Oh my goodness: am I having an ANGEL flashback? (I always suspected that it was fat soluble...) No, in fact, I am wearing Laurence Dumont Les Senteurs Gourmandes VANILLE CHOCOLAT.
I tested a few of these Dumont perfumes a while back and was sufficiently pleased to end up acquiring a bottle of VANILLE VIOLETTE (not in the bn db), so I welcomed the receipt of a new sample which had been thrown in along with a recent online order. This house can perhaps be best summed up as "budget niche"—as oxymoronic as that may sound. The compositions are all very natural smelling, and I am sure that they use real flowers, where relevant (not in this case...). I have found all of the Dumont perfumes which I've sniffed rather simple, and this entire vanilla series is obviously geared toward lovers of all things gourmand, as the name clearly indicates: "Les Senteurs Gourmandes".
VANILLE CHOCOLAT really does open very similarly to the drydown of ANGEL, which surprised me since VANILLE VIOLETTE does not smell like ANGEL OF STARS VIOLETTE. However, VANILLE CHOCOLAT proceeds to transform into a somewhat strange, almost rubbery chocolate/myrrh-vanillla drydown, as though the chocolate were somehow petrified. This entry in the vanilla series is not nearly so sweet as the VANILLE VIOLETTE, which offers a double hit of sugar, given the naturally sweet quality of violets combined with the sweet vanilla (which to some would qualify as cloying!).
My impression is that people who like some of the better-made vanilla-oriental celebrity scents would like this line a lot. I definitely recommend this particular creation to those who appreciate (and even crave!) ANGEL. You know who you are: you avail yourselves of the "refill vats" at major department stores. (-:
