Vanille des Afriques Intensivo

Just stunning. This is not your typical sweet/gourmand vanilla, nor would I classify it as a vanilla fragrance per se. 100% unisex. In true Ormonde Jayne fashion, the first spray yields a soft aromatic profile (the coriander stands out here) brightened by bergamot and some soft spice. A few minutes later, a creamy, buttery orris starts to creep in, intensifying as the notes begin to unfold. The florals (mostly osmanthus), vanilla and amber start to come in as the aromatic notes soften, rounding everything out. The musk to me works to give a bit of airiness whilst still maintaining it's rich scent profile, something that OJ does well. I dont use the term much, but this is a classic, grown (not mature) rich signature scent. I had no expectations, and they were far exceeded. Beautiful scent lingering on clothes and in air, this garnered a bevy of compliments. Bought the 10ml travel size and definitely upgrading to a full bottle.

Few scents captivate the senses quite like Ormonde Jayne's Vanille des Afriques Intensivo. With its exquisite blend of powdery musk, creamy vanilla, and woody undertones. As the fragrance unfolds, it reveals a tapestry of woody notes that ground the scent in earthy warmth. The soft, spicy aroma of sandalwood mingles with the delicate floral notes of iris, creating a harmonious blend that is both elegant and alluring. Meanwhile, hints of citrus add a touch of brightness and vitality, like rays of sunlight dancing through a forest glade. Jayne Ormonde and Christopher Hanlon are definately the world's best perfumers in MHO. Delicious!

I posted this comment under the press announcement I wrote yesterday, but I'll post it here, as well: "Hey, y'all, the brand has confirmed to me that Ormonde Jayne Vanille des Afriques Intensivo is NOT a reformulation or re-launch of Ormonde Jayne Vanille d'Iris. I was told 'the perfume formula is quite different to make it IFRA compliant. It features a much stronger vanilla presence with the addition of Bourbon Vanilla Absolute and Madagascan Vanilla absolute, less orris butter, and smelt side to side, they are very different fragrances.'" There you have it! :D

I’ve not experienced Vanille d’Iris but have a travel spray of this I bought when offered an opportunity to buy pre-release. It’s beautiful. Not particularly vanillic but rather, full of soft aromatics, musk and light amber/wood facets that are bolstered by the vanilla - in its aromatic format. Not sweet or thick. Rather, that crystalline style that is a signature of the house. Long lasting, restrained and soothing. It’s an elegant and truly unisex breath of fresh air. Very happy to have and wear.

Vanille des Afriques is an addictive and easy reach. This turns into a pleasant vanillic musky floral on my skin. I was hoping this would be more along the vein of Black Tie but it is definitely not. I’m not even sure how one could associate the two... Though not the buttery orris/iris I was looking for, Vanille des Afriques is an uplifting delight to the senses. I was a little concerned about performance but this is a sneaky beast - it sits close to the skin but it’s actually quite strong.

This is a lovely, light, powdery, iris forward fragrance. There is a hint of sweetness and a hint of vanilla, but this is definitely a perfume that is an easy reach. I do wish there was a bit more umph or more projection - the same way I feel about Happy Dust. I wear a base layer of vanilla body oil to make the perfume a bit stronger. I with there was an extrait or an intense version. I will put this perfume near my vanilla freshies like Eau Duelle (EDT) and Vanilla Haze.

I just added this to my collection! It is very addictive! I mostly smell magnolia, osmanthus and vanilla with spice. It has a balsaminess. Not overly sweet, just enough, which is a huge plus for me, as I am not the biggest fan of sweet/ gourmand and vanilla fragrances. The very end of the dry down reminds me a bit of Black Tie by Celine, but the latter is more buttery without the fruits. My husband smells a lot if spice, but my nose doesn’t pick up as much. 10/10 for me

A Gentleman’s Warmth Tried this again on a cold night after forgetting the vial since summer — and it blew me away. Soft, smooth vanilla and iris create a cozy, powdery warmth that feels effortlessly rich. Unlike Dior Homme, which can turn boozy or spicy, this is pure sophistication. The scent of a self-made gentleman — mature, calm, and quietly luxurious. Perfect for fall and winter nights.

Honestly, I wasn't impressed at first but then I kinda changed my mind. I now find it addictive, but it does have also a little something weird in it, that I found to some extent in some Celine fragrances, almost like a bandaid smell. Might be the orris type or carrot seeds, which are quite dominant to my nose. The performance is great and it is beautiful in the air.

It is a shifting perfume, sometimes herbal, other times vanilic and irisy, with odd facets of the natural materials. However, I find it quite addictive and spa like, relaxing and elegant. Something you would wear for yourself but knowing that others will also find it appealing. It is a luminous fragrance that evokes vacation for me.

Most sophisticated vanilla there is. Smooth not sweetened vanilla that feels like the scent of it is directly from a vanilla bean with pink pepper which it give it a huge sparkly effect, it's tending to be more musky-fresh than sweet, iris does wonders in this one. Very well put together. Sounds boring but it's rather angelic..

Obsessed. Such a unique smell. A waxy style orris mixed with a beautiful osmanthus and vanilla. Damn it’s oh so good. Sensual, sexy, subdued. And the vanilla is clean and non gourmand. The whole is giving Profumum Roma Sorriso vibes but I think this is better due to the Orris/Osmanthus... cuts the sweetness.

Super unique opening, hard to define, but one I find addicting. I actually don’t get vanilla so much as powdery iris. It’s one I catch myself thinking about during the day. Comfortable and relaxing every time I wear it.

Oh I’m sooooo in love! It’s such a beautiful spicy vanilla with boozy and woody undertones. It has very balsamic (almost similar to mulled wine) kind of vibe. Definitely super unique and absolute mesmerizing scent!

This brings back a memory from long ago of a newly renovated doctor’s office. Brand new carpeting, perhaps. Not a gourmand vanilla at all, but strangely interesting. Unisex.

A very sophisticated, mature, airy vanilla which is not gourmand at all and can be worn for all seasons. Beautiful, elegant and captivating. Another hit of Ormande Jayne!

This is beautiful! Opening spray is powerful and then came a familiar accord I have been loving in my fragrances as of late; Carrot seed! Its powdery and earthy but airy. LOVE the Iris! Blended smoothly and just a hint of vanilla and warm amber in the base. I love that this fragrance is not Vanilla Forward. We have certainly seen Vanilla take the stage this year and I have enough in my collection. This is a unique take. I will have to sample some more of this before I decide on a full bottle. There is a Playdough like scent in the middle detected here, not bad at all. 8/10

I heard this was supposed to be similar to the discontinued Vanille Iris. I would say it is more vanilla than iris. I prefer the original Vanille Iris. A bit more spice. I shall cherish the last of my Vanille Iris and will not replace with this. Not a bad fragrance, but not FB worthy. I was happy I could test it side by side with my Vanille Iris.

I don’t know if it’s a full love but this is such a captivating vanilla to me. I feel like it’s a year round easy reach type of fragrance. There is a freshness and powder quality to the vanilla making it both slightly outdoorsy and feminine. It’s simple but one I imagine myself coming back to.

I get mostly a powdery balance of floral, vanilla, vetiver and a hint of citrus. It's a nice soft fragrance.

Had to double check multiple times the notes listed here and on webpage as this does not feel vanilla centered for me at all. I would say it is 100% iris centered. As of other flowers - on my skin I got none. For me the opening was sharp but quickly settled to a more pleasant lipstick scent powered spice mix. Not offensive, but something for me was not sitting right in the composition. As it approaches the drydown it settles to a very soft skin scent that for me smells more masculine, it has the same vibe as woody Iris scents marketed for guys. At this point I am 2 hours in my testing journey and I am yet waiting for a clear vanilla note to appear. Here it is burried, it is not loud, it is not fluffy, feminine, gourmand. Here it is spicy and dry. Longevity is 6+ hours as a skin scent. Price point is also way too high. I do love Ormonde Jayne, I own three full bottles (not from Intensivo line) and this is just not it.

Honestly, was not very impressed, and I can say I'm a bit disappointed. well, it was a blind buy as I'm obsessed with iris.. I don't know how I feel about it, it smells very generic and it lack the wow factor in OJ line of perfumes. I cant say it's bad, but its definitely not for me. Unfortunately.

A strange Iris forward vaguely vanilla scent. A field of Iris sprouting from a bed of old school band-aids. Though I adore the majority of scents from this house, this is not one of them. 🫤

Beautiful scent, airy and very light. I would purchase it in a second if it were stronger. It's just too light to justify the price.

I REALLY like this on a blotter. It evolves over time and smells very cozy. Creamy, buttery orris with a gentle hint of citrus wrapped in a blanket of vanilla? Sign me up. I couldn’t wait to give it a test run. Mixed with my skin chemistry, however, it turned into vanilla Dr. Pepper. Smelling this on my skin could give you a cavity. So disappointing! I would’ve loved to wear this one.

Earthy isn't the first word that comes to mind. Whatever that is in the opening is pungent. It's far too medicinal in the opening for my liking. It disappears about 10 minutes in the dry down and you're left with a barely there gently spiced semi-sweet vanilla.

Not vanillic. Iris centered. Typical Ormonde Jayne fixative that bothers me immensely. If you're looking for vanilla, look elsewhere. If you haven't enjoyed OJ in the past, I doubt you will this time. So glad I only purchased a travel spray. Totally unisex.

The opening and first 15 or so minutes smells like those sherbert lollies you had when you were a kid, and then the mid to late dry down is a quite spicy, musky amber. Not blown away by this one

This should be called vetiver des afriques because that's all I get! I don't know if my brain is broken or what but to me this smells like guerlain vetiver.

When I saw the comparison to Celine’s Black Tie, my first thought was these are nothing alike .... however smelling them side by side they are identical in the opening, but different in the dry down. Vanille Des Afriques nearly put me off wanting Black Tie, purely because I really don't like this. It has a slight pungent harshness to it on the initial spray. The dry down of Black Tie is a smooth, soft, sophisticated, orris and vanilla. The dry down of Vanille Des Afriques is giving me bleach vibes. Maybe it’s the osmanthus and coriander mix I’m smelling, but it’s a straight no for me!

This is genuinely the worst perfume I’ve ever encountered. It reminds me of pure unmistakable cow manure. It is straight, barnyard. Absolutely terrible.

This smells like parmesan cheese and Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning. 🤮. Not 1 drop of vanilla.

I got this in the mail today and it is pretty different in the opening to Vanille D’Iris. In kind of a weird and unexpected way. It sort of smells like olives... I’m going to keep testing it but it’s absolutely bizarre. It’s missing some of that buttery iris of the aforementioned Iris heavy scent and has some sweeter vanilla, especially in the dry down. The olive-y ness goes away after 30 minutes and turns into a very similar, albeit less thick and orris-y (and to me: satisfying) scent. I do like the sweetness of the vanilla and the strength of it but I won’t be buying a full bottle because I like Vanille D’Iris better. I’m amazed they are as different as they are, because Vanille D’Iris and Vanille Des Afriques share almost all of the same notes. Here are those shared notes: Magnolia, Orris, Jasmine and Osmanthus, Coriander, Sicilian Bergamot, Carrot Seeds and Pink Pepper, Musk, Cedar, Vetiver and Amber. The only notes they don’t share are details on the exact types of vanillas. Vanille D’Iris has “Tahitian vanilla” and “vanilla”, where as Vanille Des Afriques has “Madagascar vanilla” and “Bourbon Vanilla”. I’ll be curious to see if anyone else has any similar or strange openings with this as well. It’s not “bad”. But not my favorite from OJ... maybe I need to give it some time to macerate.

My initial spray, i felt it was ok. On my skin my nose picked something i didn't like, i am thinking the carrot seed (but I am not sure 🤔), or it could be something else. But that was in the first 2 hours. From initial spray to the next 5 hours it became better and better. With a beautiful scent cloud around me. Smells like a hybrid of Celine Dans Paris and Black tie. Perfect 👌. Though its a 2024 fragrance, i hear it is 💯 to their discontinued Vanille d'iris of 2015. If i may put it bluntly, it feels like a complete fragrance. Instead of the 5 notes hear and there to pay premium price for (Celine I am looking at you). 4 out of 5 notes in both Dans Paris and Black Tie are in Vanille des Afriques. So if you layer Dans Paris with Black tie, you get something close to this. Its your call. Would i buy this instead of Celine? Absolutely Projection and staying power, this is on point. 5 hours later and its still going strong. Please note it is not a beast mode as some may have it. But, it will not let you down. 10/10 Would I be able to wear this to a Black Tie event inside Paris? Maybe not (It does not sit close to the skin). But to an African wedding in London (as per the name of fragrance and origin of the brand), I would.

On paper I should love this perfume as all the notes and over all accords are among my favorites in perfumery. So when I saw it pop up on sale during the holidays I decided to blind buy a bottle. I do like the soft and powdery iris and Madagascan vanilla, but wafting through the composition I get the scent of bandaids and while it comes and goes, it’s present most of the time and it’s quite predominant. I’ve read a few other people saying they’re getting it too. Does anyone know what the culprit(s) are that creates this impression of bandaids? Because the bandaid scent itself is quite powdery, I’m wondering if it might actually be the orris. I’m trying to train my brain to focus on other aspects of the composition but I’m just not reaching for it enough to progress or reach a breakthrough. I haven’t given up entirely yet, but I may end up doing so and selling my bottle. I have moved it off my shelves to my purgatory box where I keep fragrances on the chopping block. I am curious what Vanille des Afriques does in warm and hotter weather— maybe it will transform. I’ll be keeping it through the Spring but by Summer if my brain can’t morph and reframe the bandaid scent I won’t be keeping it.

I walked into Harrods beauty early on a Tuesday morning and I was probably the only customer and outnumbered by a descending zombie hoard of sales assistants, all waiting to pounce and sell me a £400 bottle of perfume with a very limited knowledge, passion and vocabulary for fragrance. They were polite though and I indulged. This stuff was recommended as a non traditional vanilla, not over sweet and giving a new dimension to vanillic perfumes. Allegedly. Well I don’t know about that but it’s certainly got some nice elements the opening actually reminded me of that Bella Bellissima white leather a sort of guava accord. This is possibly the combination of osmanthus and citrus carrot seed maybe? Momentarily, because then it develops into a mildly powdery velvety, spiced amber, perhaps lite tobacco smoky vanilla. It’s very polite though to the point of being... well just slightly uninteresting, however I will give the SA credit here because her description was reasonably accurate, I think if you are put off by ‘vanilla’ in the title of a perfume you might just consider this and enjoy it.

Wearing this for the first time today, and the dry down is really reminding me a lot of Celine Black Tie and HOS Wonder Woman. Same Vanilla/Orris combination. The opening is quite different because this has a spicy element to it, and the Orris and Magnolia are giving me the same effect of what a creamy white bar of soap has, without the soapy smell, just the creaminess. If a clear bar of soap gives aldehydes, a white bar soap gives creamy, and that is what I get in the mid, coupled with a non-gourmande vanilla wafting around. Overall, if you're a fan of Black Tie, you will probably like this. I will say the performance is not as great as you would expect, given the Intensivo aspect. It became a skin scent around the 6 hour mark on me, really had to bury my nose in my wrist to get a wiff. Really beautiful, and am considering a full bottle!

This is definitely a mysterious one.. I thought it had gone after about 30 mins but that when it developed into something completely different and let me tell you I enjoyed the ride. At first spray I wasn’t impressed I didn’t smell any vanilla , there was a wafting of iris but the magic is the base notes and unfolded and I was hooked. Thai isn’t beast mood and actually is more of a close skin scent but the bubble would include someone who sits close. The stars are the iris, carrot seed and vetiver in my opinion. The vanilla adds just a small amount of sweetness but this is definitely not a sweet perfume. I plowed through my 5 ml decant and have a FB on its way. The price is steep but I enjoyed the journey so much that I had to splurge on this one!

A lighter, powderier, more rounded but also more ethereal/less dense version of Ambra Calabria. Similar use case. The OJ emphasizes light/white florals, musk & light woodiness, whereas Ambra Calabria emphasizes the amber & calabria-n bergamot more. I tend to find vanilla scents generally uninteresting and often disappoining, and this isnt spectacular in the sense of doing anything outrageous or unheard of, but this is pretty good. The issue Im experiencing is that Im getting too much musk in the drydown...or at least more musk than I would prefer. Im also getting a slight resemblance to Prada Luna Rossa Black, oddly enough.

On my skin this pulls very smokey and incensey. It immediately reminded me of Atelier des Ors Lune Feline, just a lighter version of it with more herbals. I used to love Lune Feline, found it so mysterious and captivating. Then I started to have trouble wearing it. Incense in general gives me trouble. That's why I'm a little dissapointed with Vanille des Afriques. I can't quite determine the season or conditions for which I'd want to wear this. For now, it's not a love. Update: yep, I actually do really like this. It's vanilla, but dry and green. Now I want a bottle...

I really do not like this, it smells nothing like I imagined. It's quite savory. I thought this would be a plush, powdery iris perfume with some vanilla fluffiness. Instead, it's balsamic, buttery and herbal. No florals here - this smells like food.

Pretty and comforting and I do like it,but I just think it exists in a limbo where it doesn’t stratch neither my iris nor my vanilla itch,doesn’t develop into neither as much as I’d like it to.I think it falls short so I don’t see myself purchasing.

C'est une très joli vanille , pas gourmande: la vanille et l'iris y sont magnifiquement mis en valeur avec une mention spéciale pour la vanille! Je n"avais pas accrochée à vanille d'iris , trop d'iris pour moi, mais celle là ,j'aime beaucoup !

Intensivo? Don't know her. Lovely scent - used half my 2ml sample this morning on a single application, and it's gone before I left the house. Will have to pass on FB for this reason.

I need! Not thrilled about spending $400 but I'm compelled. I'll circle back with thoughts after I own! Thank you all for your input on this frag.

The carrot seed and coriander give this a kind of animalic edge that brings it to the realm of a musc ravaguer. Worth a try.

This must be a re-release of Vanille d'Iris, or perhaps a reformulation? It has the same notes.

Smells like vanilla scented playdough to me