SEVEN VEILS

7/27/15

Carrot seed. Pimento Berries. Tahitian Vanilla Flower. Laurier Rose. Glycine. Tiger Orchid. Sandalwood. Vanilla.

The phrase “that’s so vanilla” isn’t exactly a positive one and has associations with boring, cookie-cut styles, attitudes, or personalities.  Vanilla is conventional; the great appeaser, the one who struggles to live fully in the moment and shirks the dark side of the street.  In mainstream perfumery, it’s often synthetic, so when mixed with little else of value, it can smell unbalanced, like it’s trying to find its sea legs, often struggling to present a put-together product.  We may view it as a teeny bopper note, suited to adolescents who tend to make googly eyes at sweet ingredients; be it vanilla or something else.  My own six-year-old daughter, elated at being given the chance to select her own fragrance in a discounter’s warehouse, proudly held up her liquid of choice and exclaimed “Look mama, it smells just like jello!”  We live and we learn.

Saying this though, there are exciting partnerships to be made with vanilla and I have found a couple of recent favorites, the first of which is the exciting and unusual Seven Veils by Byredo.  It opens with a punchy blow of peppery raw vegetable that is flamboyant and so spicy-strong for the first few minutes that it gives off almost an alcohol-soaked intensity. I wouldn’t say it is shockingly carrot, although looking at the pale orange juice in the bottle, one would wonder if perhaps carrots had been left to steep there.  And that’s not a negative, because it’s actually very pretty.  To snatch a line from the Wizard of Oz, it’s just “a horse of a different color”!  An oriental treat of a perfume, the moniker ‘Seven Veils’ suits well, as it does conjure an Eastern mystique peeking at you with large seductive eyes from a covered face.  After that brash 8-cylinder opening blast of raw root vegetable, it fairly quickly settles into an almost custardy pretty little thing that’s still got hints of its boozy past, but thankfully is saved from saccharine vanillaland snoozeville by a healthy common sense dose of sandalwood; the wise aunt keeping the hormonal teen in check.

So, in conclusion,  although wearability will be subjective as I can see that some of the erstwhile vanillaheads might not like some of the cheeky little twists that Byredo adds here, this is definitely a notable and daring attempt at an oft-used perfumery staple.

Rating: 4 of Salome’s most lascivious veils.