Monocle Scent One: Hinoki (2008)
by Comme des Garçons

A very austere and stripped down fragrance -- a totally turbo charged cedarwood that comes across as medicinal and a touch boring in its simplicity. I don't dislike the smell, but for what it is there are much cheaper alternatives, especially amongst the CDG incense range. I also noticed that the longevity wasn't great. Not worth the money.

March 2009:

The bottle says “Hinoki” but I smell a lemming.

Hinoki goes on smelling like very dry cedar shavings, and not all that much else. Tremendous sillage and projection make this a hard scent to ignore, and this astounding volume, in concert with the dominant cedar-like accord, suggests to me that Hinoki’s formula contains boatloads of Iso E Super. After an hour a relatively hard-edged frankincense note separates itself from the monolithic dry woody accord, but the structure remains exceptionally stark and simple. The course is linear from there on, and Hinoki doesn’t seem to develop so much as very slowly fade away.

If you’re a fan of spare, ascetic incense fragrances, you’ll probably like Hinoki. Note however that Comme des Garçons’ very own Avignon and (especially) Kyoto offer a similar olfactory experience at a fraction of the price. It’s not that Hinoki is a bad scent, but there just isn’t that much to it, and I can’t for the life of me understand why people are getting so excited by it.

Frankly, having witnessed the phenomenon in music and visual arts, I feel scents like Hinoki illustrate the dead end nature of minimalism as an artistic style. Strip enough “extraneous” matter from any artwork, and the penultimate result is boring. The ultimate result is – well - nothing, and when some clever niche company markets a bottle of distilled water for $250 we’ll know that’s where we’ve arrived.

August, 2009:

Inspired by Sommerville Metro Man’s experience, I decided to re-evaluate the much-lauded Monocle Scent One: Hinoki. For this wearing, I applied the scent quite generously, hoping that a good basting job would reveal depths I’d missed in my earlier trial.

Guess what? It’s still a thin, hollow pseudo-cedar (Iso E Super) with a touch of camphoraceous juniper, some frankincense, and not much else, and it still smells like high-end hamster bedding. What’s worse, for an expensive, super-premium niche release, it smells cheap. Very, very cheap. I remain firmly unconvinced. Demoted to a thumbs-down for Comme des Garçons' audacity in charging so much for so little.

A very clean accord of cypress and turpentine in the opening accords which is pretty transparent in it's sillage. nothing about it is stuffy or clogged. very clean accord of campfire with turpentine which settles down to a pretty dynamic accord of cedar.
I agree on the Gucci Ph comparison but, only towards the basenotes. from openin to mids notes one could relate it to a very refined, lesser intense and a transparent version of Olivier Durbano's Black Tourmaline. a thumbs up in my book. a woody incense done right. lovers of cedar based scents just cant miss this one.

Heavy on what smells like pine and cedar (I’m not sure what Hinoki wood smells like on its own), this fragrance has a meditative quality about it – feels kind of like a place out in the country here in Quebec, but with a touch of something comforting like the smell of a steam room minus the sweat. As others have said, this really does smell like a wood shop full of saw dust.

Hinoki smells like what I wished Creed’s Epicea would smell like – a modern piney, woody fragrance. It’s not sensual but it's manly and mysterious. I'm not blown away, but I like it.

8/10

To my nose, this scent starts out much like Gucci pour Homme. But where GPH soon leans toward amber, vetiver, and musk , Hinoki doesn't budge. Three hours on and it still smells exactly like it did when I first applied it. It's a pleasant, if monotonous, incense/cedar/pine accord. Good sillage and lasting power.

The opening cypress / incense accord throws a strong sillage off the skin. It is an unique and dramatic opening accord: It is highly woody and incense-y, but I also get a rather strong moss note in addition to the incense – a moss used in a very original combination with wood and incense. The wood is of the cypress / cedar variety with a strong pine element, and the woody accord has a related turpentine note that is kept at a minimum but still adds considerable depth and interest to an otherwise straightforward and linear, though intense accord. The moss and thyme keep it from becoming too cedary / piney. I like this use of moss and thyme very much better than the use of lavender that often serves the “toning-down” function in many of these coniferous fragrances. I don’t determine too much difference between the opening and the heart notes besides the lessening of the intensity of the wood / incense accords. What distinguishes the base’s response to my skin is the rise to domination of the camphor note. The camphor joins a lesser vetiver to form an extremely aromatic drydown. It throws an outstanding sillage that is almost completely void of solid olfactory timbre and consists of those sharp airy aromatic versions of vetiver and camphor. The first time I wore Hinoki, I wondered what was happening: It was like a powerful Vicks Vaporub but smelling of coniferous wood notes rather than menthol and eucalyptus. I found it totally impressive and still do. MONOCLE Scent One: Hinoki is outstanding in its uniqueness, its composition and its performance. So dramatic, it probably wouldn’t be the typical choice for everyday wear, but it is a perfect wear for anytime a powerful presence is desired.