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

Wow, an extremely interesting and highly satisfying scent. I get the woods (cypress and pine) and the turpentine in abundance, especially at the beginning. Robin at NowSmellThis offers a very accurate description of this smell, saying "this is the smell of your father's woodshop, assuming you had a father with a woodshop." Well, my father had a woodshop (or at least the garage of our house where he would do work) and I can vouch for this description. At the same time, I find this to be very natural smelling. There's a trail where I enjoy riding my bike through a grove of trees. Every so often, I catch a whiff of something that smells exactly like Hinoki in the air. Either way, it evokes good memories for me. It's not the kind of thing I would wear all the time, but the second my bottle runs dry, I will be sure to get a new one. I find comfort and a unique harmony in its seeming cacophonous notes.

PS. This does not smell unisex to me at all. At all. In fact, the combination of woods and turpentine makes it, I think, one of the most masculine scents I own. Ladies, please don't wear this one. If my girlfriend wore this, I would most likely steal her bottle so she could never wear it again (and so I'd have more).

I'm going to be the odd man out here and say that, to me, Hinoki is not soothing, satisfying, transcendent or ethereal, but instead smells like some juvenile delinquent kicked over a gallon of paint-thinner in the Zen garden. Turpentine? Camphor? No thanks. Comme des Garcons often has a terrific sense of humor in the creation of fragrances (the Synthetic Series is fantastic), but this just smells like a cruel joke, and I could not scrub it off fast enough. Do not inflict this toxic concoction upon the ones you love.

This was amazing on me. From the moment this hit my skin it just took off. The sap notes of camphor and turpentine combine with a moss-hung fantasy forest of cypress, pine, and cedar. This is the most like being in a live forest scent of anything I have experienced thus far. I waited to write this review until I wore Kyoto again as I felt there was some similarity between the scents and there is. To call this Kyoto Extreme wouldn't be far off the mark but it would be underselling the construction of Hinoki. There is a transparency of top to base from the first moment this hits that is unique. The base is present right from the start but over the hours this lasted on my skin the base intensified and became more pronounced in a lovely way until I was just left with the woods scent.
One caveat I think this is a scent that needs to be tested on the skin. I tested it on a strip six weeks before actually testing it on my wrist. On the strip the camphor note was too forward and almost medicine cabinet-like, it put me off. Once I put this on my skin that camphor note blended seamlessly with the rest to make a transcendent whole. I wasted six weeks before giving this one a chance, don't repeat my mistake.

Monocle Scent One: Hinoki

How does one review the pinnacle of my fragrant journey? Perhaps my review is premature because I simply can’t define how stunning this fragrance is. Here are the official notes:

Cypress, turpentine, camphor, cedar, thyme, pine, Georgian wood, frankincense, moss and vetiver.

This fragrance doesn’t reveal itself through stages of morphologic transitions. It is as if the fragrance is transparent and you can smell all stages at once. I am in no way suggesting Hinoki is linear - - it is far from it. The turpentine and camphor mingles with the woods of cypress and cedar. This creates a mesmerizing tunnel through which the thyme and pine drags the top notes into a vortex where everything is still transparent and clearly represented. The Georgian wood, frankincense, moss, and vetiver is there at the end of the black hole to immediately connect with the stellar masterpiece thus far. If you could imagine a warm hole to be clear and represent this fragrance, it will transport your senses from point A to point B instantaneously without missing a note. Incredible! How does it do this? I don’t know it just does and it works.

I can understand where people are coming from in their review of Hinoki. I do get a slight incense but the type on incense found here is closer to Avignon for its dry and smoky character rather than Kyoto where it is a bit more wet. I also detect a cooling, snow frost note found in Zagorsk which in Hinoki, comes off like a clean musk that is fantastic. I truly thought that nothing would ever be able to surpass my beloved Kyoto but friends, history has just been made. I give this a 100 out of 5 stars. Yes, it really is that good!

The turpentine in the top notes sounds harsh, but it doesn't come across that way. I would call this scent subtle and restrained, yet it does have some sillage, and on my skin at least, considerable longevity. I think the most satisfying thing at first is the camphor, which is not the mothball smell of chemical camphor, but the ethereal and penetrating, slightly medicinal incense note of camphor wood crystals. From there, the woods, incense, and moss take over, and the herbal touch of thyme tends to mellow the forest accents. Definitely clean, masculine, even a bit lumberjack. Refreshing.
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