Les Indemodables Vanille Havane, photo courtesy of Les Indemodables

Cut into a vanilla bean and what do you smell? Bitter, almost medicinal odors, mixed with pronounced notes of aged wood, booze, creamy flowers, even dots of leather. Certainly not the cloyingly sweet substance found in many contemporary fragrances. French independent house Les Indemodables Vanille Havane is a fantastic voyage through the vanilla bean, passing through aromas of raisins and prune, tropical flowers, tree bark, plastic, dessert spices, leather, and more. Using grand cru in-house extracts in high concentrations (a Les Indemodables signature), Vanille Havane captures the bean’s myriad facets in a delectably warm, beautifully crafted fragrance all but certain to wipe away unfortunate memories of dumbed-down, candy floss synthetics. Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.

Vanilla bean and orchid, photo, creative commons license

Independent perfumer Antoine Lie, working with Les Indemodables founder and creative director, Valerie Pulverail, says, “the idea was not just to do a typical candied sweet vanilla, the artificial flavor everyone is familiar with. Instead, I wanted to reveal all the rich facets in the bean, so I pushed the rum, cocoa, spices, tobacco, floral and leathery facets…” Indeed, like its star ingredient, Vanille Havane defies easy description: part tipsy gourmand, part flowery spice bomb, part earthy tobacco-woods. Lie introduces notes that correspond to and emphasize each particular aspect of the natural bean’s complex bouquet. Comoros vanilla is set against a backdrop of dry cocoa and dessert spice, though in its initial moments, the perfume gives off an aura of a men’s club in Havana, circa Graham Greene. The opening is sophisticated, spiritous; the smell of high-end rum in a crystal tumbler, followed by unsmoked, hand-rolled cigars, a quiet redolence of mahogany tables flanked by sleek leather chairs.

Vintage poster for Our Man in Havana, 1959, stock photo Cocoa, photo via FreeMG

But just before Les Indemodables Vanille Havane can veer masculine, thick, creamy jasmine comes forward, the barest hint of indoles imparting a touch of feminine sensuality, and the fragrance gets a dollop of dried fruit and spice. The booze now smells more like rum-soaked raisins, and I get the first wave of cosseting spices: cardamom, clove, and, to a lesser extent, cinnamon, which add a diffuse sweetness. Cocoa and vanilla, however, dominate. The cocoa is intensely dry and rich simultaneously, reminiscent of Paris’ more exclusive chocolatiers – so much so that it is easy to miss the vanilla as vanilla. But as my nose becomes accustomed to the chocolate, the way eyes adjust to darkness after bright light, the fruity, tree bark vanilla note – the way the bean smells in its entirety – advances.

Cocoa, photo via FreeMG

I’m now smelling Les Indemodables Vanille Havane on each hand, sprayed at different points. On my left, is the newer version; creamier, more floral and gourmand, with cocoa and rum very much at the forefront. On the right, there’s been a subtle shift, like a gradation of colour, to drier notes. What initially smelled like cigar tobacco has turned greener, mulchier, almost moist, and animalic and mineral undertones are present. An hour or so later, Vanille Havane coalesces into a rich, but never overtly sweet, resinous dry-down. It is the kind of lusciously warm fragrance that sits perfectly in front of a winter’s fire, underneath a cashmere muffler or nestled in a pillow. A brilliant olfactory exposition of vanilla, Les Indemodables Vanille Havane is my favourite thus far in what is already a supremely elegant, top-drawer line. And it’s already on my top ten list of 2021.

Notes: Rum, cocoa, jasmine, dried fruits, vanilla, floral notes, clove, cinnamon, cardamom, woods, leather.

Disclaimer: Sample of Les Indemodables Vanille Havane kindly provided by Indigo Perfumery. My opinions are my own.

Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor

Les Indemodables Vanille Havane, photo by Ann Bouterse of Indigo Perfumery

Thanks to the generosity of Indigo Perfumery, we have a 50 ml bottle of Les Indemodables Vanille Havane ($260) for one registered reader in the U.S. ONLY. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what strikes you about Vanille Havane based on Lauryn’s review, if you have tried any Les Indemodables perfumes. Draw closes 2/25/21

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