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Posted by Dain, Tuesday, January 15, 2008 4:29 AM (Eastern)
Given the debate on names of late, it strikes me how important they are. All that French, if perfumery were based in some other country, perhaps half of all the purple prose in reviews might disappear—like Tinkerbell, believe and it will thrive. Thus one expects Un Bois Sépia to be harsh, like the bitter brown color, but like all the Eaux Boisés (seven in all), inspired by Shiseido Bois de Feminité (also by Serge Lutens and Chris Sheldrake), it represents the duo at their absolute best.
Albrecht Dürer's marvelous woodcut (meticulously carved, backwards, before inking on paper, a laborious technique that could only be used a few hundred times), St. Michael Fighting the Dragon. This is no pen-and-ink drawing, and yet, the texture and level of detail is downright unbelievable. Prints are often neglected in studies of art, and we are poorer for it, I think. It was often sneered at popular, "bourgeois" art, often with a didactic function, because they would be distributed to the masses. Dürer himself would remark, he ought to have gotten into it sooner; there was more money in it than painting.
Un Bois Sépia doesn't wander away from wood, as the others do. Bois de Violette seems to possess a sort of haunting delicacy by virtue of florals, while Santal de Mysore has the bitter pungency of the spices of India, and it is impossible to forget the divine resonance of Bois et Fruits. No, Un Bois Sépia is just wood, but what wood! It makes me think of what it must have been like for Europeans to cross into America, and find acres of old-growth forests, such as hadn't grown in the Old World in centuries.
It begins with a slight masculine edge that never entirely disappears, the presence of what is obviously patchouli. You know, I always thought I hated patchouli, but it gives the an air of distinction to the mixture of woods: cypress, sandalwood, gaiac wood. I smell spicy-sweet myrrh with the quiet green murmur of oakmoss, which provide a very nice ambiance at first, and takes over in the drydown. It is not flat at all (the base notes equivalent of "thin" for heart notes), but well rounded and very, very elegant. It is more conventional and compositional than most Serge Lutens, but it is beautifully done. If a man were to ask me recommendations for perfumes: it would be Burberry Touch for sportswear, Vetiver Oriental for dates, and Un Bois Sépia for suits.
If I were prone to layering, this might be the one for it, though I am not quite certain I want something this androgynous on its own. I'll have to think about it.
Labels: perfume reviews, serge lutens
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