Althaïr

Julien Sprecher started Parfums de Marly in 2009, building the house around the Chateau de Marly, the retreat where Louis XV kept a court famous for being perfumed. The logo carries the Chevaux de Marly, Guillaume Coustou's rearing horses, and the date 1743. It is a constructed heritage rather than an inherited one, and the house is perfectly open about that; what it bought Parfums de Marly was a coherent identity at a moment when niche perfumery was drowning in interchangeable minimalism.

Althair, released in 2023, is the house's answer to the question of what a vanilla should smell like when it is not trying to be a dessert. Parfums de Marly publishes the pyramid as bergamot, mandarin and elemi at the top; orange blossom, cinnamon and cardamom at the heart; and bourbon vanilla, guaiac wood and praline underneath. The house describes the result as combining the smoothness of vanilla with praline and bright orange blossom, and Sprecher, as founder and creative director, frames the intention as a majestic and surprisingly fresh vanilla. No perfumer is credited.

That freshness is real and is the whole trick. The opening is citrus and resinous elemi, genuinely bright, and cardamom keeps the top green for longer than a gourmand normally allows. Cinnamon and orange blossom then bridge into the base without the usual sugar spike. When the vanilla finally arrives it is creamy rather than sticky, with praline and a candied almond quality alongside, and guaiac wood plus a clean ambroxan-style musk underneath giving it a dry, slightly smoky floor.

Cold weather and evenings are its territory, and it is very good on a Highveld winter night when the air is dry and the almond-vanilla accord has room to sit. In humid summer coastal heat it becomes considerably sweeter and heavier.

Performance is the reason people buy it. Ten to twelve hours is normal, projection is strong for the first four, and the trail is substantial. One or two sprays is genuinely the correct dose. This is a recent composition, still made, with no reformulation history behind it, and the main thing to know before buying is simply that it is loud: pleasant, well made, and impossible to wear discreetly.