Havana Vanille L Artisan Parfumeur for women and men

Vanille Absolument (formerly known as Havana Vanille) is a gorgeous, creamy-sweet dream that made me exclaim at first sniff 'It smells just like vanilla ice cream!". And up to this date, I haven't come up with a much better comparison to illustrate it, except maybe a tasty dessert my grandmother used to make called Oeufs a la Neige (Eggs in Snow) - a heavenly delight with custard cream.

It's luscious, fluffy and milky and it has a kind of silkiness that sets it apart from all other vanilla perfumes I've tested before (which, truth be told, are more or less alike).

The composition is a beautiful blend of vanilla, rum and dried fruits, rounded off with benzoin and tonka bean and a just a touch of orange and vetiver to make it seem easier and lighter. I couldn't however detect any tobacco in the notes - this is not a tobacco perfume. It's a mouthwatering milky gourmand that stays sweet and savory without ever falling on the cloying side.

It's yummy!

Dusty buttered rum vanilla. This is definitely a different take on vanilla and for that I love it. L'Artisan never fails to make interesting perfumes. This is not one for daily wear, but I appreciate it's softness. The vanilla is toned down with a creamed butter scent with a light hint of immortal flower. It is almost butter cream frosting, but the slight dusty, even lightly smoked smell gives it an edge that makes it more grown up and unique. Havana Vanille has decent sillage in the beginning, but becomes more of a skin scent after a few hours. I don't mind, this is a scent I would choose when I want to smell soft. Not baby powder soft, but interestingly sweeten dusty soft. If that even makes sense!

I have also tried this layered with Coromandel by Chanel (a rich amber blend). They are absolutely fabulous together. So keep in mind that this scent pairs well with a strong amber perfume.

You need to be in a certain mental state to wear it, honestly. I had the best salsa night of my life wearing this, feeling so luxurious - because honestly, one spritz is plenty. Here's why:
Smoky, boozy vanilla and narcissus open the show. it's a bit off-putting at first, you think it would be too strong, even masculine... but as it mellows on the skin, it softens. The narcissus turns from plastic to flower, the vanilla comes in as the richest, finest vanilla extract on the market. There's a powdery note that starts evolving and growing at the core, about half an hour into wearing it. With time, it becomes very femme. However, this is not a girly scent in any way. Don't buy this expecting something pink and fluffy. No. It's Rum, Narcissus, Smoky vanilla... real grown-up juice. One spritz is enough.

The beginning of this is strange and a bit alarming considering what I was expecting. I smell only a green floral note, and it is drenched with dew and covered in earth. Just very damp and slightly remniscent of mildew. I actually have to wonder if I've received a mismarked sample vial. And if I haven't, all I have to say about this one is - very disappointing. Yuck. It feels like I'm trapped in a mold laden cellar and the air is heavy and thick with moisture. And it is not getting any better as it wears. I'm having a hard time believing that this will be transforming into some magical smoky vanilla dream, but I will let it settle for the day - against the will of my heavily protesting nostrils.
EDIT: At the end of an entire day of wearing, just as it was about to disappear for good, I sniffed a hint of sweetness. A little too late. I highly suggest sampling this before you buy it - I'm glad I did!

The color of this picture is totally not the color of real Havana Vanille bottle. The real ones are pretty like dark yellow to brown. This is my most favorite vanilla-scent fragrance anyway! :Q

The opening of Havana Vanille is off-putting, with a sharp leather/tobacco note, but as it developed on my skin, the fragrance settled into a lovely, rich, creamy rum/vanilla accord with hints of tobacco and leather, very warm and atmospheric. I love gourmand scents, such as Guerlain's L'Instant de Guerlain pour Homme, and I'd classify Havana Vanille as a gourmand scent due to its rum and vanilla top notes. I do smell a bit of narcissus and musk, as well. The scent lasts very well and every so often you get a delicious whiff of that rum/vanilla/leather/tobacco accord. Not as inspired as L'Artisan Parfumeur's Dzing! or Timbuktu, but very wearable and intriguing.

I hated this due to the opening but I gave it a chance and now I like it enough to want to buy a bottle.

Wow this is some good stuff it smells delicious and it last for more than 12hrs . Not more than 3 sprays and that's all it takes to do the job lol.

I am a vanilla lover. Vanilla fragrances are my favorite and I have a hobby of sampling all that I can! but I must say, this is my least favorite of any vanilla. Havana Vanille smells kind of harsh & bitter. to my nose it's absolutely not pleasant. It does smell smokey and burned, and I do smell vanilla, but it seems like vanilla mixed with burned plastic and something acrid. I like feminine faintly sweet (but not overly sweet) vanillas, but this smells kind of masculine, and there is no sweetness at all. This is definitely an unusual smell, but not something I'd want to smell on me or anyone else. If you want a smokey vanilla that's sweet try Laura Mercier Vanille Gourmande or Guerlain Spiriteuse Double, though that one bourbony-rum-my; if you want a smokey vanilla that's not sweet and has some scent of a fresh tobacco leaf try Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille. that is better than this but similar.

I love this beautiful gourmand. On my skin it smells like a rich vanilla extract. I do not get any rum or tobacco notes... Although I'm sure it's even better for those who do.

However, I will not purchase this fragrance. It fades so quickly on my skin that I would go through a bottle at such a rapid pace that it just wouldn't be worth the $$$.

On me this is moldy pumpkin. Putrid and disappointing. Too bad :(

By all accounts I should be in love with this soft but curvaceous powdery spicy fruity vanilla but the liquer note is just not agreeing with me. I don't hate this but something about the whole composition reminds of like a wooden cigar box that has been sitting in an old persons bedroom for many years. After a short time the liquer softens and the vanilla sweetens and it's less powdery- I like it right now but not enough to buy a bottle.

This is one of the Duchafour fragrances that lacks the exotic touch of spices that he usually uses as his signature. It`s not one of his best creations, or one of the strongest ones in L'Artisan Line. However, it`s a pleasant, and cozy creation, which uses exotic spices, dried fruits, creamy vanilla to create a comfort gourmand scent. The combination of rum, vanila and spices is the key of the creation for me - they combined seem to create a sort of a gingerbread done covered with chocolate and filled with a dulce de leche with rum and cloves. While it has a foody aroma, it`s warm and close to skin, and not sickening at all. The tobacco is more perceptible when the fragrance starts to develop, and it`s a smoky spice tobacco, surprisingly soft, and at this moment the fragrance seems like a silk version of tobacco vanille.
My only complaint is about the longevity and the base of the fragrance. The composition doesn`t last more than 6 hours and the base is very faint, kind of a ghost of vanilla, rum, tobacco and exotic fern flowers with generic wood and musk.

I am head over heels in love with this soft romantic fragrance. Its been a loooong time since something was so divine I felt this strongly about it! This intoxicatingly beautiful fragrance is a gorgeous vanilla bean tempered with lightly buttered caramel rum. It melds with the skin while a light, clean and refreshing wintergreen playfully emerges. I had no idea I'd like this one, much less LOVE it! Amazingly wonderful!

on my skin it settles as cocoa-vanilla dust. it smells so delicious! i could literally lick my arm!

too bad this one didn't agrees with me! i love sweetest of the sweet perfumes and never thought i'd say this but this is just a bit "too" for me :-( i do love neil morris intimate vanilla though

perhaps the only vanilla fragrance that I actually like.. a lot at that.. it smells like vanilla in rum, very Havana-style.. on my skin, it develops best in hot humid weather/location :)

L'Artisan Parfumeur HAVANA VANILLE delivers on the promise of its name: this really seems like a taste of Cuba captured in a bottle: vanilla, rum, tobacco, tropical flowers, all stereotypical components associated with the island.

The opening of HAVANA VANILLE really smells to me like vanilla extract, but shortly thereafter the tobacco and rum become dominant. This is a good example of a truly boozy fragrance--a bit too boozy for my tastes, actually, as the rum persists all the way through to the drydown.

I should say, though, that I do not like rum at all, so I may not be the best judge of any perfume in which rum plays a key role, as the taste of that spirit makes me somewhat queasy thanks to a life-transforming rum and coke experience. The tobacco and vanilla work well together in HAVANA VANILLE but are somewhat ruined by the rum for me. Désolée!

I live in a rather hot region, and I usually do not care about the temperature, just wear the perfumes whatever I like to wear.

I thought Havana Vanille ought to be a scent for cold days, and still it has something not to my concent.
(I'd like there is 2 more drops of labdanum, 1 drop of benzoin and patchouli each :p )

But I wore it just few days ago, the day was a fiercely hot summer day. I found the powdery-gourmet sweetness no longer stand out; instead a subtle, deep wet-earthy leather tone governed.
(Is that someone calls the note as Duchaufourade? xD)
That was much to my holy ecstasy, I have to claim it loudly.

No wonder, Havana is not a cold region. This humid, smokey yet delicious vanilla scent is made to be worn in a hot day in mt opinion. I think anyone who wants to verify this perfume should at least try it on in 2 hot days respectively. :D

06/28/10
I watched a program about Cuba. It said so: Cuban taobacco farmers soak the tobacco leaves in water with either rum, vanilla or honey in order to remove the harmful resin on the surface. Now I believe that Havana Vanille is made to evoke the aura in a humid warm tobacco drying room!

...Havana vanille is warm, smokey and humid, creamy and rich and also powdery...It is vanilla and dried fruits saturated in aged rum exhaling gentle puffs of tobacco...it is very grown up sweetness, lively, but mature and nostalgic somehow...it is bursting with colors burned and mellowed in the years of scorching sun - terracotta, deep orange, crimson, dark yellow, emerald green...hot blooded and beautiful...

Oh L'Artisan, what have you done? Or actually, have you done anything at all?
I am generally enchanted-disappointed-happy about it. Enchanted, because it is quite a beautiful fragrance. Disappointed, because it could have been so much better. Happy, because my wallet will remain full (for a while at least).

Havana Vanille is till now the least Artisan-ish fragrance of them I have tried. It lacks the 'powderiness' I love so much in Bois Farine and I hate in Mure et Musc. I generally consider it to be something quite characteristic of the brand, it is however gone here.

The fragrance makes me think of a very rich, sweet white chocolate with nuts and raisins and dried figs. It has some alcohol quality to it, thick almond liqueur maybe? Very rich, creamy, sweet. The final phase is vanilla-woody, with deep, resin aroma. However, it certainly does not seem to be inspired by a “wooden boat mingling with the aroma of rum and spice”, rather by a posh hotel on a private beach, where people in the morning sip coffee from fancy porcelain cups before they are out for a party of tennis. It is not a scent of an adventure, but elegant holidays. It is too gourmand to evoke the true Havana. Nevertheless, it has something nose-catching to it. I would love to say that it is safe and boring and that you can invest your money better, but... I can't. Maybe this is what I might wanna have when I am in the mood for sweet delight.

This stuff is amazing. It goes on smelling, to me, exactly like a cup of my favorite chai tea - milky, sweet, spicy, and warm. To me, it's fairly strong. The only trouble is, there is a bitterness I can't appreciate. I am not sure if it's the "aged rum" or the smoked woods. As it dries down, it still smells great except for that darned bitter edge. The vanilla & spices are gorgeous, and I get the suggestion of there being tobacco with the tonka bean, etc. Really, it's an excellent fragrance, reminiscent of a humidor, I just can't appreciate every note in it. What a shame. (I got B&B Words Chai Tea a couple of years back without testing first, and was disappointed at how heavy the anise was; that was enough to ruin the rest of it.) Also, Havana Vanille did a funny thing, starting out fairly potent for the first couple of hours, and suddenly, I could not smell it anymore. I can't even find a trace of it where it was applied. It's a mystery.

Havana Vanille starts with some kind of cleaness and sweetness (in a perculiar way, it makes me think about tuberose, of course they smell different, but similar in the way they project clean, sharp and sweet aura) and mixed with spicy cinammon + vanilla combo.

Soon it smells like a comfy local cafe in the winter to me. It smells of nice sweet foody spicy, a little bit sensual, totally intoxicating in an innocent, comforting way. I suddenly got the image of Tai Chai Latte, a slice of raisin toast and me, sitting at the table and enjoying a book.

The dry down is something I would die for. It is sensual, sweet and truely intoxicating. I can smell something creamy and sweet like vanilla (I guess that's the resin + woodsy notes), and really great musk (the musk smell sweet, sexy, great quality and so real, it reminds me a lot of Musc by Bruno Acampora).

The sillage is shorter than most of my other perfume, it lasts a good 3.5-4 hours, and then even though I can still smell it, it doesn't have any projection. It's like a shy trace of vanilla icecream, left really close to my skin for another 3 hours.

A must try!

I find it lightly spiced vanilla
although a bit lacking in umph..

I had hoped for a much stronger Tobacco..and Rum ..scent
what I get is a very SHY fragrance...
and frankly ...there are others that
can do it better with Pizazz!

Sorry .. this fragrance is for the meek at heart!

L'Artisan Havana Vanille transports me - one dose and I am suddenly sitting next to James Wormold right before he orders a daiquiri.

We wait in the hot sun, big-fendered cars crawl past us as the heaviest, sweetest vanilla mingles with the air drifting out of the packing rooms where cigars are rolled and wrapped. I feel the hard mosaic tile floor, the crushing weight of humid humanity in pressed cotton voile shirts.

Beautiful women with lacquered coifs walk by. Rum hangs in the air, barely able to escape liquid form to evaporate lazily across the bar.

What's the secret password? Vanilla.

I do appreciate this isn't a real sweet vanilla - sometimes a person doesn't want to smell like a cupcake shop. I also really like the powder element in this fragrance. The vanilla here on my skin reminds me of the extract used for baking. I don't know if it's the rum clouding it, making it smell cheaper than it really is, but it doesn't work on me. I find the tobacco really comes forward after 90 minutes which is very nice but not enough to move this to a love category. Well worth trying though.

This is not your plain old vanilla. After putting on a sample of my sample yesterday evening, I'm still smelling it this morning, in a very different form. The first thing out of the bottle was a white musk scent, followed a second or two later by a strong aroma of egg nog. The only way that I can stomach drinking egg nog is with prodigious amounts of rum, and this particular mix seemed miserly on the rum. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant foody scent with light vanilla, sugar and nutmeg, sort of an egg nog lite, creating an image like a translucent egg sunny side up, made out of vanilla extract, sugar and spice. That note lasted until I woke up this morning. The original egg nog scent was still on the shirt that I'd been wearing, but the scent on my skin had totally changed to a mostly fruity accord with hints of the promised tobacco and flowery things. I'm fascinated by the way that this evolves, and am sorry that I missed part of it while I was sleeping. After writing my review, I always go back and read the blurb. It's interesting that the notes appeared to me in a completely different order than listed, with many of the "base" notes coming out first, and the "top" notes only after many hours. One thing about this perfume - it has lasting power.

I got an onset of spiced vanilla with definite rum notes, very lovely and rich. After awhile, it began to dry down into what I can only describe as Egg Nog. This being tried around the holidays, that wasn't really a problem. The nog stage passed and left me with a lovely, warm faintly spiced vanilla that I really think I will have to buy. It's not too sweet or boozy, as others have observed, and has just the right amount of gourmand touch to keep it a true vanilla. Lovely and warm like a fine cashmere/silk sweater.

This one does exactly what it says on the bottle: It smells like vanilla, and wonderfully so. But beware! Some cook might confuse you...

Now it's my favourite parfum, I love it!!
Vanille, but not sweet, very special wearing.

Once again L'Artisan and Bertrand Duchaufour show us that perfumer still can make Perfumes.

Havana Vanille starts creamy, almost buttery vanilla that gets support from fresh tobacco.

I used to have Vanilla pipe tobacco and I enjoyed it's smell- it remains my best loved tobacco ever. Love that part.

Later composition sweetens and it feels like a moderate drop of rum added. Not boozy or sickly at all.

I recommend to try this one. Also will add that it lasts. It really does ^^

Well,i thought i could smell tobacco notes in its base,but on my skin i have a very foody scent with a doninating vanilla note.
So for me its a warm vanilla scent,nice for cold days.

I had a chance to receive a sample of this new Havana Vanille. I didn't expect much due to the notes. I'm not a fan of gourmand and liquer notes. Still I try everything L'Artisan at least once. I've never failed to be intrigued by L'Artisan creations. Most of the time their are enchanting even when they don't fit my type or my quest. I think of Dzonghka and Timbuktu...
Havana Vanille is a very gourmand scent like a very well made exquisite drop of vanillic rhum (if any exists!), very warm and inviting, but it's something I would rather drink in small doses rather than putting it on my skin! I did anyway. It smelled very boozy and very sweet for a while and very "Cuban" in a sense. In my imagery this is the smell of Cuban things: vanilla, rhum, tobacco. Not my cup of tea. I left it to set on my wrist for a while and in about 1 hour it became a syrupy vanilla marshmallow. Still nice, but not my cup of tea AT ALL! I'm not saying that it smells like Pink Sugar that makes me feel sick. Of course you can smell the mastery behind and I'm not trashing Havana Vanille forever. Just try it before buying. It's very personal.