Reviews of 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.

Armani Prive' Bois D'Encens

I think all of the designer lines want to secretly be niche but their size precludes that from truly happening. In 2004 Giorgio Armani did the next best thing he created an exclusive line called Armani Prive' in an attempt to make a niche-feeling scent. Incense is one of my favorite notes and I am always struck with the variety of ways it can be approached. Michel Almairic's approach was to create a sheer enclosure of incense that always feels on the verge of disappearing but somehow never does. Many incense scents cling to you like being enveloped in a cloud of smoke this one feels like you are in the back row at midnight mass and are getting intermittent whiffs of incense. The top starts off with a mix of pepper and incense this is a vibrant beginning as the spice of the pepper contrasts the sweet of the incense quite nicely. As we move into the heart the sweetness of the incense changes to the more austere version and is paired with cedar. The cedar adds a clean edge to the scent which is continued into the base as a smoky vetiver finishes this off. This is the second of the Armani Prive' scents I have tried and in both cases I have been impressed that a scent with the lightness of touch they have also have a nice longevity and a high degree of complexity out of what seems like a simple note list. This is another example of what a designer is capable of when they put their mind to creating something of quality and beauty.

Messe Serale.

Avignon, once more with feeling. (and an enveloping sillage/aura)

What a stunning fragrance! Definitely my favorite of the Prive line. It is woody, soft, dark, autumnal incense. Excellent sillage and lasting power. True that it is insanely expensive. Might just try a decant....

Well, well, well. Of all the Armani Privé scents I've smelled to date (Pierre de Lune, Rose Alexandrie, Cuir Amethyste), Bois d'Encens definitely has the biggest personality. It opened with a whoosh of pink pepper and then evolved into a smoky woody fragrance which seemed light but showed a great deal of resolve to stay on my skin.

I would describe Bois d'Encens as a sophisticated scent which would be perfect in the fall, especially on a man wearing a Loro Piano charcoal gray turtleneck sweater. As far as comparisons go, this is similar to Ormonde Jayne's Isfarkand and Comme des Garcons' Ourzazate, both of which I liked a teensy bit more than Bois d'Encens, but I feel a bit churlish pointing this out as Bois d'Encens is definitely a top notch perfume.

Here are the notes, courtesy of The Perfumed Court: incense, vetiver and cedar.

Bois D’Encens is fantastic! It joins my Cyprès-Musc and Bois D’Orage in a ‘holy trinity’ of perfect, dry resinous scents. I love that kind of fragrance and Bois D’Encens is tremendous. The promotion for it boasts of only five ingredients. That simplicity gives the scent what seems to me to be a virile confidence that is very attractive. Resinous incense dominates this scent. It is bone-dry, sappy rather than smoky, unadorned by any softening elements (e.g., florals, vanilla, amber), and quietly BOLD. Those who detect vanilla are probably detecting a balsamic note to the resins. The austerity (in my opinion and to my taste) makes this succeed where Avignon fails. Other elements (pepper, vetiver, and probably cedar) play a very low-key and supporting role to the majestic incense. Yes, this style is niche, expensive, and may be hard to find. But I find it well worth the effort. Wearing this makes a statement of uniqueness and character that makes you stand out from the herd. I think that this is the most masculine (by far) of the Privé line. Fabulous, haunting, evocative... I can’t say enough about this. It is cool and warm at the same time. And, as noted, the presentation (bottle, wooden box, cardboard cover) is excellent. This is why I collect and wear scents. Any day will be improved when you wear it. Every thumb I own is pointed upward for this.

WOW! So minimalistically sensual. Dry dry dry black pepper (really, it smells like cracked pepper) and hot ashy insense with little to no sweetness on my skin. This is interesting as a wearable fragrance but also smells like something I could imagine as an exclusive room fragrance, candle or scented oil. This one more than the others in the series, belongs in the bottle it comes in. A truly unique, artistic expression in modern perfumery.

really great, after this it's hard to want to wear avignon (unless you layer it with something) or norma kamali incense... the comme des garcons is a more hardcore representation of frankincense (and fresh water), as is the kamali (but an oily rather than a watery interpretation, fascinating in its own right) but this one is a...seductive accord of other materials of substance along with the frankincense...a bit woodsy... very succulent.

I have to change my ealier review of this slightly - it truly does have good longevity. I guess my nose got used to it quickly when I first started wearing it, but after a few times I realized that I was just carrying the aura with me wherever I weant and got used to it.

My wife really loves this one - it makes her knees buckle when she smells the spritz. Also try layoring with Ambre Soie - incredible combination.

Mystical deep frankincense like effect without being too smoky. A wonderful formula of transcendence and spirit in the aura. Bois d'Encens has less redwood but more deep resin than the incense of Avignon - evokes the same spirit of the classic CdG fragrance but in a quieter way. The soft middle notes of vetiver w/ slight mint + vanilla add subtlety and roundness that Avignon doesn't have. A very successful formula. Only negative is the weak life and brief staying power - especially considering the cost for a 1.8 oz. bottle!

I'm a sucker for pepper notes, so I fell immediately for the sparkling kick of pepper in the topnote. However, I have to agree with previous reviewers that it fades too fast! After a little while it's a softer, smoother, subtler pepper/incense/wood scent, quite lovely but hard to detect, and in a few hours, well, you'll have to have a very good nose to pick up a trace of it. Lovely, but oh so fleeting.

exceeding expensive, yet excessively gorgeous! made me fall head over heels for incense. very similar to CdG avingnon, which I had to replace it with, for sheer cost alone. However, purchasing this (and the other scents in the series) is certainly an experience. Presentation is fantastic. I just wish that it hung around a little longer, I had to use it often and in large quantities, as it seemed to disappear alltogether in an hour or so.

love this scent, and all of the prive... amazing, nothing smells like pine trees and sap as much as this does! it smells exactly like a fir tree, i can't believe it...

This is my holy grail scent. For anyone looking for a true Catholic Mass scent this is it, much more so than CdG Avignon which almost gets there but has too much of an ash/burnt smell. This one has none of that and smells all the better for it. I really can't believe how close an approximation of incense used in Catholic Masses this is - I go to mass regularly and believe me this is it.
There's a shocking herby blast when first applied but it dries down within minutes to a beautifully smooth, piny, woody (and almost vanilla like) scent with the true scent of church incense. Stunning.

like a colder, woodier version of christian dior's eau noire