Tonka Imperiale and Spiritueuse Double Vanille L’Art & La Matière Guerlain

I bought Tonka Imperiale as a gift twice, but I never added it to my collection. It turned out that it is enough for me to spend half an hour with someone wearing this scent to get satiated for a month.

Tonka in the name is one of the key components of Guerlain's raw material palette - tonka beans. Their complex and slightly annoying scent combines cyanide of cherry pits, bitterness of almonds and rotten hay, balsamic tones of vanilla and cinnamon. Tonka beans are an indispensable ingredient in that very "Guerlain confectionery" that enchants everyone who has ever tried L`Heure Bleue or Shalimar.

Tonka Imperiale has all this confectionery, but not from the side of the facade and elegantly decorated display cases with marzipans and sugar figures. For the L’Art & La Matière collection, Thierry Wasser created a pastry backstage with dozens of jars and bottles full of aromatic spices, with pestles and mortars, the heat of the ovens and a short break from a smoke break at the back door in the frosty December air. Yes, the air of Tonka Imperiale also smells of pre-holiday bustle. I miss the magic of great perfumes in it, but it’s still cozy and good. For a while.

And a few words about the new 2021 release in a carre bottle. It didn’t seem to me that it was fundamentally different. The usual difference in batches.

Tonka Imperiale L’Art & La Matière Guerlain, 2010 

Thierry Wasser bergamot, almond, honey, rosemary, jasmine, tonka bean, tobacco, vanilla, incense, pine needles, cedar, amber

I can't call myself a big fan of fragrances with the word "vanilla" in the name. Vanilla and vanillin in Guerlain perfumes occupy their important place, but they never take the lead and do not act without the support of spices, flowers and animalics. Like a virtuous mother, vanilla takes care of everyone and remains in the shadows.

Guerlain understood this until about 2007, when the limited edition of Spiritueuse Double Vanille was launched. Not just vanilla, but double! Perfume forums, I remember, shook with delight.

Spiritueuse Double Vanille was then quickly transferred to a permanent line, and now it has been re-released in carre bottles. What's inside? Everything is the same, but maybe a little less balsamic and black resin. There is apple strudel with vanilla cream, with the strudel a cup of hot chocolate with almond milk and cinnamon. In total - an elegant insulin shock. But all the pleasures last for an hour. The dry residue is smoldering coals, foil and the blue smoke of hookah tobacco with apple flavoring.

Spiritueuse Double Vanille, Guerlain, 2007

Thierry Wasser

Pink pepper, bergamot, incense, cedar, rose, ylang-ylang, vanilla, benzoin

OUR SHOP