Felanilla 21

At first I could immediately smell the same hay note that is found in PG's Bois Blonde, a perfume I own and love. It's almost like a wilted lettuce/rotten vegetable scent, but I happen to like it. The scent was also quite powdery. I wondered what gave me the impression this would smell like vanilla, it was so far from vanilla. Yet within several minutes I began to pick up a light vanilla caramel. Quite gourmand for something that didn't start out gourmand at all. The notes I thought I smelled were vanilla, caramel, iris, amber, and orange. While there is no orange listed in the notes, it's hard for me to believe there is no citrus in this perfume. I also felt like I'd smelled something like this before and became a bit nostalgic for whatever that scent might have been.... I glanced at some of the reviews below and saw Shalimar Initial mentioned a couple times, and it made sense why this perfume seemed so familiar. I used to own Shalimar Initial, but I found it too weak for my taste. I also didn't love the "Guerlainaide" that some people talk about, which tends to give Guerlains an old-fashioned smell that doesn't suit me. I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard. So I have to agree--this is Shalimar Initial (improved). Felanilla is more interesting with the green hay note floating around. Sillage and longevity are both very good. My shirt smelled amazing the next day, with strong traces of the perfume still lingering. I wasn't tired of Shalimar Initial, it was just the sillage that annoyed me...so I would consider Felanilla as a worthy replacement.

This reminds me a lot of Shalimar Parfum Initial! More than of regular Shalimar, it has a cosmetic vibe like Parfum Initial does. Especially in the opening. Later in the drydown, this is more spicy and resinous, and less fluffy-pink than sweet than PI. Felanilla is a warm, resinous vanilla and amber scent with a heavy dose of waxy, powdery iris. I definitely get some citrus here, even though it's not listed, but not the bergamot from Shalimar, to me it smells like a tiny spritz of mandarin orange is in there. The banana wood addition is really interesting and cool. I would never have guessed it and to be honest, I'm not sure how banana wood smells in real life (who does?), but after reading the notes list, I can pick up an understated fruity-woody, slightly banana-ish note in this and I love it. I don't get the hay note at all, I get the hay in Lutens' Chergui for example, but I can't smell it here. Overall a lovely perfume. I don't need it at the moment, but I might get a bottle if I ever empty my Shalimar Initial. I feel like PG is an underrated house, they have some real gems but aren't talked about much. Maybe it's the boring bottles and the sheer size of their collection. Anyways, I'd recommend anyone who likes the Shalimar lineup and especially Parfum Initial to try Felanilla.

I love Felanilla. Someone below described this as Shalimar on Xanax and I completely agree. If you took Shalimar and stripped some of the growling, animalic leather out and amped up the iris note you'd get Felanilla. For those of you who don't have Shalimar as a handy reference, here's what Felanilla smells like: a dry vanilla mixed with a cool toned, chalky and papery iris note, a bit of opoponax (smells like Carmex lip balm) which is not listed in Felanilla but is certainly present, combined with a note of softly indistinct amber, polished woods and a spicey saffron. Certainly unisex, I could see men who love Dior Homme Intense kicking it up a notch and making this their signature just as easily as I could see uber-femme women wearing this with red lipstick. Superb! ETA: I've worn through two whole sample vials of this now. I've got to say that this really, really smells like a spicier, smoother Carmex lip balm scent.Very medicinal smelling but I love it. Update 7/26/15: I finally gave in and bought myself I bottle of this beauty. I have to say I'm surprised with people's references to the cosmetic iris note. To me it is very distinctly a spicy vanilla perfume with cool iris hints and has nothing to do with makeup.

Finally a PG I like! To me this is mostly a "cosmetic" (you know the one) iris paired with an inedible vanilla/musk combination but there are subtleties that make it pretty unique! The Carmex comparison is definitely accurate . It has this strange depth to it that I've come to recognize as the scent of petroleum jelly or vaseline. The saffron is also subtly detectable and it adds a much needed spicy tinge that keeps this from smelling like a vanilla-mint flavored urinal cake. To me the most interesting aspect of Felanilla is the opening's contrast between the cold, almost mentholated Iris and the fuzzy, warm musky vanilla. It quite literally smells cold on top and warm on bottom. It's like hugging someone in the fall. Your body feels the warmth coming off the other person but your face is cold from a breeze flowing over your coat. Eventually the warm notes beat out the iris and it enters a pleasant vanillic amber drydown. I LOVE the opening to this, and I appreciate the drydown but it does make me miss the action in the beginning. In a way its a bit top heavy, so I can't justify a full bottle but It is ideal for a decant! It has great longevity and about average sillage on me. 8/10

Gorgeous. Starts with a silvery and stark Iris that feels very futuristic and cold. This only lasts a few moments though before a plume of ambery vanilla that is in no way sweet or gourmand envelops the Iris in a sensual bear hug. There’s something a bit animalic in the background but it’s almost completely restrained, there’s just the barest edge of it. After a bit violets and hay become more prominent, adding some lighter notes that mainly serve to reinforce the feeling of deep smooth sensuality of the rest of the composition. The dry down is the same but add more powder. In my opinion, this is one sexy creature. It’s unisex. It’s for fall and winter and cooler spring nights. Definitely a date night perfume or something to be enjoyed by yourself. I think this telegraphs a message of extreme sensuality, it’s one of the sexiest perfumes I’ve smelled. It’s the polar opposite of some of the sweet and sugary vanillas that are out there now. If they are a white fluffy long haired kitten in a pink boudoir this is a muscular and sleek leopard stalking the Savannah.

This is a scent that doesn't take itself to seriously, starting with the whimsical name. It is very feline in the way it twines around you, like a cat sinuously winding around your body. As it settles it is more of a langorous stretch after a cat nap, soft and slinky. This is not a predatory cat, but a playful one who can be aloof and purring at the same time. It starts on me with a medicinal/astringent note that fades very quickly into the heart notes that are a very efferevescent vanilla, woody, ambery concotion. The final drydown for me is the same as the heart but with a bit more of the wood notes and the iris coming out to play, adding the powdery note, just a bit in the backround to give it a softness. Good longevity for me about 7-9 hours. This scent wears close, but it does project enough to have a curious passerby inquire as to what you are wearing. I like that this fragrance is playful and chic all at the same time. If you don't like foody vanilla perfumes this one is a must try.

The opening is wet hay to me. It goes through a slightly animalic phase as it dries, and reminds me of Zoologist Musk Deer for a bit, at one point quite strongly until the animalic quality fades. The two scents both have this dirty musk type scent, though it is lighter in Felanilla and disappears in about a half hour. Then comes a wonderful dry, musky, slightly sweet vanilla amber scent that verges on pudding-like, very comforting. I quite enjoy this scent, the first two hours are a fun ride and settles to something warm and enveloping bubble. Performance and sillage are surprisingly good considering how poorly most PG scents perform on me, I sprayed a few spritzes from my sample onto my hand and hours later as I got into my boyfriend’s car he immediately smelled it and said it smelled good.

I’m very scared of vanilla but I don’t wanna be one of those guys... hates what’s popular even if it’s good so i dabble and test myself. But this scent is probably one of the first i ever sampled and i fell in love. So early on my vanilla hatred was challenged like right out the gate. So i continued on usually including one vanilla scent per sample haul and none of them were this good. Apart from some other really spicy herbal ambers that just so happened to have vanilla. But this is the only vanilla up front and center scent that doesn’t really make me think I’m wearing a vanilla scent it’s so odd. Like the main player is clearly vanilla but presented dry brown yet fluffy. Kinda like a dry angels dust from Bianchi. Which i also adore. This takes it into a more unisex world.

OMG - so sexy! Very sweet opening dries down to a gorgeous Vanilla - amber, quite syrupy and boozy. The hay and iris giving a tad dustiness and yet slightly airy. Delish! A tad dark - it reminds me of smelling the glass jar of brown sugar when I was a kid with a dollop of syrupy vanilla. Quite different to all my vanillas, maybe, just maybe erring on the ladies side but fine for men. Super natural gourmand and possibly going to the top shelf amongst Olfactive Studio Vanilla Shot and Atelier Cologne Vanille Incensee which are the class leaders for me. For reference and perspective I also own Jovoy Remember Me and Comptoir Sud Pacific Soufflé Des Indes. I have tried many and these are my faves.

Powdery? Maybe, but a very specific powder. Felanilla smells like you've just hit a rich vein of mineral sherbet in the shimmering darkness and, as you bring your magical haul up to the daylight and the scent settles down, in comes the hay and iris root, turning subterranean to heady summer. The true surprise is in the vanilla. Almost absent initially, it grows in confidence as the fresher scents wilt and you're left imbued with its warmth as if soaked all day in vanilla sunlight. A gorgeous and surprisingly complex fragrance that rewards continued wear.

I adore it. Very comfortable and luxurious. Where Alfarom describes Felanilla as "kinda incomplete or inconsistent", I kinda like it for its openness (if that makes any sense). Lovely amber and hay, warm vanilla, beautiful iris and bananaleaf!!... Absolutely irresistible. Unfortunately I have to drown myself in Felanilla to keep the vibe going. Worth its money? The smell: Undoubtedly Sillage: Only if you love close-to-skin sents Longevity: Medium

Felanilla is a combination of feline and vanilla. It’s a seemingly relaxed arrangement of saffron, vanilla (two rare and precious varieties: Bourbon and Taihitian), hay and sweet woods but it’s a feline prowl of a scent. This vanilla is for grown-ups and is neither girly nor smells of patisserie. A precious, generous and racy combination of three absolutes (hay, iris and vanilla) resting on a fruity woods base.

A lot like most perfumes by Parfumerie Generale--a little challenging at first. It smelled like fluffy vanilla marshmallow and plastic dolls. Rather quickly, the plastic doll scent nearly vanished, and the vanilla took on a delicious quality that reminded me of a syrupy, dark vanilla liqueur heated up with a generous dollop of softly whipped cream on top. I'm drooling....

This is an awesome fragrance! It's a non-sweet, dry, unisex vanilla with really good lasting power, and with a moderate sillage. I have a 5ml decant of this, and after I run out I have to buy more. This is worth trying out if you don't like sticky sugary sweet vanilla perfumes. It's really nice to wear on a cold day, especially a rainy one. It lifts your mood.

Wow -! Forgot how good this is. An ambery resinous vanilla. The darkness kinda makes it more of a tonka vibe partly because of the Iris and the banana leaf. An occasional vinegary and powdery vibe occasionally interplays. Out of all vanillas it’s about the only one I can say is male centric though awesome on a woman. @nixonienne there is no clove.

To my uneducated naive nose it smells like delicious dry vanilla with a warm woody undertone, overlayed by the smell of very very green banana peel. It is this green banana peelish note that makes it one of my absolute favourite perfumes ;)I did not know vanilla could smell this good!

First impression: very beautiful, unsweetened hay vanilla. After an hour it becomes a lovely personal scent, I couldn’t stop smelling myself. There’s a soft powdery feel to this, it’s a persistent but quiet beauty. Onto my wish list it goes.

This is a beautiful and rugged, dry vanilla scent. It smells like walking through dry grass and violets with the sun on your neck. Such an underripe, green quality balanced by warm vanilla and amber. A unique, incredibly versatile scent.

So many wonderful reviews on here. I love this one and the whole line. It is an exquisite vanilla and saffron with a beautifully blended amber. It is elegant and comforting at the same time. Pleasure to wear.

Beautiful oriental spicy vanilla. Intriguing. In Shalimar style. Now I want to buy Shalimar. Thanks.

An intriguing vanilla in the vein of Shalimar but maintaining its own personality.

When I first sampled this one I had a contrasting feeling. On one side I thought it was a pleasant warm vanilla, on the other side I thought it was too similar to FM Musc Ravageur but without FM power. I gave it a second chance and got a another sample. Well, I still think Maurice Roucel is much better than Guillame, I still think Felanilla lacks something but I can definitely say it is an incredibly addicting and very comfortable scent. Here follows my review based on the first sample I got: I quite like this one but, to be honest, it striked me as a sort of mash up between Musc Ravageur and Acier Alluminum. Well, actually I think Musc Ravageur has a stronger personality and Maurice Roucel is much better than Pierre Guillame, but that's another point. Felanilla is surely a well crafted warm vanilla scent, filled with top quality ingredients, with an acceptable sillage and a no more than reasonable lasting power but IMO it lacks in depth. It has a nice opening with a lot of amber and a hint of banana wood somewhere and a much better drydown that turns the scent into a confortable and quite close to the skin amber/vanilla but it still lacks in something...I still have to decide if I really like Pierre Guillame's creations or not but my suggestion to him, would surely be to reduce a little the reange of his productions and maybe focus on just a bunch of fragrances and complete them. I love Cozè, Intrigant Patchouli, Aomassai and find Papyrus De Ciane absolutely fantastic (unfortunately the latter doesn't match with my skin chemistry, but on paper is delightful) but my impression is too many of Guillame's fragrances (not all of them) are kinda incomplete or inconsistent. A nice scent, anyway. Rating: 7.5/10

This is one of the first PG scents I'd actually consider buying a FB of out of the few I've sampled. I tried it months ago and loved the soft caressing vanilla, hay and iris dry down but then promptly forgot about it. On a recent iris scent quest I re tried it and found the opening oddly repulsive. I'd don't remember disliking the top notes so much before but this time I find the markedly unsettling. Too much saffron and banana leaf creates an odd sweet savoury clash which is a little sickly. I don't like saffron notes at the best of times and banana leaf on me always smells very synthetic and too sweet. I feel a perfume with such a cosy comforting dry down should have a bit of brightness or citrus in the opening so as to give a bit of freshness to contrast with the ambery drydown. I guess that's what makes this unusual (which is a good thing in my opinion) is that it's a drydown/base notes fragrance that shows of the beauty of a drydown of itself alone. But I do think the opening notes rather smother and suffocate you with sweetness untill you submit to the softness and depth of the middle and base notes. So the question is to buy or not to buy? The top notes do only seem to last 15 minutes but is this fragrance too forgettable to be worth a full bottle?

Felanilla: a feline vanilla. At least that's what the PG website claims. This vanilla fragrance is multi-dimensional, but I wouldn't go far as to say that it's animalic. When I first applied Felanilla, I was a little overwhelmed with a cottonmouth feel. It felt rather pithy and white, and on checking the notes I see it contains banana. According to the notes here, banana leaf, other websites state banana wood. In any event, it feels underripe, or like the white inside part of a banana skin. After a little while, the pithy feeling subsides and saffron warms the composition with a gentle golden spiced glow. Iris and hay together bring warm earthy air without being powdery or billowy. Occasionally the green pithy note resurfaces and presents an almost synthetic/plastic vanilla note. Occasionally it even feels as though there is a touch of medicinal opoponax resin. Because of this Felanilla vacillates between being a smooth, wearable Oriental vanilla, to something teasingly jarring with notes of woody familiarity. I do like that there is very little sugar in this fragrance, just inherent sweetness from vanilla and subtle flowers. Overall, Felanilla is a pleasingly intriguing woody vanilla fragrance.

Felanilla isn't like most vanilla scents, or at least not like any I've tried before - there's really not much warmth or sweetness to it at all, let alone an edible factor. The first time I tried it, I couldn't even understand why it was named after the vanilla note for the first few hours. That's how long it takes to pass through the nice but unexpected waxy lipstick opening and a much longer phase of mostly cold, dry iris - and before the vanilla starts creeping in slowly, very slowly, until it finally takes over entirely and the name begins to make sense: this smoky, mature, borderline animalic green vanilla turns out to be the star of the show after all. In terms of projection this is a pretty light scent after the first half hour or so, but this daylong transformation makes it the very opposite of fleeting and one-dimensional. I like it a lot, but it's the kind of scent where sampling alone doesn't seem enough to really get to know it and make it your own. So I'm intrigued, and I guess it's another one for my long (decant) wishlist...

I can't think of anything more suited to Autumn now it's getting chillier. I'm immediately reminded of Shalimar, and Musc Ravageur, though this is softer than Shalimar and less animalic than Musc Ravageur. The saffron and hay bring it into more contemporary realms, the iris adds to these smooth, dusty dry background effects. I also notice cinnamon, possibly clove though they're not listed here. The drydown is a lovely toasty vanilla/amber and I also notice the banana leaf more in dry down, subtle though it is, which makes it all slightly gourmand, perfect for eating out on an Autumn or Winter evening I think. Lovely on skin or emanating from a cosy wool scarf. What I most like about this perfume is that it has a warmth and tingly presence without being heavy or obvious - no loud spiciness as in Opium or Coco, no patchouli/fudge. It's inspired, easy to wear, quite 'come hither' in its cosy warmth - full bottle worthy as we say here on Fragrantica!

This is unique for sure, I’ve never smelled anything quite like it. When I saw the hay note I thought it might be horrible as it brings to mind the barnyard but I’m enjoying it. It’s almost sort of minty and fresh? I can’t really tell that there is iris. If I had to compare this to another fragrance the only thing I can think of is Angelique Noire but that has a much more bracing cold opening, and I think is more complex as well. This one kind of smells the same on my skin in the opening as it does hours later. It is sweet but not cloying. It has a bit of an addictive quality. I will say I think Angelique Noire is better because I just love the vanilla base in Guerlain scents, but this is a beautiful fragrance as well. I don’t have shalimar so I can’t compare them but if this does smell like shalimar then I’m intrigued.

First of all, I have to put on tons of it to make it stay on my skin for longer than 3-4 hours. It seems as if my skin just swallows it. Second, the vanilla is drowned by the amber on me at least. Although I love the opening and the first hour is just magical, after that I can only smell deep, warm amber of the finest quality with a tiny bit of hay and vanilla. No banana for me and it certainly does not belong to the foody vanillas' family. It's elegant and comforting at the same time. I'd say that due to the lack of sillage and longevity it's not FB worthy for me but a. I love it too much at least for while it lasts and b. having bought Cadjmere, I found out that the PG bottle juice is usually much stronger than the sample. So, the jury is still out on this one.

a feline like vanilla for sure. It’s sultry, rich, and animalic but with something alluring underneath it. You get a very saffron heavy opening, it’s spicy, dark, and sweet, even slightly leathery. A strong hay note follows behind it, it’s earthy, dry, slightly dirty, but still fresh and green. The iris develops in the heart of this, it’s candied and powdery. I don’t love amber normally but the amber in this is warm and sultry, inviting and sweet. And ofc, there’s the vanilla, it’s spiced, warm, smooth, and adult. It smells like a grown up vanilla. A mature one. With all that said on my skin it pulls superrrr ambery so I won't be getting a bottle, wish it smelled how it did on the tester strip bc it was way less amber heavy.

Wow! An opening that some alcoholic in a few seconds and following Initial remembered Shalimar initial EDP, but without the citrus notes. This leaves less acid Felanilla. But opening it is a stick! Another difference is that powerful vanilla PG 21 seemed drier. The iris is also evident in the opening. Spending a few minutes the opening notes soften and begin to enter the woody amber with a touch slightly bitter (must be the note of hay), approaching the region and the nose spray, he could feel slightly bitter in the central region of the tongue, but was something very subtle. Do not bother me. Perfume totally unisex, maybe even a little more feminine than the Initial Shalimar initial EDP. I really liked

From PG website: Saffron, Vanilla Absolute, Iris Absolute, Cardamom, Amber, Musk There must have been a reformulation, no mention of hay or banana leaf. It's primarily a vanilla scent, but a spicy one (I'm sure it has saffron in there, but I don't sense it as a distinct note). In effect, a non-gourmand vanilla scent. There is amber as well. There is a powdery iris phase early on, but it doesn't last very long. It reminds me of Vangelis (obviously this one came much later). Average performance, but it lingers on as a skin scent. Handling vanilla well is one of PG's strong points. There are other more interesting vanilla scents by him, so personally I would go for one of the other ones.

A very lovely Shalimar-esque type of fragrance! I'm really liking this. It's a mossy, greenish-fresh sort of vanilla but it's still holding on to that vanillic warmth. A little bit herbal, a little bit ambery, I get a tiny bit of grass or hay. It's softer on the woods, but altogether it's very well rounded. The dry down is a delicious and slightly spicy ambered vanilla. Although I really like this one, I'll stick with my Shalimar in the end. Others may like this if they find Shalimar is too much and are looking for an alternative. And if you like Shalimar, try this one too!

Shalimar's softer, fluffier cousin opens with a big blast of powdery iris which is later warmed up by vanilla, amber, and spices. The vanilla becomes sweeter with time, almost gourmand, and the hay adds a fluffy feeling that makes this airy and open like a cloud. Sillage is soft to medium. I would like this if the iris wasn't as prominent, it adds a sterile element I tend to dislike. Make sure you like iris if you plan on buying a full bottle of this. EDIT spring 2020: I like, sometimes even love iris now. I might put this on my want list.

The very first time i tried Felanilla I didn't like it, but I was going through a woody tobacco phase and this just wasn't what I was looking for. Fast forward 6 months later and I got my little sample out again and..wow, so different to my first wearing. Where I first thought it was dusty and old, now I think it's beautiful and powdery but not in an old way. Warm but cool. Musky iris & vanilla. I can't say that I can pick out any other notes but I don't care. I've been sniffing my wrist all day.

This is an interesting Fragrance, It starts of very sparkling on me like champagne!! the vanilla, musk and amber is there - I agree with others its not sickly sweet. Its warm, musky, powdery, honey, sparkly with saffron and Iris - makes it interesting and very wearable - there is a softness. I think it is unisex. Like it but think i would like it more on my man or on my clothes/bedding, not so much on me. Maybe I should try it again in winter.

This one is a mixed bag on my chemistry. Initially, the composition is a little unusual, but pretty quickly it settles into a really good, comforting fragrance. It would be a 'love' for me if it stays there, but it kind of dries down to a nothing smell on me (though this could be overcome if you carry a travel size around). Worth a test? Definitely! Big bottle buy? For me, no, but may be a yes for you

this one opens with iris, saffron and hay. something here reminds me of the smell of textiles or pages from a book. after being on skin awhile i get a bit of vanilla and tons of amber. it quickly turns to an ambery hay/iris and vanilla does get a bit stronger over time. it reminds me of a vintage perfume with a slight twist. can't believe amber isn't rated higher, as it's the strongest note for me.

This scent was crazy familiar but I couldn’t place it until I notice someone had included Lush’s Lord of Misrule in the “reminds me of” section. After the opening blast of waxy iris dries off, Felanilla smells exactly like the inside of a Lush shop, but chic? If you enjoy that particular miasma and you want it in a bottle, here you go! It’s kinda growing on me.

Felanilla is a boozy, spicy vanilla on my skin. The iris makes a brief appearance but is not a key component to this fragrance. To my nose it's a cross between Musc Ravageur and (weirdly) Dolcelisir, even though the notes are completely different. If you love dry vanilla scents, and you're looking for an autumn/winter fragrance, this would be a good choice.

I find it really musky...surprising that the notes-pyramid doesn't contain musk... Didn't wear it often, now a year ago the last time and today I thought, uhff spicy musk, amber, sugar and hay.....probably the hay is the musky quality in it... I understand the comparison with Musc Ravageur.. It is full-bodied and satisfying, but still not my kind of scent.

Felanilla is both a dark and earthy green vanilla. I mainly notice the vanilla, whereas the iris is hiding in plain sight, like a filter over the whole experience that adds a powdery dimension. Instead of being airy and clean, it's dusky and almost smoky. The vanilla is liqueurish and comforting. I think this is a good alternative for Shalimar EDT.

Well that reminded me another beautiful perfume,organza indecence.I don't find it that complex as organza is,I can only feel the warm vanilla extract nothing else,so I'll stick to the milkyness of organza!

Such a weird fragrance, started like a becherovka or mastika or some similar booze but soon it settled and now reminds me of an old lipstick. It is, for me, vintage amber and iris that are leading this composition into something very difficult to pull off. Definitely not a blind buy.

Felanilla intrigued me because it’s a “vanilla-iris”, a combination I’ve come to love. But it turns out to be the bad kind of iris (in my book), the chilly, lipsticky, powdery kind. Any tinge of vanilla or banana underneath is still in service of that pale and rather froufrou aesthetic. I do kind of like the banana-pudding second stage, which does have a suggestion of earthy hay, but it’s quite faint. Definitely on me Felanilla isn’t a “dark”, “masculine”, or “animalic” vanilla, or anything at all like Shalimar, as some reviewers claim. It’s a very sheer and quiet, very conventionally feminine, powder-fest. Not overly sweet, but definitely pale and frilly.

A VERY skinclose scent on my skin. Nice scent - with a hint of some soft spices, maybe the Saffron and hay that makes that illusion.Timeless - both girl and women can wear this one. Like the Ambertouch in it. Perfect for office. En VÄLDIGT hudnära doft på mig. Trevlig doft - med en aning om kryddighet, kanske mixen av Saffran och Hö som gör det. Tidlös- både tjejen och kvinnan kan bära denna. Gillar den mjuka Ambernoten. Perfekt för kontoret.

As a cat owner, I can definitely say this starts out smelling like a brush full of old cat fur, or like someone's house who keeps too many cats. It then (thankfully) fades quickly into a spicy vanillic amber. The transition from musty kitty fur to spice-cake dessert makes me a little queasy.

Felanilla has a nice, smoky vanilla drydown. The rest is all boozy iris, that didn't quite work for me.

Iris blast right off the bat. Soapy, intoxicating, but also soft somehow, and intimate. An hour in, the iris is still the main character of this scent story. It's slightly softer and creamier and I can now clearly detect vanilla and amber behind it, but everything revolves around this iris. You have to love this note, and florals in general, to enjoy this. Because the fragrance projects quite a bit and there's no escaping it if you're unsure. Two hours in, it fully blossoms into a creamy, vanilla ambery iris and stays that way for a few more hours before it leaves my skin.

Felanilla is an iris-heavy oriental perfume from 2008. It came on the heels of two other irises in the Parfumerie Generale Line: Iris Oriental (née Iris Taizo) in 2006 and Cuir d’Iris in 2007. The three were part of the ‘new iris’ trend of the mid-’00s that blurred the line between mainstream and niche. The Parfumerie Generale perfumes and other independent perfumes like Frederic Malle Iris Poudre, Acqua di Parma Iris Nobile and Ormonde Jayne Orris Noir were matched head-to-head by Dior Homme, Prada Infusion d’Iris and Gianfranco Ferre Ferre EDP. Felanilla hit the scene at a very particular moment for iris. Niche perfumery was exploding and designer brands were keen to steal niche’s fire (and revenue). Guerlain, Cartier, Hermès, Dior, Chanel and the like were investing heavily in new ‘exclusive’ luxury sub-lines to lure niche customers out of LuckyScent, Osswald and Les Senteurs and into their own boutiques. Niche brands had always viewed themselves outside the mainstream. They were better than ‘ordinary’ perfumes because more inventive and more daring. The new high-end designer lines reversed the logic of the indies focusing on exclusivity rather than inventiveness. These new premier lines didn’t phrase themselves as outrageous or even as much different than their department store counterparts. They were simply more select and therefore more desirable. They were just better. Iris was the perfect note to bridge the divide. (This was a heartbeat before oud.) Historically, orris denoted luxury and prestige. On a practical level, iris had an affinity with berry and chocolate notes on one side, sheer woody notes on another and powdery floral notes on still another. The versatility of the note created an effortless range from the sweet tooth of Guerlain Iris Ganache to the restraint of Chanel 28 La Pausa. The flexibility allowed for new sophisticated styles of gourmand perfumes at a time when a large cohort of young women were outgrowing the syrupy fruity-florals and cupcake gourmands they had worn for the past 5-10 years. Felanilla veered away from the sweet end of the spectrum, but with a focus on vanilla it did comment on gourmandism, if obliquely. From a certain angle it smells like a dessert recipe that forgot the sugar. Like cough-syrup flavored buttercream icing. But the lack of sweetness had a point. It seems to say, ‘if you’re looking for sexy, the curves are in the vanilla, not in the sugar.’ From start to finish vanilla sits unadorned at the center of the perfume. It is fairly austere at the outset but gradually loosens its posture and settles into a more relaxed stance. A potent saffron note marks Felanilla as ‘of its era’ as much as the iris does, but the slight metallic touch it creates suits the overall firmness of the composition. The iris and vanilla pairing might be a nod to Shalimar, but Felanilla skips the citrus lead-in and the sweet, smoky, powdery circus of the Guerlain classic. It freeze-dries the bulky classic oriental structure and shakes off the ornamentation, pairing down to essentials without a hint of nostalgia. Seen as an oriental, Felanilla doesn’t seem to fit any particular trends of the time. It does, though, compare interestingly to the ‘new irises’ that independent perfumers were devising at the time: Histoires de Parfums 1889, Serge Lutens Bas de Soie, le Labo Iris 39, l’Artisan Parfumeur Dzongkha, Parfum d’Empire Equistris. Guillaume had previously placed iris in a woody, savory-gourmand setting in Iris Oriental and against a sweet-leather backdrop in Cuir d’Iris. Felanilla continued the investigation of iris, focusing on the woody-balsamic range that Guillaume and the Parfumerie Generale line would become well-known for. The state of the perfume market in the mid-late ’00s left me on the fence. I disliked the cynical trend of price-jacking that the exclusive lines fostered, but I loved the innovation that lead to exciting new approaches and styles. The trend of ‘new-irises’ might have been co-opted by the luxury houses, but it also gave us a broad range of imaginative and gorgeous perfumes. Guillaume’s irises capture the up-side of the time and have survived the test of time extremely well. 10 years later they compare favorably to any iris perfumes that have come along since.

I don't agree on most comments on this vanilla to be not sweet. The more the amber emerges, the sweeter it gets until the point, where I find it nearly vile. The iris-amber combination, which makes it sweet powdery, is alluring and repulsing at the same time. I imagine on a man that might smell very very nice, but I don't like it on women. Maybe because Felanilla reminds me somehow of playing with Barbie and of old fashioned male bath cosmetics (iris!). And folks, let us not forget this awful opening! Ok, it's a funny smell, but for no money in the world I want to smell like wet cardboards. To smell Falanilla out of curiosity and the fun in it is one thing (and for that purpose really an experience), but to go in public is something totally different. Try before you buy. Also, the comparision to Musc Ravageur is?? Where does that come from? To my nose they have nothing in common, don't be fooled that if you love one, you automatically love the other. I warned you! :) Also no cat in general or Shalimar in particular to me. After all Felanilla is very unique and it's really a lot of fun to explore it. A must try, not necessary a must wear, imho.