Bois Farine (2003)
by L'Artisan Parfumeur

An amazing and unique comfort scent - flour, sweet white flowers, sandalwood, and...flour??!?

Not necessarily gourmand - for who would eat raw flour? This isn't even the floury smell of fresh baked bread - no, no yeast here at all. Nothing toasted - this is fresh milled raw flour. Sugar? look somewhere else. This is a bakery, not a candy shop.

Ah, but certainly a comfort scent - the fresh start of a recipe, the beginning of a quiet afternoon busily baking. The fragrance of being productive and creative. When other scents give you the final product of cookies or cakes, this gives you the prelude, the launch, the mis en plas.

So rare for L'artisan to put out a fragrance that is so casual and comforting - this is a delightful piece. So sad that the cost takes it out out of reach, else it would be a staple of my scent wardrobe.

peanut butter and hemp seed oil. not bad, but not that good.

I’m still not too sure when’s the best situation to wear this...

It was Bois Farine that originally drew me into the world of niche fragrances and, months later, I still love it for its uniqueness.

Probably best worn for intimate situations (or even as a comfort scent), its warm, woody and creamy nuttiness is sublime.

[Original submission date: 10 April 2008]

I don't get peanut butter. I even went down to the kitchen to sniff a jar of Smuckers natural peanut butter to compare, and this isn't that, but I can see how the combination of cedar & a certain saltiness gives an impression of nuttiness. That stage was brief, to my nose. This reminds me in the first few minutes of Aqua Allegoria Figue-Iris, which I bought last summer (this one came first, obviously). They both have the same initial cool yet sweet dried-grassiness that I thought might be vetiver, but I don't see it in the ingredients. So maybe that's iris. I get confused. With time the sweetness concentrates until it's almost like a dried fruit. The sandalwood is creamy and gorgeous and eventually dominates. This is the kind of sandalwood you don't often smell anymore. It's just a sweet smooth ride. Bois Farine lasts much longer on my skin than other L'Artisan fragrances I've tried - my only complaint with them. I agree that this is a comfort scent. I'd have to be in the mood for a sweet gourmand to wear it, but I often am. The fluffiness of this one suits me to a T. Very, very nice!

Whoa. Now woodsy fragrances I like but this just not sit well with me. Nice woods but the iris heart smells like flour.

L'Artisan isn't playing around with the name here. There's a "flour in a barrel at the health food store" impression from first whiff that has put a smile on the face of everyone I've shoved this in front of. This is followed by what I originally deemed a peanut butter note but with further applications realized reminded me much more specifically of Halvah bars which are made of extremely finely ground sesame seeds and sugar. I don't know why but I have a feeling if I owned this I'd wear it all the time. It's just good mood inducing fragrance ingenuity and I love it. I think the inclusion of iris gives it an alluring and somewhat luxurious edge as well. The most amazing part is that the weight of the fragrance seems to be that of flour. It's weightless but present. Yum!