Vanilla Bahiana

Note Profile

Botanical 3 perfumes

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About

Vanilla Bahiana is the pod of Vanilla bahiana, a wild Brazilian vanilla species. It is a vanilla that is not sweet-led. A trade glossary calls it smoky, woody and drier than Bourbon vanilla, with a resinous edge closer to copal than to cake batter.

Scent Profile

Vanilla Bahiana smells like vanilla that is not sweet-led, moderately sweet rather than rich and sugary. A smoky note runs close behind the sweetness, and a resinous quality closer to copal than to cake batter sits alongside a woody depth. It reads drier and more mineral than Bourbon vanilla, with an earthy edge underneath.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeBase · ~30h lasting

Family Sweet & Gourmand, Woody & Earthy, Amber · Musk · Leather

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

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Origin

Vanilla bahiana Hoehne is endemic to the Atlantic Forest of Bahia, Brazil, and Biota Neotropica records its conservation status as Endangered. The same peer-reviewed source places it phylogenetically close to V. planifolia and reports it produces vanillin and other vanilla-flavour compounds (Lopes 2018). It is not cultivated at commercial scale. Premiere Peau's glossary attributes the smell difference to chemistry: lower vanillin than V. planifolia, higher guaiacol, 4-methylguaiacol and vanillic acid.

Usage in Perfumery

A base vanilla for work that needs a vanilla without the pastry. Use it where Bourbon vanilla would turn a composition edible. Premiere Peau names incense, vetiver and leather as its blending partners. Attested on 3 Fragrantica note listings and absent from Parfumo, so the term is real but small, and no supplier sells the extract.