Madagascan Vanilla Rum

[Numanoid]

A complex single note accord that melds pure bourbon vanilla with the scent of fermented molasses. The scent is dark, thick, sweet, heavy and rich, with a slight spicy smokiness.

Wet in bottle: Very yummy rich vanilla...can smell the booze, but it isn't overpowering and very nice!

On Skin: Stays the same....but the booze note comes out to play causing the vanilla to hide a bit...still ok!!

Few minutes later: Sadly, the booze note (which I was worried about) has gone a bit plastic-y on me. I was holding out hope for this one. Might have to swap/sell away.

[Dark Alice]

Wet: Vanilla with rum..yum!

 

Dry: The rum comes out and stomps all over the vanilla. However, it does smell like vanilla rum. I think I will keep my bottles to age and I have a feeling that after a few months this is going to be amazing!

[jolarocknrolla]

Who are you people that smell rum??? I smell SPICES like you get in spiced rum and i smell vanilla but i don't get any rum. It figures, i would have been fine w/ rum ... but quite frankly i think this is lovely, very exotic and spicy, deep rich vanilla. No rum though.

[GoldenRubee]

On first applying I get rum and vanilla, heavy on the rum. After a few hours, I still can smell the vanilla very faintly and the yummy rum which I like but was hoping was stronger. I think this is going to age nicely and in a few months is going to be very gorgeous! The rum and vanilla combo will really warm up and mix together and be beautiful- can't wait!

[MadameGorgon]

This is so VANILLA IN YO FACE that I am having trouble putting it on my skin. It is so strong and so rich it makes me think of drinking melted butter mixed with vanilla and maybe a drop of rum.

 

I really love vanilla, so I am hoping that my nose is having a sensitive moment and that I will enjoy it more when I'm not so sick.

 

ETA: To steal an idea from another review I read... This scent must really resent being bottled up. It comes out of the bottle and socks you in the nose.

 

I found that it mellowed considerably when I finally got the balls to put it on my skin. The buttery-ness only sticks around for a couple of seconds before this settles into a dark, warm, sugary scent. It makes me think of a very old bottle of spiced rum where most of the alcohol has evaporated off and left a dark brown sludge of sugar crystals in the bottom of the bottle.

 

Very sweet, very dark, a little spicy, a little boozy.

 

Once on skin, I don't get much vanilla which I find weird and disappointing. I don't smell a great deal of booze on my skin, but strangely, I DO get a whiff of booze in the air in the room where I applied the oil. So maybe I am just not smelling it on myself?

 

I was hoping for a more resinous vanilla scent like the vanilla in Snake Oil, but this is more Kill Devil than Snake Oil

Edited January 16, 2013 by ih8perfume

[livingdead71]

This is amazing and a new favorite! Rich vanilla and rum that lasted my whole work shift and more! Rum-Soaked French Tonka, which smelled delicious in the bottle, sadly fell flat on my skin. I know there have been comparisons, but this one is WAY better imo. I can't wait to layer this with other single notes, but it is just as gorgeous all by itself! I can't recommend this scent highly enough!

[Mechanical Death]

Super rich decadent creamy vanilla. Omg.

A slight rummy booziness, closer to light rum than dark.

The booziness backs off on the drydown and leaves a dark yummy vanilla. *drool*

This is complex enough a d strong enough to wear on its own. It's the perfect vanilla.

 

Edit: surprise discovery. Dirty layered with this is incredible. Earthy and rich vanilla, with a touch of greenness, like the nectar from a flower with a spun vanilla sugar scent. Omg

Edited January 9, 2013 by Mechanical Death

[cherrycherry]

This is an instant smash-hit with me and has gone straight into my top-five. So glad I bought two bottles on a whim. This is straight up creamy, delicious, boozy vanilla and I am more than happy to slather. Absolutely gorgeous.

[Melenass]

Sweet and creamy in the right measure, balanced. Its sweetness and subtle scent drunk, reminds me Velvet Unicorn. I need another bottle

[Gwydion]

In bottle: This is mildly vanilla dominant. The smoky boozy deliciousness of bourbon and rum dances through it. Wet: The rum is now strongest, with the bourbon vanilla providing strong support. It perfectly evokes its concept. Omnomnom. Dry: It has lots of throw and maintains it’s qualities through most of the wear down process. The vanilla fades slightly faster, but really, this wears well.

[OctoberGwen]

I don't like to smell of food. I don't like to wear overly sweet scents. But sweet Mary, Mother of God, this smells

 

This is deep, rich, syrupy vanilla which doesn't quite manage go the plastic route. I think the molasses is what anchors it. A decadent and delicious scent, for sure.

 

ETA:

 

While this smells fabulous, it did actually end up going into "too sweet" territory on my skin. I'm just not a gal who want to smell of food, even delicious desserts. I much prefer the Rum-Soaked French Tonka, which also layers magically with my Tricksy bath oil.

Edited February 12, 2013 by OctoberGwen

[Gateau]

This doesn't go plastic on me, thankfully, but it's not my best type of vanilla. It's the buttery, creamy kind, with lots of sweet rum. I tend to like the more floral or dry perfumey type of vanilla. Still, it's warm and pretty and I think it might make for a good layering thing to have in the repertoire. It's not terribly distinct to my nose from the Rum Soaked French Tonka, so I'm sure I won't keep bottles of all of them, and certainly don't need backups off either.

[sunshinedaisybliss]

 

Oh my. OH MY! This is exactly what I had hoped for... dark and heavy, rich and sumptuous.

 

The vanilla is rich and strong - it's very much that vanilla extract smell more than a sweet vanilla smell - the type of vanilla extract that you pay a lot of money for... rich, slightly boozy, used by chefs with great caution and an eye dropper. But it's the type of vanilla I like... not too sweet, not really foody as such - just... pure bourbon vanilla.

 

The molasses definitely translates to a spicy rum smell - it reminds me of the Hot Buttered Rum that came out last year, but minus the butter. It also reminds me of the rum note in Rangoon Riptide - it's not a young sweet rum, it's a deep dark old spicy rum like you'd find in the captain's quarters of a pirate ship. But I can see why the description says 'fermented molasses' rather than 'rum' because this actually does smell like molasses when I really pay attention - it's the smoky tones of the molasses that make the difference, and there's also a slight menthol or medicinal tone at the very top that I recognise as being a feature of the way molasses smells. But overall, the effect is very rum-like. As others have said, this is going to become even more amazing with some age behind it, because the brashness of the molasses will mellow out over time and become more syrupy.

 

If you like your vanilla sweet and pretty as in blends like Celeste, this is not the BPAL for you. There's nothing soft and pretty about this at all really - it's a smack-you-in-the-face type of vanilla.. the kind of vanilla that stays in the room long after you've left. Luckily for me, that's exactly how I like my vanillas

 

edited because I despise typos!

Edited January 25, 2013 by sunshinedaisybliss

[Little Bird]

I got a bottle of this directly from the lab and it is only full to the top of the label and someone clearly marked (with what looks like permanent black marker) the low fill level halfway around the bottle. So that's weird. And also sad, because I do love this scent and wish it were full. I digress.

When I first put this on, it smelled exactly like Anne Beany (caramelized, boozy rum) and I was ready to wash it off. Thankfully, within about 30 seconds, this completely changes and kind of reminds me of LUSH's Vanillary. It's like vanilla bean creme brulee with a warm, dry, floral vanilla feel all around it.

I was afraid of the rum in this, but it quickly dries down to no rum on my skin. It's more like a warm, sensual, floral vanilla with a crunchy, sugary crust. It's pretty sweet on me, but doesn't get anywhere close to turning cloying.

All in all, I love this one and wish I'd ordered two bottles. It does smell similar to LUSH's Vanillary on me, though, which I already do own two bottles of (and that's how I'm talking myself out of placing a last minute order for more of this, lol).

ETA: Wound up selling this, because it turned too sour-floral and had a chemical, burnt sugar edge to it and a whiff of burnt rubber. Just went off after about a year. I never really wore it before then, either, because the perfumey sugar edge in it kind of turned me off. LUSH's Vanillary won out.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Little Bird

[miss_rynn]

Turns to ash on my skin. Bitterly disappointed. Poop.

[gelfling]

It's like vanilla bean creme brulee with a warm, dry, floral vanilla feel all around it.

 

I was afraid of the rum in this, but it quickly dries down to no rum on my skin. It's more like a warm, sensual, floral vanilla with a crunchy, sugary crust. It's pretty sweet on me, but doesn't get anywhere close to turning cloying.

 

 

Exactly this! Once the huge rush of boozy rum dissipates, it's a beautiful warm, sweet vanilla with a smokiness that's reminiscent of freshly-torched creme brulee or toasted marshmallows. And I find it lasts for hours and hours!

 

Lovely! So glad I got a bottle as backup.

 

[zankoku_zen]

Cloyingly sweet rum and vanilla. This doesn't go to plastic, but its rich, foodie vanilla.

 

With a splash of rum, and A GIANT DOSE OF SWEETNESS.

 

Not for me.

[Viridian]

On me this is a caramelly (or I guess molasses-y, though I don't get the distinct smell of molasses... maybe molasses cookies!) vanilla. Less rum than in Rum-Soaked French Tonka, though the two are similar. If the Tonka single-note didn't work for you, this one might!

[abejita]

Holy screaming VANILLIAC VANILLUMS.

 

Jesus.

 

I'm a vanilla-fiend. If you were to put my most beloved scents side by side, almost all of them share a heavy vanilla presence (or at least benzoin or tonka). I love vanilla in all its varieties: floral, smoky, foodie, light, heavy. All of it.

 

This one is almost too much. Almost.

 

The moment you open the bottle, it slaps you in the face. It's definitely gourmand, and yes, the rum is present. I'm not getting dark or the slight smokiness mentioned in the description at all, however, I would be willing to bet that will emerge with some time and aging. I like the scent, but I don't find it wearable now except in the tiniest pin-pricks of droplets (as I mentioned in my King Mandarin review, it's actually very lovely paired with that particular SN, in a scent locket).

 

But I know vanilla. And I know how it ages. I'm looking forward to this one a year or so from now.

[Xanon]

I thought that this was going to be too much when I sniffed the bottle. However, as SSD said - it is so rich and sumptuous! I love this SN so very much!! It has great staying power: I put it on around 7:30am when I leave the house, and I can still smell it on my skin around 4pm. It has a boozey quality to it - the way that Vanilla extract smells - but no rum. As others have mentioned, there is a spice quality to this.

 

Whatever it is, I freaking love it!

[hecate_jones]

Before I discovered BPAL, I mostly only wore vanilla. I was always in search of the perfect vanilla, and eventually found it in a Victoria's Secret Limited Edition Voyage de Vanille called Vanille Caramel. It was gorgeous vanilla bean, but darker and caramelly. No musk, no florals, just vanilla and sugary caramel. Then came the lab, and I've tried all the scent with vanilla in that I could get my hands on. They've all either been too floral, too musky, too light, too incensy, or not enough vanilla and heavier on something else. Some I've loved, but the 'perfect vanilla' has been elusive.

This is that perfect vanilla. Vanilla and caramelised sugar. I want vats of this. I want to bathe in it every day. I'm so in love with this, I want to layer it with every other scent I have, just to see how it works. Sadly, I can do none of those things, because I don't even have an imp. My bottle arrived from the lab shattered in a zillion pieces. But the cardboard of the package was soaked in oil and smelled gorgeous! I got to try it by rubbing oil-soaked bubble wrap on my arm. And then got a cut from a glass sliver I missed. Stupid. But truly, that's how great and tempting this was! I risked my skin to try it!

 

ETA: Because so many nice people have asked: I contacted the lab to let them know my poor bottle broke, and because they're utterly awesome like that, they replaced it. It was still heart-breakingly sad to see a WHOLE BOTTLE of something that awesome shattered.

Edited February 14, 2013 by hecate_jones

[Ondine]

This is pretty amazing. It's what I wanted Rum-Soaked French Tonka to be. Whereas the tonka single note smelled like Anne Beany/Grog on me (all butterscotchy rum), this smells like sassafras or birch. It smells like the sassafras/root beer note in blends like The Anti-Saloon League and Phyllocrania Paradoxia v1 on me. If you like those two blends, you would probably love this one. I'm actually a little sad I didn't order two bottles!

[BlueSakura]

I purchased two bottles in hopes that this would be my perfect vanilla scent. Not gonna lie, I wasn't a fan when I first opened the bottle. Lab-fresh, the vanilla was drowned out by something almost vaguely medicinal (I assume that's the rum, but full disclosure: I have no experience with the Lab's rum notes).

 

Fast forward to today, and already this blend has seemed to mellow out. The medicinal note is still there, but the sweet vanilla is starting to emerge. To my nose, this is definitely not an "edible" sugary vanilla~ it's a smoky vanilla with a hefty dose of booze, spice and something else going on in the base. I like the way it seems to be aging, so I will be hanging onto my bottles to test again in a year!

[Evilynn]

In the bottle this is buttery vanilla, but I know the butteriness burns off within five minutes on my skin, so that's not a worry.

The wet stage is pretty much a deadringer for Sugar Skull on me, I suppose it's the molasses since I can usually do rum just fine, and I do tend to steer clear of overly brown sugary scents since they tend to go a little bit strange on me (it's not bad, per se, but it gets a little high pitched). However, I am getting a waft of vanilla when I move my hands around, and I just got my oils and they are cold, so I think I'll let this one age a bit before passing judgement.

 

I too find it very similar to the Tonka SN, at least when they're both fresh, and I suspect I'll only hang on to one of them in the long run, I just don't know which one yet!

[sarandipitee]

This was a complete and epic fail on me. Smells like a lovely vanilla YUM in the bottle and is PURE plastic yuck on my skin. It's actually just awful. Sigh. Oddly, it reminds me of the same dry, dusty sweetness of Butterscotch Balls and Black Beetles.