Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Parfumerie Generale- Bois Blond


When Parfumerie Generale first released Bois Blond in early 2007 it was a limited edition. Perhaps Pierre Guillaume never expected this odd non-perfume to become popular. Maybe it was an experiment, who knows. The limited edition problem and the short period of time Bois Blond was unavailable/hard to find caused so many  fans to email, plead and beg for more. Luckily, Parfumerie Generale relented and added Bois Blond to the Private Collection line.

Bois Blond is dry dry dry. It's all about grass baking in the heat, hay and tobacco. It has the galbanum bitterness (but none of the green feel that usually accompanies this note), though as the scent expands on the skin it gains a musky quality and loses that particular edge. At times Bois Blond smells very woody, but to me it is mostly an open horizon, a vast hay field that stretches for miles and smells like a never-ending summer day. It reminds me of the early days of dating the Blond. He grew up on a dairy farm and took me on many a walk in the freshly harvested fields. I'm not and have never been a country girl, but the smell of hay is delicious (as long as you're in a safe distance from the cowsheds).

Bois Blond is comforting and promising in winter and even more phenomenal in the summer. The dryness is bracing, fresh and clean in the best possible way. Pierre Guillaume created the antidote to sweaty August days in a perfume that makes even NYC smell better. , while maintaining a personal relationship with one's skin. At times I feel an animalic aspect in the dry-down, something about its sweet muskiness. Still, it's a very polite perfume to wear even in crowded spaces. I think it smells outdoorsy and almost natural, and it goes beautifully with a crisp and lightly starched white shirt, his or hers.  Some consider Bois Blond as masculine, but since when is a good roll in the hay gender-exclusive? I love wearing this Parfumerie Generale fragrance because it's so beautiful, sunny and satisfying. It tolerates heavy spraying because the sillage is quite minimal, even though it clings to my skin for hours (and once after accidentally spraying the palm of my hand I discovered Bois Blond survives hand washing).

Notes (from Luckyscent): cereals, grass, galbanum, cedar, hay, blond tobacco, amber, musk.

Bois Blond ($110, 50ml) and the rest of the Parfumerie Generale line can be found at Luckyscent.

Art: Late Fall Field by Josef Kote

4 comments:

  1. You always find the best pictures to accompany your posts. I was looking at Bois Blond on Luckyscent today and wishlisted it. The combination of these notes sounds just too good for me to pass up.

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  2. I just love this one, and it's actually something I'm lucky enough to have a full bottle of! Lots of times I forget about it in warmer weather, because it's a cool weather favorite of mine, but I think I'll try wearing it more this summer to see whether I like it as much in the heat! It might bring out a different side to the fragrance :)

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  3. This is my absolute favorite fragrance! Great year round, and very comforting. The dry warm hay and the tobacco....pure heaven! I always find your thoughts on fragrances very entertaining :)

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  4. *sigh*

    Just placed my first Luckyscent order based on this post. My poor husband. Life is about to get a lot more expensive for him...

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