A une Madone - Pierre Guillaume

A Baudelairian Vanilla. A muse of contradiction.

 “Grown in the volcanic hills of Uganda, with two rainy seasons and two harvests in January and mainly in July, Uganda vanilla is a Planifolia, broad and flat with a matte colour developing lively facets, notes of leather, fruity cocoa and peated single malt. A tomboy!”

The discovery of this contradictory vanilla immediately drew me back into my research for the creation of “Louanges Profanes” (2009).
Charles Baudelaire’s work illustrated for me how, in the most beautiful of ways, human passion can borrow the sacred vocabulary to the point of blasphemy.
“A une Madone” (to a madonna), an excerpt from Les Fleurs du Mal, depicts a ritual in which the Baudelairean woman is both a resplendent divinity and a purely carnal Being, inflaming her senses with a destructive desire for possession.

Through “A une Madone” I attempt to reproduce the contradictory architecture of the Louanges Profanes in which the innocent purity of Neroli confronted the lasciviousness of Benzoin.
This time, since Uganda Vanilla alone contains this sensory duality, I have simply amplified each of its facets.
Cardamom and Sandalwood naturally underline the greedy and sensual curves of the vanilla pods, while Castoreum, Civet, Myrrh, Styrax, Gaiac and Gurjum increase their magnetism tenfold.

Perfumer: Pierre Guillaume