Anecdotes by Artists La Villainelle, Ormonde Jayne Vanilla Aube & Parfums Quartana Bleeding Heart ~ fragrance reviews :: Now Smell This
Are you still standing, after the gourmand wave — nay, flood — of 2025-2026? Or have you drowned in caramel-inspired compositions, marshmallow medleys, pistachio-pudding perfumes? Did you vow never to wear anything sweet, sticky or even remotely vanilla-centered ever again? If so, I’d completely sympathize. I’ve tried to dump the sugar and keep the spice. I’ve focused on my favorite florals. I’ve closed my eyes and nose to anything that mentions milk, mochi or matcha lattes.
But I can’t really change my deep-seated olfactory tastes: I do like to sniff a well-placed vanilla note from time to time. So, having taken something of a break, I allowed myself to venture back towards pâtisserie perfumery. Here are my reviews of three recent launches that incorporate vanilla yet avoid the gooey clichés of the recent (ongoing?) trend. (What is the collective noun for foody-sweet scents, by the way? A “Viennese table of gourmands”?)
One gourmand that did enter my collection in late 2025, thanks to a perfume swap event, was Snif Gentle Reminder. I liked perfumer’s Patricia Choux’s starchy-sweet interpretation of an ube dessert in that fragrance, so when I had the chance to try the trio of fragrances Choux created for a new brand called Anecdotes by Artists, I figured I was on safe ground. My favorite of the three turned out to be The Villainelle (shown below left). That title caught my fancy, with its clever combination of the words “villanelle” (a type of rhyming poem) and “villainess” with an echo of “vanilla,” and I enjoyed the imagery of its mood-board and the photos of its lapis-blue bottle, too. The Villainelle’s listed notes include iced juniper, vanilla crystals, vanilla resin and incense smoke, for a result that’s “cold at first, warm in the dry down.”
For me, the promised chill of The Villainelle is fleeting and segues easily into vanilla and smoke notes. Even if it’s brief, that contrast lets me imagine sipping a gin-and-tonic in a quiet bar with a fireplace burning somewhere nearby, then skipping right to dessert: a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the verge of melting. Explaining this compositional shift, Choux herself says, “I’ve always been misunderstood. People often read me as cold and unfriendly, but I’m actually pretty warm and open.” Anecdotes emphasizes the importance of giving the perfumer creative freedom and an individual voice; this approach isn’t new to any of us who “grew up” as scent-lovers with access to Frédéric Malle’s Editions des Parfums, but for a new generation, the ideas of perfumer-as-artist and scent-as-self-expression may still be fresh and inspiring. In any case, this fragrance feels contemporary, unfussy, and easy-to-wear, and has given me several “what smells good in here?” moments.
Meanwhile, the long-established niche perfumery house Ormonde Jayne has released Vanilla Aube (shown above right), inspired by “vanilla, reimagined at the break of day” and developed by perfumer Élodie Bernard in collaboration with Ormonde Jayne creative director Linda Pilkington. Ormonde Jayne doesn’t often venture into gourmand territory, but when they do (as in Vanille des Afriques), they keep everything feeling sophisticated. Vanilla Aube (initially named Vanilla Mistral) includes notes of pistachio, cardamom, black pepper, pomegranate, iris, cashmeran, fig, sandalwood, vetiver, ambergris and vanilla, a list that gives you an idea of the complex and nuanced composition ahead.
Remember the “quiet luxury aesthetic”? It gave me conflicted feelings (and I got tired of hearing about it!), but I’d actually use that exact phrase to praise this fragrance. Vanilla Aube’s composition is hard to define, and the fragrance wears relatively close to the skin, revealing intriguing layers to a wearer who pays close attention. The vanilla within Vanilla Aube is smooth but not particularly sweet, and it’s surrounded by other notes that read as dusky and warm rather than sugary: the pistachio note smells gently roasted, the iris is powdery, and the pomegranate evokes dried fruit rather than a freshly cut specimen. Whispers of fig, sandalwood, and a leathery saffron also keep things grounded. These lightly earthy-woody notes make Vanilla Aube feel more like sunset to me, rather than dawn, but that’s a minor interpretive point; in any case, I’d recommend Vanilla Aube as a grown-up, all-gender vanilla whose spices and woods rein in its gourmand aspects.
If, however, you’re in the mood for something completely unrestrained, perhaps an enveloping floral-vanilla fragrance with much more depth than the typical cupcake-y composition, you’re in for a treat with Parfums Quartana Bleeding Heart (shown at top). Marking a decade of Quartana’s Les Potions Fatales as the tenth fragrance to join that collection, Bleeding Heart (developed by perfume Laure Breysse) was designed to signify “redemption after heartbreak” by “turning the mythology of a pierced heart into an experience of survival, self-possession, and love reclaimed at its source.”
Bleeding Heart’s notes include “dagger accord” and Madagascar cocoa; Bulgarian rose, strawberry and peony; and white chocolate, caramel, vanilla, amber woods and white musk. On skin, this fragrance turns out to be a maximalist fleurmand that clutches the wearer in its sweet embrace and demands total surrender. Its rose note is lush and jammy, a syrupy strawberry note oozes through an imaginary topping of Chantilly cream, and the cool metallic note sinks into a white chocolate accord for a result that reminds me of those bite-sized pastel sweets called “melty mints.” Bleeding Heart doesn’t just flirt with the roses-and-candy clichés of romance: it seduces them and commits to them. The result is strangely joyful, as well as intense and long-lasting.
Have you tried any of these? What did you think? I’m sure there are other contenders for new gourmands that might capture my imagination rather than make my teeth ache and my stomach turn. Please feel free to suggest a few in the comments!
Anecdotes by Artists La Villainelle is available as 10 ml ($35) and 100 ml ($140) Eau de Parfum at Sephora. Ormonde Jayne Vanilla Aube is available as 88 ml Eau de Parfum ($275) at Fumerie or Saks. Parfums Quartana Bleeding Heart is available as 50 ml Parfum ($235) via Fragrance Vault.