Vanilla² Maison Tahité 2020

Vanilla² was one of my biggest perfume catfishes ever. reading the reviews, I was fully expecting basically a gourmand heaven. instead? I got resin. lots of resin.

yes, it’s “sweet”, but not in a creamy, edible, dessert-like way. this is a much darker, more resinous vanilla, and I suspect it’s due the benzoin! it smells like if Angel (YES, THE ANGEL by Mugler) and Vanilla 28 had a child with the patchouli depth of Angel (that i dislike) and the amber vanilla vibe of Vanilla 28, but without the cozy gourmand aspect I was hoping for.

I know many people describe this as “cake-like,” but personally, I get absolutely zero bakery from it. it feels much more mature, resinous, and perfumey than edible.

that said, I can’t deny the quality. the longevity and sillage are genuinely good, especially for the price. it performs beautifully and definitely smells more expensive than it is.

it’s just not the type of vanilla I naturally gravitate toward.
I like my vanillas sweet, sugary, gourmand or creamy. this one feels more sophisticated and mature, I can easily imagine someone 40+ wearing this beautifully, especially in colder weather.
sadly, this was an immediate resell for me. not bad perfume at all, just a very different vanilla than I expected!

Maison Tahite Vanilla2 (stylized as Vanilla squared, with 2 as a superscript) is a rich vanilla that incorporates sugary sweet aspects (a note of praline), resins (benzoin, namely), and a floral/powdery side. Despite the name, it does not smell classically vanilla-centric, but rather more of a vanilla/benzoin blend with powdery touches on the side. It’s sweet, a bit sugary/syrupy, and is inviting, rather than overwhelming, though it is quite opulent and dense, at least to me. It reminds me mostly, off the top of my head, of Kyse Perfumes Bonbons a la Vanille. It’s easily my favorite of the vanilla-named fragrances from this house, right up there with Coffee Bomb and Vicious Cacao, my other two favorites of the house so far.

Like the rest of the line, Vanilla2 is priced at $120 for 100ml in EDP concentration, sold by Luckyscent (where I bought my sample sets) and other boutiques, and this fragrance performs very well.

8 out of 10

What I mainly get here is the praline. This is SUPER sweet! Extremely so. I actually have begun to experiment with which other fragrance will layer best with this. Today I have added Xplicit Vanilla to it to see how it will perform to give it some depth. This is definitely different in my collection—but I have to be in the mood for it. It is pure candy...

As a young professional, I had to move so often. Twenty years ago, there was still no shortage of skilled workers. Jobs, especially those that were popular, were hard to come by. And since I had chosen such a profession, I had no choice but to take what I got. New city, new company, new shared apartment. Overnight. It wasn't easy. Some things just didn't fit or had to be adjusted first. But there were the weekends. During those, I would drive back to my not-so-distant old home, spend the night at a dear friend's place, and go out partying with my clique at a well-known independent club in the city.

In my Mazda MX3, I had a CD changer, a Sony amplifier, and a huge bright red bass box installed. I could blast music down an entire street if I wanted to. One of my favorite albums back then: Figure Number Five by Soilwork. I repeatedly played the melancholic and dark Departure Plan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7VoEWyUe0) on the drive. I was scented with a sample of Vanille Abricot by Comptoir Sud Pacifique. A very sweet, synthetic vanilla scent, almost too girly and playful for my age, yet this girl, who dreamed of better times in her everyday life, loved this vanilla. A bit like baking aroma, a bit like Kinder chocolate, and also a tiny hint of an adult vanilla perfume, like the base note developed by Dior's Hypnotic Poison, characterized this scent. There was also a little something that reminded me of dolls. Yes, I wanted to be a bit of a girl again during that turbulent time in my life.

One of the girls from my clique hugged me. "You smell good," she said. I beamed and was delighted by the nice fragrance compliment and the smile. It was a wonderful weekend that I enjoyed to the fullest. And I recharged for another week in my new home.

Vanilla² is indeed very close to Vanille Abricot from CSP, from which I even bought a whole bottle back then. The scent is initially quite synthetic and takes a while to calm down and radiate that warm base note, which then actually feels a bit more grown-up. I see my younger self before me. In a time when I wanted to smell just like this and not a bit differently. I found security in sweet vanilla. A few flowers here and there could also be part of it. I'm not sure about that. I wouldn't wear such a scent today. I'm not the Polly from twenty years ago anymore. But these kinds of vanilla scents were indeed once a part of me, just like my Mazda MX3 with its crazy sound system. By the way, the amplifier and bass box are still somewhere in the basement. The Soilwork CDs are still there and are regularly listened to. But today, I wear Hypnotic Poison.

Many thanks to Stinkekatze for the testing opportunity. Anyone who loves sweet vanilla and Kinder chocolate should definitely take a sniff of this simple yet beautiful scent.

Caught by the typical winter vanilla fever, this perfume certainly did not pass me by unnoticed. By now, I have sniffed quite a few vanilla gourmands and I am probably not as easily impressed as I was at the beginning of my perfume obsession.
What I think of this vanilla, you will find out here.

The first (and only) sniff:
Initially, the alcohol note lingers in the air longer than usual, until it settles down after a few seconds. Now, a wave of vanilla comes towards you, and since that is almost all that greets you, I will try to describe the main note used here in more detail.
Similar to Vanilla West Indies or KayAli's Vanilla 28, it comes across here very sweet and almost liqueur-like due to the benzoin. Completely devoid of freshness, sharpness, and brightness, this scent becomes a true upper gourmand that is even too tempting for me. For sensitive noses, this is a potential headache candidate, but those who count the aforementioned fragrances among their favorites can add this one to their list as well.
I rate the performance as quite good for the price; longevity and sillage are not impressive but acceptable.

My conclusion:
I got exactly what I expected, no more and no less. The scent development is so linear that I find the pyramid almost unnecessary here. Vanilla remains the only thing that wafts towards me from beginning to end.

Did it blow me away?
Definitely not, but as a vanilla lover, I still find it appealing.