Vanilla: the cured orchid pod that softens a perfume base

Where does vanilla come from?

Vanilla comes from orchids of the genus Vanilla, above all Vanilla planifolia, which grew wild around the Gulf of Mexico before it was domesticated. According to Wikipedia's vanilla article, Madagascar and Indonesia together produce two-thirds of the world's supply. Outside its native range the flower has to be pollinated by hand, a method discovered in 1841 on Réunion by Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old enslaved child, and still used today.

Fresh pods are then cured in four basic steps: killing, sweating, slow drying and conditioning. The French Wikipedia entry on vanilla details one method: three minutes in water at 65 °C, a sweating stage under wool blankets that turns the pod black, then about eight months of conditioning in wooden trunks.

What does vanilla smell like?

Vanilla's smell is led by vanillin, but vanillin is only one of 171 aromatic components identified in real vanilla fruit. That complexity is what separates natural vanilla from a pure vanillin note.

What does vanilla do in a perfume?

Vanilla has appeared as a base note in perfume since at least the eighteenth century. Since the late nineteenth century, synthetic vanillin has usually carried most of the vanilla effect, with natural vanilla valued for the roundness it adds. You will meet it in the amber family beside tonka bean, benzoin and labdanum, and in gourmand fragrances.

What should you know about vanilla?

Natural vanilla supplies only a sliver of the vanilla scent in circulation: the French Wikipedia figures on vanilla and vanillin put world vanillin production at 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes a year, against less than 50 tonnes of natural vanillin. To follow the move from pod to molecule, read our class on natural versus synthetic.