Eau d'Italie released Bois d'Ombrie* in 2006 — and I loved it. I was going to buy a bottle but something terrible happened and I didn't want to associate the perfume with personal sadness. A smell can attach itself like glue, or a leech, to an event and its associated feelings.
Years sped by (and many hundreds of perfumes, too); Bois d'Ombrie was left behind.
A month ago, while placing an order for perfume samples, I bought a fresh vial of Bois d'Ombrie. Surely, in 13 years, the fragrance had been reformulated...but I was curious. When I received my package from the perfume shop, I sniffed Bois d'Ombrie and the scent took me to the brink of nostalgia.
Bois d'Ombrie (like its sister perfume Sienne l'Hiver) has a "dim," hushed, mellow quality; you won't wear it to attract attention. Bois d'Ombrie begins with the sweet scents of wine and leather. (Imagine a new wineskin, filled with red vermouth, aimed at your mouth.) A delightful honeyed tobacco aroma arrives next and is joined by powdery orris root and balsamic notes (copahu?) An ethereal smoky amber scent rounds out the perfume, with glints of myrrh, opoponax and smooth patchouli.
Bois d'Ombrie did attach itself to my loss, but it's a gentle ghost who gives reassuring hugs, not brutal shoves.
My new bottle of Bois d'Ombrie should arrive this week. I think it's a perfect scent to wear while looking at old photographs (wistful accompaniment: Jessye Norman's recording of Four Last Songs), or while wrapped in a blanket reading Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police (with its theme of disappearance and its haunting mentions of perfume and the scents of nature). While writing this review I was sipping some homemade plum brandy on my cold deck as geese flew over the lake in formation, heading south — I wish I were going with them!
Eau d'Italie Bois d'Ombrie Eau de Toilette is $140 for 100 ml.
*Perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour; fragrance notes of cognac, calamus, wild carrot, leather, iris, myrrh, copahu, tobacco, opoponax, patchouli, vetiver.
Note: top image is Umbrian panorama by Anthony Majanlahti "antmoose" [cropped] via Wikimedia Commons.
Kevin, thank you for this wistful, poignant review. I needed to read these words today.
Nancy: you’re welcome!
This is an odd scent but I love its melancholy feel, along with Sienne l’Hiver and Baume du Doge. The only three Eau d’Italy scents I own and love.
Cazaubon, love Baume du Doge, too.
Kevin, I want echo Nancy comments.
As I finish my packing to move and feel as if the apocalypse of fire is all around me in California, I have a yearning and wistfulness of my own today.
Lovely review.
Apsara, thank you.
Apsara…and best of luck with your move.
Thanks for the Jessye Norman link. I missed that she had passed away.
Amyitis: you’re welcome…there were some great clips in that article.
Great review.
What you say about scent memory is so true – there are two perfumes that I love, which are ruined for me due to really sad associations – one of them, I put some on and just start crying, after all these years.
meredifay: same here…Jicky is one with a bittersweet association…but I still wear it (the reformulation “helped” somewhat…it does not smell like it used to).
I remember when Bois d’Ombrie and Sienne L’Hiver came out. They were my introduction to Bertrand Duchaufour’s perfumes all of which I’ve found consistently interesting since. They were also my introduction to the idea of virtual travel both through time and space via perfume. I thought I still had a small decant of Bois d”Ombrie but can’t find it. I did find Sienne L’Hiver, though. I’ve never been in Tuscany but this perfume does bring me back to cobblestone alleys in Boston with winter approaching. That time of year all the smells of chestnuts, olives and truffles would be in the tiny Italian grocery stores that have now mostly disappeared from the North End. These perfumes are a bit ghostly, perfect for Halloween.
Kathryn: I’m wearing Sienne L’Hiver today myself. It’s much lighter on me than Bois d’Ombrie and it has a strange habit of disappearing…then coming back strong. So fits your “ghost” perfectly.