June Thirtieth Vanilla's Muse Eau de Parfum

June Thirtieth Vanilla's Muse Eau de Parfum is the second fragrance from June Thirtieth, a New York house, and a vanilla built on almond cream, licorice flower and myrrh rather than on sugar. It was composed by Laurent Le Guernec of IFF, launched in 2025, and is sold in a 50 ml bottle. Fragrantica classes it as an oriental vanilla and rates it 4.60 out of 5.

What It Smells Like

Vanilla's Muse opens on almond cream, and the texture of that note sets up everything after it. This is marzipan rather than amaretto — soft, lactonic, faintly powdery — and cherry sits alongside it with jasmine and violet lifting the top. The cherry and almond together produce a familiar effect, because cherry and almond share the benzaldehyde note that reads as cherry-pie filling, and the house leans into that rather than hiding it.

Licorice flower is the unexpected material in the opening. It is not the black-licorice candy note: it is the aniseed-adjacent green sweetness of the plant's flower, and it cuts a thin cool line through the almond. Without it the first ten minutes would be considerably more dessert-like.

The heart is the vanilla itself, and it arrives flanked by two resins. Vanilla bean sits with Peru balsam and myrrh — the first sweet, warm and faintly cinnamic, the second dry, bitter and faintly medicinal. Myrrh is the decision that makes this composition interesting. It is a resin that smells of old wood and bitter smoke, and against vanilla it does the job salt does in a dessert: it keeps the sweetness in focus instead of letting it flatten out.

The base is tonka bean, labdanum and patchouli. Tonka extends the vanilla with its hay-and-almond facet, labdanum brings an ambery, leathery warmth, and patchouli adds earth underneath. The drydown is warm and powdery and stays close to the skin.

Fragrantica's community ranks the accords vanilla first at full weight, then sweet and amber level at 53, powdery at 35 and balsamic at 34, with almond, nutty and violet beneath. It is rated 4.60 out of 5 there from 20 votes — the highest-rated of the three Vol. 1 fragrances, though on the smallest sample.

Who Made It

Vanilla's Muse was composed by Laurent Le Guernec, a French-American senior perfumer at IFF in New York. He has composed widely for designer houses including Armani and Michael Kors, and is known for a light, luminous touch that keeps rich materials feeling airy rather than heavy — which is the relevant skill here, given how easily a vanilla of this density becomes cloying.

His other work at Redolia includes El Sireno for House of Bō and Serotonin Spritz for L'Epoque Parfums, both considerably fresher compositions. Vanilla's Muse is the warmest thing of his we carry.

The house describes the fragrance as a tribute to the founder's mother — the muse of the name. June Thirtieth also publishes a green-chemistry figure for each release, a measure of how much of a formula comes from processes designed to reduce waste and hazardous inputs; Vanilla's Muse is the lowest of the three at 82%, against 97.5% for Serene Santal.

Who It's For

For people who want a serious vanilla. If the big gourmand vanillas have always read as too edible, the myrrh and licorice flower here solve exactly that problem without giving up the warmth.

It suits wearers who already like vanilla and tonka compositions, and anyone drawn to almond or marzipan notes. If you know the boozy-cherry gourmands, this is the quieter relative: there is no alcohol accord and no caramel, and it projects far less than its note list suggests.

Unisex, and genuinely so. Fragrantica files it for women and men, and the myrrh and patchouli pull against the almond enough to keep it from reading as straightforwardly feminine.

When To Wear It

Cold weather suits it best. The resins and tonka gain from cool air, and in summer heat the almond-and-vanilla accord becomes heavier than most people want. Fragrantica's seasonal voting is thin at this stage but leans autumn.

Day or evening both work, because this is a close-wearing fragrance rather than a loud one. It settles near the skin within the first hour, which makes it comfortable in an office or at dinner. Apply more than you think you need.

About The House

June Thirtieth is a New York house whose first three eaux de parfum — OG, Vanilla's Muse and Serene Santal — make up Vol. 1. All three are composed by IFF perfumers and sold in 50 ml bottles at $230.

The house identity is built around contrast rather than a single signature material. In Vanilla's Muse the contrast is bitter against sweet: myrrh and licorice flower set against almond cream and vanilla bean. Browse the rest of the range in the June Thirtieth collection at Redolia.

Updated October 2026