I have a very specific memory of October 2021. I was attending a wedding in a drafty, converted barn in upstate New York, and I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to douse myself in A Vermilion Dream. It was about 75 degrees inside because the heaters were working too hard, and within twenty minutes, I realized I had made a catastrophic mistake. I didn’t just smell like perfume; I smelled like a ritual sacrifice in a burning spice market. My aunt leaned away from me during the ceremony and whispered, “Did you just come from a bonfire?”
It was embarrassing. I felt like a cloud of aggressive clove and smoke. But here is the thing: I didn’t regret it. Not really.
The part where I admit it’s too much
Most people want to smell like laundry. Or lemons. Or a vague, expensive “nothingness” that costs $300 a bottle and disappears before you leave the driveway. I think that’s boring. I used to think that subtlety was the mark of a sophisticated person. I was completely wrong. Subtlety is often just a lack of conviction. A Vermilion Dream has conviction. It’s a Gorilla Perfume from Lush, and if you know that brand, you know they don’t do things halfway. It’s heavy on the black pepper, heavy on the cinnamon, and it has this underlying note of olibanum that feels like a heavy velvet curtain dropping over your head.
I know people will disagree, but I think most modern perfumery is terrified of actually smelling like something. This scent isn’t terrified. It’s loud. It’s obnoxious. It’s essentially the olfactory equivalent of someone shouting a secret in a library. I might be wrong about this, but I feel like the people who hate this scent are the same people who think salt is a spice. They want safety. I want to smell like I’ve been through something.
Anyway, I was reading this thread on a fragrance forum the other day about how “unwearable” this is. Someone compared it to a house fire. I mean—actually, let me put it differently. It doesn’t smell like a house fire; it smells like the idea of a house fire as remembered by someone who really loves incense. It’s curated chaos.
If you’re looking for a compliment-getter, look elsewhere. This is a scent you wear for yourself, or perhaps to keep people at a distance.
The actual data (because I tracked it)
I’m a bit obsessive when I find something I like. I tested this bottle over three months, specifically looking at longevity because I’m tired of being lied to by brands. I tracked the wear time on a wool coat I wore to work every day in November. The results were borderline ridiculous. The scent stayed noticeable on the fabric for 11 days. On skin, I get a solid 14 hours. For a $145 bottle (the 100ml size), that’s an insane value-to-performance ratio. Most of the “prestige” brands like Jo Malone—which I personally find to be overpriced scented water for people with no personality—last about forty-five minutes before they evaporate into the ether. I refuse to buy Jo Malone. It feels like a scam designed for people who shop at airports.
- Longevity: 14+ hours on skin
- Sillage: Room-filling (be careful)
- Main notes: Clove, Cinnamon, Olibanum, Brazilian Orange
- Vibe: A gothic cathedral on fire
One thing that’s genuinely uncomfortable about this perfume is the dry down. It doesn’t get softer. It just gets weirder. The orange oil starts to peek through the smoke after about four hours, and it creates this medicinal, almost antiseptic sweetness that I know some people find repulsive. My partner says it smells like a dentist’s office in the 1970s. I don’t care. I love that medicinal bite. It feels clean in a way that isn’t soapy.
The “reformulation” lie
People love to complain. If you go on any perfume site, you’ll see people crying about how the “original” version of A Vermilion Dream was better, deeper, more “vermilion.” I’ve smelled the 2019 batch and the 2023 batch side-by-side. They are the same. The color of the liquid has changed slightly because of the natural oils aging, but the scent is identical. This obsession with reformulations is just a way for people to feel like they possess some ancient, lost knowledge that us “newbies” don’t have. It’s gatekeeping at its most annoying. Total lie.
I remember sitting in a coffee shop on 4th street last Tuesday—the one with the leaky ceiling and the overpriced oat lattes. I was wearing two sprays of this. The barista actually stopped mid-pour and asked what it was. Not because she liked it, I think, but because she was confused. It didn’t fit the vibe of the room. That’s why I keep it. It’s a disruptor.
I’ll be honest: I have a shelf of about thirty fragrances, and this is the only one that makes me feel slightly nervous when I put it on. It’s a commitment. You can’t just wash this off if you change your mind. It’s like a tattoo that lasts for twenty-four hours. If you wear light florals, I probably don’t trust your taste in music, and you definitely shouldn’t buy this. You’ll hate it. You’ll say it smells like a spice cabinet threw up on you. And you’d be right, but you’d be missing the point.
The point is the drama. We live in such a sanitized, beige world. Everything is muted. Everything is designed not to offend. A Vermilion Dream is offensive. It’s bright red, it’s smoky, and it’s unapologetically loud. It’s the only thing in my collection that feels like it has a soul, even if that soul is a bit dark and smells like burnt cinnamon sticks.
I wonder if I’ll still like it in five years. Or if I’ll look back at this phase of my life and wonder why I wanted to smell like a Victorian apothecary. I honestly don’t know.
Buy the 30ml first. Don’t be a hero.