Bergamot
Hinoki cypress
Clove
Cardamom
Cedarwood
Leather
Patchouli05/30/2025
ClaireV
731 Reviews
ClaireV
1
Airy, woody vanilla with a 'stripped bark' feel
Vanilla Hinoki is in many ways a sister scent to Geisha Noire, sharing as it does a lemony resin topnote that probably owes at least some of its structure to a combination of petitgrain and elemi. But while Geisha Noire goes on to develop a satiny sweet-n-salty resin drydown that seems to extend for miles below ground, Vanilla Hinoki levels out into a fresh, silvery ‘Japanese woods’ accord that is all surface.
Amyris, a wood that smells like a smokier, far more bitter version of Australian sandalwood, gives the scent an aromatic brightness. The hinoki wood smells green and unripe, like a rasp of bark excised from a silver birch sapling and infused with lemon peel in perfumer’s alcohol. It smells – to put it bluntly – like raw lumber.
Because of its linearity, I find Vanilla Hinoki to be clean and uplifting without pulling on any memory chord in particular. There is much to be said for a vanilla-based scent that is woodsy, green, and unsweet. It would work wonderfully on anybody who hates foodie, floral vanillas or who wants to wear a vanilla-based scent in summer without causing everyone around to gasp for air.
Amyris, a wood that smells like a smokier, far more bitter version of Australian sandalwood, gives the scent an aromatic brightness. The hinoki wood smells green and unripe, like a rasp of bark excised from a silver birch sapling and infused with lemon peel in perfumer’s alcohol. It smells – to put it bluntly – like raw lumber.
Because of its linearity, I find Vanilla Hinoki to be clean and uplifting without pulling on any memory chord in particular. There is much to be said for a vanilla-based scent that is woodsy, green, and unsweet. It would work wonderfully on anybody who hates foodie, floral vanillas or who wants to wear a vanilla-based scent in summer without causing everyone around to gasp for air.
