Armani Privé Bois d'Encens (2004)
by Giorgio Armani

Any scent with wood and incense in the name is a must-try for me. Bos d'encens gives you exactly that: wood and incense. I get a very sharp cedarwood at first, with hints of pinetree, I really like cedarwood but this is almost too much for me (pencil shavings and hamster cage come to mind). Then comes the incense, a very dry, light, high quality incense that is absolutely wonderful. I get some smoke and vetiver too, but the overall impression is dry, sharp cedarwood and incense. This would smell great on a man, but is very wearable for women too. The reason why I only give it a 3 is the lack of sillage and staying power. It stays extremely close to the skin, I think I'll spray my clothes next time to get some smell out of it. And it's gone in an hour or so, which is why I don't think it's worth the $$$ - the pricing is ridiculous. If you like this but don't want to pay that much - I recommend Zagorsk by Comme de Garcons.

Incredibly expensive ($280) for such a short-lived fragrance but it still remains my favourite incense scent. While there are similarities with Avignon, I prefer this one more – it possesses a warm and seductive aura that Avignon seriously lacks. If the longevity of this one was at least 6 hours, I would have seriously considered purchasing a bottle.

Unfortunately, I do have one other gripe with Privé Bois d'Encens: the wooden container. Of course, the presentation is unique and quite wonderful but, after inspecting the testers in department stores, it appears that any fragrance oil residue eventually eats away at the black coating. Maybe an oversight on overall presentation but still not something you’d expect for something so expensive. Personally, I would have preferred it without the wooden container. However, the pebble-like cap is a very nice touch.

A thumbs up, regardless.

[Original submission date: 25 May 2008]

Freshly milled pressure treated lumber... you know, those grey-ish looking wooden poles? They are doused in chemicals to make them more durable in the weather and against insects. The sawdust that is kicked back by cutting these releases a harsh, almost toxic cedar odor. I prefer woody scents even stuff like Hinoki and LesNez's Let Me Play the Lion but Bois d'Ences does not a pleasurable association. It is not a forest. It is not a beautiful log of wood. It is not the distant aroma of a lumber mill's sawdust. It is the smell of the machine in Fern Gully destroying the rainforest.

I don't give thumbs down. This frag smells like the Dallas Cowboy's locker room after Superbowl XXVII in 1993.

Here in the US the discount chain TJ Maxx and it's sister store Marshalls has received a flood of Armani Prive 'refill bottles', the internal fragrance bottle intended to slip into the wooden container with the fancy pebble cap. The refill bottle itself has a spray and is actually quite solid, physically and visually. In an amazing illustration of exactly how large the profit margin is on these fragrances, the refill bottles sell for $30 (at which price point the chain still profits). As I peruse the reviews, below, many of which mention the high price I almost twinge with empathy for all those who shelled out $150 or more for their bottles. I've had samples of the Prives forever, but because of these deep discounts I've had the opportunity to really play with them.

Bois d'Encens is by FAR my favorite Prive, and in fact it's the only one I enjoy. I've been exploring incense fragrances lately, and BdE is essentially frankincense with light supporting notes. On application the fragrance is all pepper, but within a couple minutes the frankincense note appears. As the pepper fades the frankincense becomes more dominant. The incense note is light and airy with a wonderful balance between being sharp and peppery and sweet and resinous. The absence of other strong notes lets the beauty of the frankincense do the talking, and as Turin points out in the Guide, frankincense has a wonderful quality of 'never smelling exactly the same twice'. I agree with this comment and have found that weather, clothing, situation, etc. all play in role in how Bois d'Encens presents itself on the skin. At first the sillage is very good but fades after a couple hours. Even thought the sillage fades the fragrance continues to develop slowly.

In the drydown slightly sweeter notes appear to balance the frankincense, and as a review below notes these seem to be balsamic, woody notes that have a sweet and resinous aroma of their own. At this stage BdE reminds me quite a bit of Guerlain's epic Bois d'Armenie which is loaded with balsam wood and incense. Bois d'Armenie is, in my opinion, a far superior incense fragrance, but it is also much richer and not nearly as minimalist as the Armani and thus they don't occupy the same niche. Longevity is good, 5-7 hours.

All in all Bois d'Encens is very good.fragrance and that's why I'm giving it a strong thumbs up (I try to judge in a vacuum without regard to value). However, I would never buy this at full price as I don't feel it's THAT good, especially when other great frankincense fragrances like Memoire Liquide Hommage are cheaper, and expensive incense fragrances like Bois d'Armenie are better. If you or someone you know can snag one at TJX/Mashalls by all means grab one. [special thanks to the BNer who bought me a bottle at their local Marshalls.]

I was lucky enough to score a refill bottle of Armani Privé Bois d'Encens at a discount store. No lovely wooden box with the little stone on top, but even the refill bottle has simple, elegant packaging that looks nice on a dresser top. I would certainly not have paid the ridiculous retail price for a bottle in the wooden container. The perfume is good, but it's not that good!

For such a simple composition,Bois d'Encens really has a lot going on. I espeically love the dry wood overtone. It comes on very peppery, like the fresh-ground stuff from the pepper mill, but those notes fade quickly to a warm, dry, sawdust and incense aroma. Definitely unisex, but I admit that I like the scent of this on my husband's skin better than I like it on mine. I get no sweetness at all from this one when either of us wears it.

The sillage is good. My husband was looking around the room to see if I was burning incense before he figured out the source of this lovely aroma, ha ha! Alas, the persistance is just so-so, as some have already noted. It is barely detectible after two hours, and a faint lingering trace of frankincense was all that remained four hours after application.