Tonka Impériale Guerlain 2010

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Top 7 in Unisex Perfume

8.7 / 10853 Ratings

Tonka Impériale is a popular perfume by Guerlain for women and men and was released in 2010. The scent is gourmand-sweet. The longevity is above-average. It is still available to purchase. Pronunciation

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Perfumer

Thierry Wasser

Fragrance Notes

Top Notes	Bergamot Almond Rosemary
Heart Notes	Jasmine Tonka bean Tobacco
Base Notes	Frankincense Cedarwood Stone pine wood

Ratings

Scent

8.7853 Ratings

Longevity

8.2685 Ratings

Sillage

7.2683 Ratings

Bottle

8.7649 Ratings

Value for money

6.9109 Ratings

Submitted by Ripieno, last update on 02.09.2021.

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Reviews

08/08/2021

9
Scent 8
Longevity 7
Sillage

Paris91

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Paris91

Very helpful Review 11

Tonka Impériale vs. Fève Délicieuse

Incentive

Fève Délicieuse has been in my possession for a while now. However, I've always found Guerlain's L'Art et la Matière interesting. Especially when Cuir Beluga joined my collection and Spiritueuse Double Vanille came under my nose, I was hooked.

Tonka Impériale I wanted to have then also absolutely, read however often that he Fève Délicieuse would be so extremely similar. Unfortunately, I then never had the opportunity in Corona times to test somewhere. So thing checked off... But so really he has not let me go of course, so's not with me :D

For those who don't feel like reading to the end: For ME, are TI and FD despite sticking out tonka bean no fragrance twins. So who -like me at first- has concerns that they could smell the same: No, they don't! For that, I didn't even have to spray FD on myself for comparison during the first test of TI. What I did, however, for accurate analysis.

Tonka Impériale

TI comes directly with a sweet marzipan note, but becomes spicier after a few minutes by the rosemary. Directly rausriechen I can not, however. Is me also right so. The sweetness of the beginning then withdraws after a few minutes. The light marzipan note remains on my skin until the end. Tobacco I do not smell out directly.

To all those who are afraid of tobacco notes: Tobacco as a fragrance note does not always have to smell like cigarettes / cigarillo -as in Amouage's Sunshine Woman- (sorry but I found that too much...) Sometimes tobacco just supports the spice or even makes it a little sensual as here with incense. TI doesn't go through a great evolution on my skin. To me, Tonka Impériale doesn't smell Christmasy despite the sweetness and woody notes. However, definitely a scent for the colder days compared to FD, which can be worn in slightly warmer temperatures. As for the longevity and sillage, I must say that for the price, it did disappoint me a bit. The shelf life is about 6-7 hours and the fragrance does not have an extremely good sillage either. After about 1-2 hours I have to hold my wrist to my nose to smell it better. I have the same problem with Cuir Beluga. The holds however still worse at me ;(
Unisex? Definitely. 50:50!

Fève Délicieuse

Already when spraying on the wrist I notice the difference. FD starts balsamic powdery. The balsamic has what of a nice spicy body oil. It stays that way for a while until a slight lipstick note emerges and the scent becomes slightly sweet-chocolatey (but only very subtly). Gourmand sweet? On my skin, no. If I had to describe it, it would be more spicy-powdery with a hint of sweetness. As far as longevity goes, this one is way ahead. It lasts the whole working day on my skin. I find the sillage to be pleasant. Not too extreme, but also not too weak. Find for the price you should also expect a certain presence. Is indeed a ladies fragrance but could also be worn well by men. If I had to determine now, I would say but rather feminine.

@!Conclusion*

Tonka Impériale and Fève Délicieuse are for me two beautiful fragrances that go in a similar direction, but do not smell the same. Who is considering a purchase of both, but I would still advise to test both, not to mention that blind purchases in the price segment can already hurt a lot if they do not like.

This was not meant to be a professional analysis, because I'm not an expert on that.
This review should simply be helpful for people who, like me, are interested in both fragrances and would like to know in advance which because rather fit or whether it's maybe both :)

2 Replies

08/03/2021

10
Scent 8
Longevity 7
Sillage 10
Bottle

Loo

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Loo

My December scent

I had already heard so many positive things about these fragrances and had not found a store in my area that carries these scents....until a few weeks ago...all I can say is they are so incredibly good...I bought 4 bottles right away because they are so different and wonderful that I just could not decide.

One of the best gourmands and tonka bean scents I know! The fragrance is sweet, smells like marzipan and is for me indispensable in the cold season. Especially around Christmas time, no scent is more apt than this one! The sillage is quiet and just as reflective as the Christmas season. I also find it wonderful for bedtime.

Who likes Tonka will love Tonka Impériale!

2 Replies

05/12/2021

10
Scent 8
Longevity 8
Sillage 9
Bottle

Jasminroedig

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Jasminroedig

Very helpful Review 30

The Last of the 4 Musketeers

You know when you sniff a fragrance for the first time and your head fills with thoughts of disappointment? All the opinions and descriptions that appealed to you so much, made you request the fragrance, you can't understand. I felt the same way about Tonka Imperiale, in addition to Angelique Noire. Unlike Cuir Beluga and Spiritueuse Double Vanille, this one challenged my nose a bit. This nutty-warm-smoky character was like a milestone I reached in my journey through the fragrance world through Tonka. Even the second test triggered next to nothing in me. From 5ml became 4ml, from 4 became 3... and then - without warning

it was love.
There's this heartwarming tobacco that has a presence to knock down. There's also an almond note that rounds out the scent in a full and rich way, without giving the scent too much of a marzipan character.
And not to forget -tonka bean, which I was not even in the culinary arts a term. It suddenly wandered into every biscuit, shortbread and porridge.
Everywhere in my household it appeared, be it body lotion or perfume. Regrettably, at this point of enlightenment, there was only 2ml left in the atomizer. Can you imagine how that feels?
There you test a fragrance with enormous prominence and popularity over and over again and find no access to it. And then you fall in love... like back in school, the one boy who went to the parallel class. For years you knew nothing of his existence, his charisma to others, his charming ways. You simply didn't notice him. And then one day you happen to be standing in the same group in the playground. And then you feel it, this feeling of intimate connection. You feel comfortable in his presence and want him to surround you wherever you go. You want all the people to notice that you are no longer strangers to each other, but that you know each other and are in harmony with each other. You want to be seen with him and share with him your most beautiful moments in life...oh how beautiful those thoughts suppressed by realism were...

I feel the same way about Tonka Imperiale.
I want everyone to know that I smell like this perfume. I want to feel the scent on my clothes and on my skin.... yes I would go so far as to say I would marry the scent ;) If only that were possible. Anyway, I want to wear it, for better or for worse, until death do us part.

So I am pleased to announce that it is Tonka Imperiale the last of my 4 Musketeers.
They all share the collection, so of course the wonderful house of Guerlain, and yet they are so unique, with their own individual strengths

5 Replies

04/15/2021

MrLimuzin
21 Reviews

MrLimuzin

.....

So.. I tried this one today. Good gravy!, this one is good. There almost seems to be a boozy quality to it without even having booze as a note. At some point it dawned on me, this kinda reminds me of Roja Parfums Enigma Parfum Pour Homme.

Being an owner of Roja Parfums of a long while ago, I was surprised by the similarities. I hardly reach for Enigma for some reason, would probably reach for Guerlain Tonka Imperiale far more and would dare to say it's superior.

If comparing fragrances to words on paper, Geurlain Tonka Imperiale is letters in bold while Roja Enigma Pour Homme is regular. Geurlain Tonka Imperiale has more depth, has an opacity that Roja Enigma lacks.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Tonka Imperiale is the idea used by Roja Parfums for their Enigma Pour Homme fragrance. Call it.... inspiration

If I could go back in time, I would without hesitation take Tonka Imperiale over Enigma. May even consider trading my nearly full Enigma for Tonka Imperiale. It really is that good. Geurlain: 1, Roja Parfums:0

01/26/2021

ScentedFawn
16 Reviews

ScentedFawn

The scent of an Angel

I think this is a perfume that has captured tonka bean in the purest way possible.

I get a spicy-smoky vanilla and also some heliotrope quality, like a vanillic powder cloud. The almond is not that obvious for me, maybe it adds some nuttiness but I get more of the incense part than the almond. I also get something boozy, but that might be the tonka absolute (which derives from soaking the tonka bean into alcohol, rum usually). Somewhere at the background I also get the pine, in the most soothing and not "green" way possible.

I get something extraordinary, elegant and pure, its like the essence of a dream, unreal and floating. Could be the scent of an angel I think.

Only downside: its sillage. Its more of a skin scent although I think that if it had more presence it would lose some of the above mentioned characteristics that make it what it is. My first thought was, why spend so much money if this wont get noticed also its not something bizarre smelling and unprecedented as in the use of notes. But what is unprecedented and unique is the way it's made. It proves that simple is better.

An exceptionally well made fragrance!

01/11/2021

8.5
Scent 8
Longevity 6
Sillage 10
Bottle

4ajbukoshka

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4ajbukoshka

Helpful Review 12

"I would say to the moment: stay, you are so beautiful!"

Now it has nevertheless actually still carried away me to a comment, this Christmas cookie scent!

Do you know when you have baked and still have the smell of dough on your hair the next day? (Tonka Impériale says hello.)
Pretty uncool, of course, if you have fried fish shortly before your date - and the other is a vegetarian with a passion.
But back to the beginning...

I've tested Tonka Impériale several times now, for the first time in 2017 on paper and searching for "my" fragrance, which, as it turned out within a split second, was supposed to be Cuir Béluga.
At first, it smelled kind of stale to me, almost omahaft. The purple, noble-looking test paper with the golden letters I nevertheless took home on principle - simply because it looked so beautiful.
Later arrived at home I found him then no longer bad, no, he smelled really delicious and pleasant, cuddly, Christmasy, but not toouuu kitschy-sweet, no, somehow adult, smoky, wicked.
And so Tonka Impériale fell into oblivion for years.
Only when a good friend asked me for advice about a perfume for his girlfriend (I should go with him to "my" perfumery and help him test, after all, I'm a woman and know roughly what the girlfriend likes), Tonka Impériale came back to my mind, because said friend finds my Cuir Béluga pretty in the bottle and good on me, but it smells too sweet and too "soft-washed" for her personally (that's what she said).
So then came the lockdown and if there's one thing I don't like, it's spending oodles of money on blind buys based on pretty bottles.
So a solution was needed!
In our case, it was to canvass the circle of acquaintances and ask for their favorites - to exclude those if there are multiple names among them (yep, we really put some thought and effort into it), but also to possibly get hold of bottlings and sample bottles through that.
No sooner said than done.
So we could exclude for example Si, furthermore La Vie Est Belle and some more.
Well... About various portals, including here, I then got a few more samples and bottlings. But this one would probably have been enough.
After we had tested Tonka Impériale on paper, clothes and on me and my good friend, it was clear: she gets to try. Better safe than sorry.
To get a perfume as a gift for a special birthday that you don't like - and from your own partner at that - would have been kind of sad. Now all that was left was to arrange everything inconspicuously. So while said friend was with me, helping me with a few odds and ends for the upcoming move, I left the strips of test paper (labeled with initials of the fragrances) on my desk.
And she, curious as she is, fell into the trap. So I sprayed Tonka Impériale on her and her boyfriend and I were eager to see her reaction. Later, when she messaged me on WhatsApp asking what perfume it was, I rubbed my fingers like Mister Burns and innocently wrote back that I didn't know. And that she would have to try it again sometime soon.
She was a little disappointed, but as a good friend, at least she didn't show me that she would hold it against me, and since she knows even less about perfume than I do, she couldn't describe how or what the thing smelled like.
So I was off the hook, and her delight was all the greater when she recently received Tonka Impériale as a birthday present.
Her first reaction was probably a slightly contorted face (I wasn't there, her boyfriend reported), because she knew Cuir Béluga and probably thought that would be the contents of the beautiful-looking bottle - unfortunately without a "pfft-pfft-thing" (pump atomizer, you know).
But she would have loved after the first Aufsprüher probably bathed in it.
I do not, but delicious is the already!

But now to the headline:
"Stay, you're so beautiful!" - also I would wish for Tonka Impériale a little more sillage and durability.
The former is after about an hour virtually no longer present and you have to bite the wrist felt or hold the nose very close to still have something of this fragrance. Looks both stupid.
The durability unfortunately also leaves something to be desired, BUT.... sometime after I wrote my statement, I was showering. And after the shower and still the next day, the base note sticks to my wrist, plus I imagine I can still perceive the clay note in it. A small consolation patch so.
Because otherwise Tonka Impériale is gone as quickly as a perceived beautiful moment - or the delicious cookie dough, from which you supposedly get a stomach ache, if you eat it so (I can not confirm this to this day).
I find it a bit too spicy and smoky to bite into, but I've heard that there are people who eat pine cones, chestnuts and such
- so: waaaruuum not actually?

2 Replies

12/14/2020

8
Scent 6
Longevity 6
Sillage 8
Bottle

Nttn

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Nttn

Marzipan Tonka

Turns out very marzipan on my skin. I like it. A nice pleasing fragrance. There's a slight saltiness in it that makes it smell a little like Play Dough, but only slightly. Very cool strangeness through it and interesting. Could bear more of it in my opinion and a little more smokiness and I would buy it. So it is not yet a buy candidate because I would like it louder. But he is really beautiful and noble. I would find it even more beautiful in a man because it's more unexpected than in a woman.

2 Replies

12/02/2020

10
Scent 9
Longevity 7
Sillage 10
Bottle

Pauline6

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Pauline6

Top Review 19

Finest fragrance I've ever smelled

I have only been working with scents for a short time, but today I had to experience on my own body what scents can do to people.
When I smelled him for the first time this afternoon, I felt as if my life had suddenly become more beautiful.
I have also sniffed a few other fragrances from L'Art et La Matiere, but from the first moment, I was enchanted by the Tonka Imperial.

In the first moment, something never before smelled so strongly in perfumes, which then turned out to be rosemary. Since I have an incredible weakness for this spice, it's no wonder that the note had this effect on me.
Afterwards, the warmth came directly through the almond, which probably reminds everyone so much of Christmas. Although I see the connection only minimally. For me it almost smells like honey. This "honey scent" changes a little bit with time, but basically remains the same all the time (by the way, I think that what smells like honey to me is actually jasmine). The more time goes by, the woody the scent becomes and the more the incense comes to the fore, which only makes it more attractive to me.
The fragrance is still excellent (7 hours), even if the sillage is not very big.
This is a fragrance that I could wear all my life and eventually will. So seductive and yet gentle and elegant at the same time. If one fragrance can give you self-confidence, then this one will.
For me it is the perfect fragrance for the evening, or for going out for dinner. You do attract attention, but you would never look as if you were trying to impress with the scent.
I found it very feminine at first, but after a few hours I have to say that I can imagine the fragrance also very well on men.

I couldn't leave the shop without buying Tonka Impériale. He seduced me and now, probably for the first time in my life, I'm addicted to something. I don't want to miss him anymore, if it wasn't love at first sight, then I don't know either.

If the scent were a song, I'd put him in touch directly with Dolly Parton's Jolene

7 Replies

10/27/2020

9
Scent 6
Longevity 6
Sillage 10
Bottle

Nadinepoet

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Nadinepoet

Helpful Review 7

private, intimate tonka bean

With a 5ml bottling I finally had the chance to test this fragrance. I can fully agree with this - it smells like Christmas. But not this kitschy kind of Christmas - but elegant, sweet, spicy, real. Also, as some others mention, I perceive a slight cinnamon note. I would classify Angelique Noir as a private, intimate scent, because after about 2 hours you only perceive it very close. I have never had a pictorial idea when smelling a scent - here I have one: I look out of a slightly icy window of a wooden hut, outside there is snow and it is snowing. It's already dark, the fireplace is on and I have a cuddly blanket around my shoulders, enjoy a fine hot chocolate with cinnamon, cardamom and smell a subtle biscuit spice. A fragrance to feel good, as it evokes winterly cosiness in me!

1 Replies

10/20/2020

8.5
Scent 7
Longevity 8
Sillage 8
Bottle

Fenice

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Fenice

Is it Christmas already?

.... That's my thought over and over again when I take out Tonka Imperiale to sniff it, even though I'm sure I'll look like a full nest every time I do so :D

Preface

Actually I could save it but NO WAY! Some time ago I got Tonka Imperiale together with Spiritueuse Double Vanilla and Cuir Beluga as bottling. Yes, yes, I have already mentioned this twice (see Cuir Beluga and SDV) but I like to repeat myself, muhaha :D so... Where was I now? Sniffing? Oh hell yes!

Scent

Every time I spray it on, I sniff Christmas! You know those wafer things they serve at Christmas? That's what I keep thinking about because that's what Tonka Imperiale smells like on my skin! I really don't know why, but Tonka Imperiale knows very well that I like Christmas and that's why it reminds me of it with pure intention? Away with you, you evil Tonka Imperiale, you must not read my thoughts! :D Haaaalt Stop, now I'm writing! >br />
Right after I spray it on, I smell holy... no, wait, we just did that I smell almond, rosemary, a touch of cinnamon (where does cinnamon come from, wtf?) tonka bean and very faint incense. Later the rosemary gets weaker, but the almond and the spicy one stays and slowly something woody comes through but whether it's cedar or pine I can't say, I'm not trained enough in this area. I do not sniff bergamot, jasmine and tobacco

Sillage & durability

Unfortunately I can't say much about the sillage and durability. The durability is on the skin some hours (as with SDV and Cuir Beluga).

Flacon

Just like the others of the series (they are all the same) I think they are pretty nice, although there are certainly more beautiful ones, but they are still nice to look at
Final words! Final words! Since Tonka Imperiale smells Christmassy, I think the fragrance from October - end of December fits perfectly. After that and before that, but best of all in the BEFORE Christmas and Christmas season
I can recommend the fragrance with a clear conscience, even if there are stronger ones for the price. Guerlain has done a good job here!

So... Now I'll leave again, because I can't think of anything else :D

I hope my description was not quite ready for trash :D adios

3 Replies

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