixed up some ghetto Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille for 1/10TH the price. Actually, retract the word “ghetto”. Raw Vanilla--though low in price was way ahead of its time and is a fine, complex frag. Cuba Red, which was new to me, lived up to all the hype (go read my review for the details). I thought I would have to go heavy on the Raw Vanilla to keep the Cuba Red opening harshness down but I’ve actually got more Cuba Red because the longevity of that is not that great. Not dissimilar to Tom Ford in the middle and at the end. Truly a great combo!!! (P.S. you don’t have to mix it in a Travalo, you could just layer it--the reason I mixed it is that I wanted to find the right ratio today and if I test-layered, I would soon run out of body parts to test-layer on...or I might pass out). The green opening (more "tea" than "grass" which is good) softens the harsh cinammon open on the Cuba Red; then the soft but complex vanilla goes all the way through the middle, coupling with the Cuba Red's vanilla-like tonka midnotes; and finally, the bamboo in the Raw Vanilla perfectly complements the wood notes in the Cuba Red. Nice, nice, nice...and still very subtle (go easy on the spray, the Cuba Red is strong). It's kinda like when you smell someone smoking a pipe stuffed with a nice vanilla tobacco (a rare occurrence these days) down the block. It’s smokey but it’s so soft and nice. By itself, Raw Vanilla is a great comfort scent that will make you feel good and will perk up the attention of women. Very enjoyable and very doable today--if anything, it was out of place back in the 90s when intro'd and it's a better fit for today's sensibilities. If you ever see it in a bargain bin, buy it; and if you decide not to sell it on eBay for double the price, wear it. You won't regret it. 100% AWESOME by itself (you’ll keep smelling yourself, I promise) or with something else that is complemented by Vanilla (something heavy on wood, spice or, of course, tobacco). This was--and to many, will always be--a winner.

Coty Raw Vanilla I have learned to ignore any marketing labels that say “for men” or “aftershave” and try fragrances just based on the notes. I’ve been reading Luca Turin’s book about how every perfumer tries to create a new, magical creation from just a few simple notes; some fail and fall flat, but some, like this one, are exceptional. Vanilla is one of my favorite notes, and until this fragrance, I thought I’d tried every type of vanilla there was – creamy, boozy, floral, smoky, cupcake, fruity, musky, oud, spicy, woody – but this is the first GREEN vanilla I’ve encountered. I was intrigued by the idea of a teak wood note against a green bamboo note on top of a warm Coty vanilla. Coty does warm vanilla well, like my beloved Coty Vanilla Fields, so I knew I would like this one, but I had no idea that it was swoon worthy. Today is my first full day of wearing and I was smitten from the first few minutes. It opens with a slightly masculine vibe because of the bright juniper, bergamot, and clary sage, but, within minutes there is a very refreshing green leaf and bamboo note that quickly takes over. This is my favorite part. It reminds me of the mornings in Bali, the greenest place I’ve ever visited. In the morning, when the dew is still fresh on the leaves, you smell a crisp, wet green, but since it’s a hot climate, you also get a warm, sweet, sunbaked smell. This is exactly what I get from this. A super fresh green leaves and bamboo on top of a warm, cozy, sweet, woody vanilla. The closest scent I have to it is the discontinued woody vanilla La Maison de la Vanille Eau Boisee de Madagascar. This scent takes that woody vanilla a step further by adding the twist of crisp green. This is a new favorite vanilla, and you can’t beat the price!

I got ahold of this when first came out and it's all I wore. It was a blast of green citrus vanilla with three sprays. It dried down into a fat musky lemony sandalwood and vanilla with little pops of the florals and juniper throughout. In the beginning I was getting a good 6 ft projection with an nice sillage for a solid 6 hours, arms length and dissipating for the next 6 hour into the perfect up close and personal scent with a light warm vanilla musk and tonka. I won't even bother if they try to release it again, if ever. As someone already said the last batches were very synthetic - I tossed them. Been trying to find something different and obscure for a signature scent. I believe perfume enthusiasts call them Niche perfumes. Well I want one. It has to fit some standards but that's another story. This was a good fair priced cologne that I and many others got away with for awhile. (9/10) Since I've joined the community I've gone from one perfume to having 6 on my dresser in a couple of weeks. This is going to get stupid but I'm on a mission.

Why won't the site allow me to add what this frag smells like? Hmm. Welp, anyway----it smells like Atelier Cologne's Vanille Insensee. ACVI is the more expensive version of Coty Raw Vanilla. As usual, the more expensive and niche houses mined the creative rubric of Coty and released their own pricier version. Coty Raw Vanilla is the perfect balsamic summer vanilla. It's the orchid or the green pod, not the finished extract. Quite lovely with depth and decent longevity given that it is a cologne. I am a woman and I wear it often enough, therefore it seems unisex to me. I currently have several back up bottles of this now discontinued frag in the mail. That is all.

this is a girls review. I bought this online for $8 not realizing it was a splash, like seriously why a splash? like what am i supposed to with this drink it? add it to the bath? seriously just give us a sprayer. anyway now I have to go online and buy somthing to put it in that sprays. i did dab a little on me and i do like the smells, it somehow smells like pinneapple, vanilla and musk to me. Just dang it I want to spray it. I also love anything with juniper berries in it but i can't seem to smell them in this :-/ but thats ok, still wonderful