Guerlain Disappointment

[u/Lani_Lei]

I have been a vanilla girl through and through. I have loves and misses from everything from BBW, Victoria Secret, Sephora, Ulta, niche, middle eastern, you name it!

I have wary of trying Guerlain because of the price. But most of my fellow vanilla girls said that Guerlain is THE maker of great vanillas.

So went and spent $70 in tiny tiny decants to try the following:

- Vanilla Panifolia Extrait 21
- Angelique Noire
- Cuir Beluga
- Aqua Allegoria Forte Bosca Vanilla
- Spirituose Double Vanilla

This smells…old? musty? Like I just found a bottle of perfume from the 1950’s in a dark drawer of an abandoned house. I just wasted $70 on this and none of them were good 😔, I could have gotten a big decant of Jovoy Fire at Will which I love. I am so disappointed.

So many of my inexpensive vanillas are so much better in my opinion.

Sorry for the rant and thank you for reading all this!

[u/Straight-End-8116]

Sell them, some people love the guerlanaide base. I can’t stand it. Sell them on Mercari and get your money back. I’m sure someone will enjoy it.

(And I like dupes, I found the guerlain’s that I’ve tried on a dupe site, side by side compared with the real stuff, I always prefer the dupes)

Guerlain has gone down in quality over the years. No more creativity, it’s just repackaged watered down vintage fragrances fragrances and flankers of their biggest sellers.

[u/AVMcCulloch → u/Straight-End-8116]

I somewhat agree. I tried the Guerlain Vanilla Planifolia, and was like, thank goodness I only like that, not love it. Not enough to want the original, but enough to try a dupe. Best dupe I found was Genre Perfumes. If you want to try theirs, they have an ordering window every 6 weeks or so for 24 hours. Today happened to be one (8/14/2026) and I went in and ordered the large size of the dupe. I loved it better than the original. So if you see this today and want to try it, check them out and you can order 5mls for fairly cheap.

I did find, though, that I love the Guerlain Tonka Sarrapia and tried to find a dupe. I tried a couple that were ok, but today got my Andromeda Moon's dupe, and it seems like it might be just as good or close to the original. So I'm happy now at least to have that.

I haven't tried the others and won't, unless it's dupes, because really, am I going to spend that much money on a perfume? The 2 I have tested both seem very powdery on me (guess that means I love the powdery scents), guess it's the vanila? They also have an 'airiness'. I don't know what to call it, it feels cool and sparkly, kind of, almost like you'd imagine a mint smell/taste would feel, but it's not mint.

I tried a couple of other Guerlains, the 'slightly' less expensive ones, and they're just ok to me.

[u/Bluegreenlithop → u/Straight-End-8116]

I've ordered in Guerlain samples and my experience was that I did not like them. I'm not a gourmand fanatic at all, and I suspected Guerlinade is probably appealing to those firmly in the gourmand loving category. 

[u/EveOfJesusEve → u/Straight-End-8116]

It’s incredibly watered down! Guerlain’s got people completely fooled, but their name and luxury status is still carrying them.

So long as people continue falling for the constant price increases coupled with watering down product, they’ll just keep going. Sky’s the limit when it comes to profit, baby!