Vanille Leather
Eau de Parfum, BDK Parfums (2023)

Vanille Leather by BDK Parfums (2023) is good for what it is, and that's as a simple, solid vanilla fragrance by skilled perfumer Dominique Ropion. Granted, this gets dinged on price because it does sell for over $260 and is comparable to things half the cost with little noticeable difference in quality, as we're within the realm of bog-standard aromachems anyway no matter which choice at what price level you make anymore. Still, if you have the coin and this one fits you like a glove, I won't besmirch further, as there are a lot worse things on which you could spend this kind of cash, that's for sure. Vanille Leather is marketed feminine, although I think some guys with a sweet tooth could hang with this, especially if they enjoy clubbers with a rather sweet edge to them. I think Vanille Leather is safe company for such a chap.

The opening is very clearly vanilla and a leather note lead more by violet than anything, almost reminiscent of the various petrol violet perfumes released on the men's market decades earlier. Vanille Leather never gets too butch though, as a thick gooping of tuberose and neroli keep things sweet and round, padded out by a shockingly indolic jasmine. That last bit is the best part of Vanille Leather, and the only part that gives me an itchy enough trigger finger to eye my money with a bit more abandon that typically afforded my humble station in the great rat race of corporate dystopia, although discipline wins out in the end and my hand is stayed. Patchouli, benzoin, and some cashmeran musks do their thing keeping this down pat, while it doesn't feel too artificial, but just so. Potent stuff is this, and nice.

Things were obviously a bit nicer when the brand retailed for just around or under $200; but like most of the perfume market in recent years, the efforts to un-democratize fragrance from a toiletry or an accessible luxury at best, back into a status-signalling display of wealth a la "Veblen Goods", has lead to a rash of sudden steep mark-ups across the spectrum, with BDK not being immune and thus no exception to that short-term greed-mongering. The whole thing is headed for a crash at this pace, and brands like BDK don't have the cachet to survive another market collapse like what happened about a century beforehand, or almost happened in the late 00's, sending so many once-elite perfumes into online discounters. There, only there, will we be waiting to buy our bottles at 70% off. Thumbs up