A Week of Vanillas: Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille

This is the fifth and final review in a five-part series looking at several different lovely vanilla options available to perfumistas.

Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille
Guerlain describes Spiritueuse Double Vanille, a 2007 creation, thusly

If a colour or fragrance were to be associated with each day, like the planets were in ancient times, sandalwood would be the Sun, saffron would be Jupiter, and without doubt vanilla would be Venus.
Notes: vanilla, benzoin, frankincense, spices, cedar, pink pepper, bergamot, Bulgarian rose and ylang-ylang.

Wow. This is an incredible fragrance! On application, Spiritueuse Double Vanille was strong and held close to the skin, as if one ground vanilla tobacco down, soaked it in oil, and then oiled my skin with it. Like doing shots of vanilla extract infused vodka, the way the smell lingers in your mouth and nose long after the shot has already burned its fiery path to your belly.

In the midsection, Spiritueuse Double Vanille becomes less sweet, and more of a gorgeous tobacco-y smoke, a little powdery or ashy akin to a cloud of vanilla smoke. After about an hour, the liquor note remains strongly on me, and all but the barest hint of the smoke drops out, leaving a strongly vanilla extract smell. Not sweet like baked vanilla, but again strong and distilled, like making some sort of crazy bootleg vanilla hooch in an old tub out back. Also, on me, it lasted for hours! So beautiful. 
The way it hangs around you, being sweet and intoxicating, is a little like the kind of feeling intoxication you feel after you make out with someone for the first time. Then you stumbled out of your car up to the door and giggle as you wave to the driver. And you hum and you sing and you feel giddy. And the world seems sweet, sweeter than it did before. The worm will turn, of course, as it inevitably does. But in the moment, in that dizzying cloud of sweet smokey love, you just feel overwhelmingly happy and grateful, so grateful, to have the moment in the first place.
The sadness here, of course, is that Spiritueuse Double Vanille was a limited edition and, with the exception of buying decants from The Perfume Court, I can’t find a place to buy it anywhere. I have no doubt I will be spending a ridiculous sum on as much Spiritueuse Double Vanille as I can get my hands on as soon as it is fiscally possible. It is the Iris Pallida of vanillas for me, so of course it also has to be LE!

Here's an evening dark with shame.
Throw it on the fire.
Here's the time I took the blame.
Throw it on the fire.
Here's the time we didn't speak it seemed for years and years,
and here's a secret no one will ever know,
the reasons for the tears.
They are smoke.
- Ben Folds Five, "Smoke"

Want more reviews?
~ Scented Salamander review here.
~ I Smell Therefore I Am here
~ Perfume-Smellin’ Things review here.
~ Legerdenez has a review here.
~ And if my five reviews weren't enough, Robin over at Now Smell This! reviews Spiritueuse Double Vanille and a few more vanillas here.