The Maker’s Dream Is The Grown-Up Vanilla Perfume I Can’t Stop Spritzing

If you were to investigate the public’s growing affinity for smelling like a sweet, edible treat, it could probably be traced to 2020, when everyone was stuck at home, doing strange things like baking sourdough bread from scratch. Those comforting, bakery-esque scents filled everyone’s consciousness and brought warm fuzzy feelings at a time when everything felt uncertain.

Since then, the world’s fascination — nay, obsession — with gourmand scents has only grown. Suddenly, the perfume aisles that used to be filled with fancy fragrances with notes of cedar, musk, and jasmine, were overtaken by all things sweet, saccharine, and sugary. Vanilla blossomed overnight and became the prettiest, most popular girl in school, with cocoa, caramel, and coconut notes following close behind. The (ever-growing) army of gourmand lovers rejoiced at the sheer magnitude of new scent options to choose from, from high-end niche perfumes to wallet-friendly steals.

I admit — I am one of these gourmand heads. As someone who used to strictly wear rose fragrances, my extremist swing towards the opposite end of the scent pendulum is something I’ll unpack in therapy someday — but for now, all I know is that I want to smell as close as I can to a sexy dessert. And thus, The Maker’s sexy dessert of a fragrance, Dream, came at just the right time in my life — but first, it surprised me.

The Background

I am in love with many of The Maker’s previous fragrances. Founded by Lev Glazman and Alina Roytberg, The Maker was originally the name of the painfully chic and cozy boutique hotel they created in New York’s Hudson Valley. But every hotel owner knows that the furniture is only part of a guest’s experience — it’s all about the ambiance, and nothing screams ambiance more than scent, which Glazman and Roytberg knew inherently from their time building the beloved beauty brand Fresh.

Thus, The Maker soon grew into a line of fragrances, each inspired by different experiences one might encounter within the walls of The Maker Hotel — a romp in the sheets with an old flame (Naked), prolonged eye contact shared with a stranger next to a crackling fireplace (Lover). Dream, however, is the brand’s first foray into the traditional gourmand world, and, unsurprisingly, it takes a traditional note (vanilla) and sexes it up in the most delightful way.

The Maker Dream

In the fragrance world, gourmands had a reputation for being, well, juvenile — saccharine sweet, one-dimensional scents that smell like icing on a cupcake and transport everyone back to the nostril-tingling body sprays of their teenage years.

But Dream joins a new cohort of complicated, sophisticated gourmands that make smelling sweet the sexiest thing you can do (see: Orebella’s Nightcap, House Of Bō Bombón, Victoria Beckham Reverie 21:50). There’s nothing coquettish about this fragrance; it’s sweet in an opulent way.

“When I dreamt about this fragrance, I imagined myself nestled in a room at The Maker Hotel,” Glazman tells me. “The bedding billowed around me like the softest cloud as I drifted off into a deep sleep and the sweetest dream I've ever dreamt unfolded. I wake up, find myself in our beautiful glass conservatory, and walk into a fairy tale tea party of Alice in Wonderland proportions. The room is overflowing with all this gorgeous patisserie, and I have this immense craving to taste them all. The more I taste them, the more I want to indulge.”

The Review

Like Glazman’s depiction, smelling Dream is a journey that surprises you at every turn. It is not — I repeat, it is not — your typical gourmand or vanilla fragrance. So if you read the scent notes of vanilla bourbon and cinnamon butter and envision something light and fluffy, be prepared to be surprised. It’s not subtle, soft, or skin-like — it’s a heady rush, a gourmand with a powdery punch.

Sandalwood is the secret to the sultriness — a warm, cozy blanket that stays on and mixes with your natural skin chemistry hours later, while a tinge of magnolia adds a freshness that keeps it from smelling too cloying. “My interpretation of a gourmand fragrance is sophisticated, sensual, and addictive,” says Glazman, and certainly, Dream is all of those things, plus one more: a pure dopamine boost.

My preferred method of wearing Dream is to spritz on my wrists, neck (front and back), and throughout my hair. Each time I apply it, I breathe in my wrists and inhale deeply. Other vanilla fragrances I own transport me to childhood — this scent transports me to my future self, wrapped in a fur throw, sipping on a gin martini by a crackling fire. A girl can dream, right?