One of perfumer Pierre Guillaume’s inspirations for the new limited edition Parfumerie Generale Bois Naufragé was a photograph by Lucien Clergue — Le Nu au Bois Flotté [Ed note: the image is NSFW]. Taking into consideration the photo (showing a naked woman lying on a huge piece of driftwood) and the fragrance’s name (“shipwrecked wood”), I was imagining a salty perfume (salt of the ocean, salty skin), a perfume with a silky, sun-dried, and yes, salty, wood note combining with the scents of seaweed and sand. I was preparing myself for a summer sea breeze in a bottle, and Bois Naufragé’s fragrance notes gave me hope: carob tree, fleur de sel and ambergris.
Bois Naufragé starts with a sweet-milky accord that reminds me of candied figs stuffed with coconut: NOT what I was expecting. The ‘fig’ note loses a bit of its sweetness during the initial dry-down as a touch of mild, “green” musk emerges. I don’t find Bois Naufragé particularly “salty” but the fleur in fleur de sel is apparent in a sheer floral note, smelling a bit like “flat” jasmine mixed with tonka bean/vanilla. Most of Bois Naufragé’s “wood” must have been washed back out to sea; all I smell from the “carob tree” are sweet (dessert-like) carob seeds/pulp, not bark or wood. I do detect some wan — and artificial-smelling — ambergris (mixing with a tonka/vanilla-benzoin-type accord) in Bois Naufragé’s extreme dry-down. Bois Naufragé reminds me of a less intense Givenchy Pi — and many other tonka-benzoin-rich fragrances.
Bois Naufragé is, considering its inspirations, tame. It’s a warm and sweet and downright cozy fragrance…not “oceanic” (or sexy) in the least. Of course, if you like warm, sweet and downright cozy fragrances — give it a try.
Parfumerie Generale Bois Naufragé Eau de Toilette (limited edition) has average sillage and lasting power; it’s available in 50 ml for $95. For buying information, see the listing for Parfumerie Generale under Perfume Houses.
Note: top image of carob (Ceratonia siliqua; Original book source: Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz 1885, Gera, Germany; Permission granted to use under GFDL by Kurt Stueber), cropped, via Wikimedia Commons.
hmmm…checking my lemmings…..nope, still comfortably sleeping in a pile….that’s good. As a house, PG is hit or miss with me….Coze, Un Crime Exotique, Iris Taizo, Felanilla, Jardin de Kerylos…are some I like….a few are “okay” and a couple make me want to saw my arm off….but one thing they all have in common is that they are “an interesting sniff” —even when you don’t want to wear it, you’re glad you got to test it . This is the first time a PG fragrance has actually sounded non-interesting. I must admit that “salty” is about my least favorite note in perfume but here at least it might have added some interest.
D: agree …mos PGs are more interesting than this. They are releasing many scents quickly these days…
“Shipwrecked wood” sounded fascinating. This sounds about as adventurous as the comfy armchair I read Treasure Island in.
Well-written review nevertheless, K.
Mals: I wanted WILD, or weird from this one.
My skin picked up the sweetess as well. it went staright for the carob and tonka. no salt, just lovely
memechose: salt was minimal to say the least…but at least you like it!
Oh. Not exciting, then. On the other hand, ‘warm and sweet and downright cozy’ is , I confess, my kind of scent. Like Aomassai and Felanilla. I realised recently that I have more PGs in my collection (and frequently worn) than any other house except Caron.
Nina: the two you mention are more interesting than this one for sure.
Very interesting name, but the juice sounds like boring, chemical dreck. Thanks for taking one for the team, Kevin, and I appreciate your candor.
Rappleyea: well it was not torture to wear…but I’m not a “cozy” lover in fragrance.
This is about the inspiration and not the perfume, but I had to comment. I clicked on the link, and as I did it, it all started happening in slow motion… realizing that anything involving a nude should not be brought up on my work computer… no!…. stop… abort!… Too late. There is now a piece of driftwood and a butt in front of me. At least no one walked in when it was on the screen. And hopefully no one will be looking at my history any time soon.
well, you could always claim that it’s just a picture from your last vacation….that your partner thought it would be cute to take a shot of you lying out in the sun…on driftwood….
Oh, if only that was my butt… Of course, it wouldn’t match the rest of me.
Daisy: HAHA! What could the boss say then? (You need to tone up!” ) I think not!
Hey, maybe she’d get a raise!
They’d say, “You really think we’d believe that’s your butt?”
Seriously, my work wouldn’t care. The bigger issue would be if clients walked by when I was looking at it. Then I’d have a lot of explaining to do. I think I’m still hypervigilant from the days of working in a school, where I once got a call about my “searching for violent content” when I was looking up domestic violence resources on the internet.
Obviously their filter system worked well, since it caught that bit of inflammatory information, but didn’t catch the oodles of kids who figured out how to print out porn in the library.
I am VERY sorry…I should have added a NSFW note, and just did. Too late for you, and again, sorry.
Oh, its ok! I thought it was funny! It said “nude,” so I don’t know what I was thinking.
I should have waited until I got home. Curiosity killed the cat.
This made me laugh. At least it was a clean link! xD
Miss K: HA! Sorry…R and I will make sure a warning will be posted next time. NSFW! Just say: “It’s ART!”
Oh, there really didn’t need to a warning.
I guess I was just trying to point out my own stupidity. The word “nude” is really all people need to know to make a judgment call. I would presume no one else is as stupid as a I am. I just thought it was funny. Sorry if that came across as “alarmed” instead of “hey! look what a dork I am!”
Top notch review, per usual, Kevin.
R.I.P., little PG lemming.
RR: Thank you!
Thanks for the review, Kevin
I’m still curious to try this, since I love fig and cozy, but it definitely doesn’t call to mind salty driftwood. You did, prompt me, however to just now spritz on a bit of MH Fleurs de Sel, of which I’m again reminded that I really need a bottle!
I love the name though, and my connotation of the meaning is different because it reminds me of a favorite line from a favorite poem, Neruda’s “Song of Despair”: “Todo en ti fue naufragio!” (loosely, “in you, everything sank!). Thanks again for the review.
(Also, very sorry, I understand the need, but I can’t help but laugh at the need for NSFW about such a lovely art nude — not even frontal!… it’s like Netnanny trying to block Ansel Adams or Stieglitz or Edward Weston… whose recently-deceased muse, Charis Wilson, is on my mind.)
JOE: you won’t get despair from this scent either…unless it’s on the order of “oh…why didn’t I make a bigger pot of tea?” as one holds the cashmere comforter closer.
Funny!
This debate about the degree of sweetness is interesting: the SA at Les Senteurs smelt it on me and said it was nicely balanced, and less sweet than on her! I wouldn’t call it sweet or cosy at all, actually, as the wood and vague saltiness seemed to come through more than the fig, though it was there as well. I would compare it a bit to Ava Luxe Fig Wood and would love to get hold of it again for a retrial as it made a big impression.
flittersniffer: I used two vials of this and still no wood or salt…just sweetness. But good luck on the second try….
Thanks, Flittersniffer, for giving me hope. I think my skin amplifies salt and underplays sugar, if that is possible. Kevin, thanks for keeping my expectations in check.
Haunani: that’s OK…one man’s “cozy” is another (wo)man’s “racy” or “sexy”…
You should be fine with this – I tend to amplify woody notes, which is why I get that “trapped in a tea chest” thing with scents like Tam Dao and Timbuktu.
Great review Kevin.
I love Lucien Clerge…. I found out about him looking for pictures of another favorite photographer of mine, Herb Ritts (whose images usually are NSFW too) on the internet just some weeks ago.
I realized Ritts was “heavily inspired”by clerge, to put it mildly.
I always liked Pi, but found it too overpowering. I guess if I EVER come across this, I’ll give it a try…
KG: so true about Ritts and Clergue…did you see those images of naked bodies with the shadows? I’ve liked Pi in the cold months…and think I like it better than this.
I think I know which pictures you are talking about.
For me those pictures are reminiscent of a Tamara de Lempika’s painting, but the difference is that the painting is about women and Ritts’ is about men (q’el surprise! hehehehe)
I got sample yesterday and I was so disappointed to find awful coconut instead of salty smell I expected. Just the same reaction as yours. Sorry I don’t like this perfume at all.
Maha: the coconut threw me for a loop too…but I guess we’ll assume it’s the nude woman’s suntan oil?
No way. I never smell like this even when I’m nude and use suntan oil.
In the late 60’s, I bought small glass vials of Ambergris Oil in little head shops, it was displayed next to the Patchouli Oil and the Nag Champa incense and the madras bedspreads. Lovely stuff, I wish I could find something that smelled like that these days!
rubaiyat: I bet that 60s patchouli had hair on its chest the way I like it. And you are right…will be hard to find anything like real ambergris so easily these days….
Sigh… the perfume that you were expecting sounds so much more interesting than the one that they made. I’d love to find a scent that smelled like sun warmed sand and driftwood, with the smell of salty ocean hovering over it all – without any suntan lotion smell in there.
I know what you are looking for because it is what I wanted too. I can suggest you to try Sel Marin/ Heeley, Embruns d’Ambre / Stephanie de Saint-Aignan and Fleurs de Sel / Miller Harris. I love all three. They are salty but not aquatic.
Oh yes – three of my favorites! Let me add L’Artisan Cote d’Amour. Just fell in love with it. Took two wearings, but now I’m in deep.
Quit tempting me. You know I’m vulnerable.
Hee hee.
I’m not sure if I should thank or curse you for the suggestions….. I stick with thanking you. Now, I’ll have to run off and spend more money on samples. I should probably wait until I get home and check my samples first to make sure I don’t have any of them floating around.
Cynthia: yeah…they always want to throw in some suntan lotion!
I can appreciate why you were expecting something different, Kevin, and that it might not be the most interesting PG, but it sounds pretty darn good to me! I’ll take warm, sweet and cozy over many other more interesting, edgy – but not quite wearable (for me anyway) – fragrances. Thanks for reviewing!
springpansy: you’re welcome.
Obviously, you’re less than enthused and wanting to like what apparently isn’t there. Flat jasmine, wood washed out to sea, tame, not sexy and carob? If that wasn’t bad enough you mentioned the wan, artificial sandalwood.
A very nice review, but Lucien Clergue’s photo is much more interesting.
Maybe it’s better that I didn’t have any expectations. I saw “fig” in the notes and that was the motivating factor for sampling. It smells fabulous for about an hour. The fig gets creamier and then something comes in that I think of as “masculine”. Hmmm, interesting. But, sadly, I do have to agree with your dry down assessment, Kevin. It’s very disappointing in the end. I’ll stick with Philosykos.