Vanilla

What it is

From cured vanilla pods, though most of what you smell is vanillin, which is cheaper and far more stable. Real vanilla absolute is one of the more expensive naturals in use and is usually stretched with the synthetic.

What it smells like

Sweet and creamy, like vanilla pod or custard, and warmer than it is sugary. It flattens easily: at high doses it stops reading as vanilla and starts reading as generic sweetness, which is the most common way a gourmand goes wrong.

How strongly it is worn

The average strength this accord is listed at, where 100 means it dominates the fragrance.

74 / 100

What builds it

How much more often than the catalogue average. 1.0x would be chance, so these are the things that genuinely travel with it rather than the things that are simply common.

Accords it sits beside

Same measure, with its own family filtered out. Saying woody turns up with oud is a restatement, not a finding.

When it is worn

Against the average fragrance here. The line marks that average, so a bar past it means this is worn in that season or setting more than most.

Houses that use it most

Counted across the fragrances here, which reflects what we cover as much as what a house makes.

Jean Paul Gaultier (29), Carolina Herrera (27), Lattafa (26), Giorgio Armani (24), Lancome (23), Mancera (23).