Guerlain Ylang & Vanille

Sometimes a good and interesting blog article by a German member on the twin site is not read, because the International members here do not read German. Well, it can be run through a online translator.

The material inside is too good to pass up. Therefore I am taking the liberty (unbeknownst to the author Coriolon) to post this link here.

"Aqua Allegoria Ylang & Vanille" is one of my favorites. Read the crazy history about it, it was discontinued purposely.

Coriolon is a true Guerlain aficionado. He does not post often, but if he does, it is always worth reading!

Removed because it was selling too well! I was thinking about a polite way to express my astonishment but I leave it here. I could not find my words. And this is Guerlain!

Sad as it is, it makes total sense from the corporate point of view. If a formula sells well, upcycle it into a more high-end perfume you can charge an arm and a leg for >- profit.

Yeah right. Us Parfumistas would buy those niche products at high prices because we want something exclusive and extraordinary.

The "plebians" - well, "Ylang & Vanille" is too good for them. Feed them something less costly.

Amazing.

I thought - what a fool you must be - to sell drugs, when you can sell perfumes with a more profit, at that - completely legal.
Maybe the moral threshold for peace with itself is even lower

This is fascinating! There are a few really beautiful fragrances over the years that sold well that have been discontinued by various designers. I'm thinking this is why!

Read it rather late, but I am wondering if Guerlain ever decided to launch Ylang-Vanille, at least, under a different name, no matter the price? Perhaps in one of their super-expensive special limited editions?
Admittedly, it was my first self-chosen love at first sniff among the Guerlain perfumes and in general, discovered at the airport Duty Free, must've been 2000 or 2001. Thanks to the article, now I understand why my bottle looks different than the "2nd" edition circulating on auctions sites. Still remains one of my top 5 favourites so far. The next time at DF, it was Rosa Magnifica (although I wasn't a rose fan back then). and the following year, Lilia Bella hoping for an affordable Diorissiomo-substitute (it was not, unneccesary to mention...)
And then, must have been after 2005 according to the article, I wanted to buy another bottle of Ylang-Vanille, my first back up ever of a fragrance, without having used up the first bottle yet, and the SA told me it was taken out! A pity, she agreed, because she liked it a lot, too. I never knew about the one-time relaunch.

On another perfume site, for a long time, I was the only one mentioning my love for Ylang-Vanille on the boards at every occasion and having it listed as my favourite, also saying that if I had to choose 3 perfumes to take to an island, YV would count among them for sure! Judging from the predominance of rather non-enthusiastic reviews and lack of appreciation on that other website back then, I never imagined it having had such a strong fan base.

Well, after my time on that other perfume site, I saw that suddenly several members started to mention it as their favourite from the AA/vanilla yellow floral and praising and hyping it... why did they remain silent all the while I was mentioning it in the threads, or only talked down on it saying "It smells similar to XYZ, but XYZ smells much better", I wonder.

I tried Lys Soleia because of some people's likening it to Ylang-Vanille, but this caused one of my largest disappointments in fragrances ever. Honestly I can't see any remote similarity or connection at all between these two. I'd rather see YV relaunched (for the third time) than LS, or a few of other endlessly flankering Guerlain fragrances.