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Is wood becoming the new aquatic/ozone?

post #1 of 19
8/24/10 at 6:24am
Thread Starter 
Lately there have been many succsful fragrances on the market with the woods theme, do you thing the mass-market trends are changing?


What are your favourite "woody" fragrances?
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post #2 of 19
8/24/10 at 7:01am
I think you may be onto something here. Woods do seem to be the new IT fragrances and there is definitely a tide of new woods that are rolling over the counters right now.

To answer your question though, my favorite woods fragrance released recently are: BANG by Marc Jacobs and Rocky Mountain Wood by DSquared.

It is curious, if woods are the new thing, why where the the two largest discussion threads on Basenotes recently of fragrances that are aquatic or semi fresh aquatic like scents? - Creed Aventus and Chanel Bleu. These two aquatics threads had 10 times the volume of responses for time spent on the discussion pages. That is lots of interest versus any other fragrance subject. But it is hard to determine if the cause of the huge volume of interest was style of fragrance, or that these are two very large fragrance houses that have many fans and high expectations!?

Personally I am much more excited by a new good woods fragrance (such as Bang) any day than these two (Bleu.Aventus) late entries into the aquatic fresh genre that are trying to put perfection and fine points on an already worn and played out style of fragrance. No doubt Bleu and Aventus will sell tons but I would rather find something new.
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post #3 of 19
8/24/10 at 8:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzzlepuff View Post

Personally I am much more excited by a new good woods fragrance (such as Bang) any day than these two (Bleu.Aventus) late entries into the aquatic fresh genre that are trying to put perfection and fine points on an already worn and played out style of fragrance. No doubt Bleu and Aventus will sell tons but I would rather find something new.

Amen to that!
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post #4 of 19
8/24/10 at 8:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by petruccijc View Post

Amen to that!

+2
It's becoming tedious yes.
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post #5 of 19
8/24/10 at 8:20am
Hey, isn't oud a type of wood? Unless they have invented some new wood synthetics, I doubt if wood is the new trend. More like a rehash of old trends. Remember cedar bomb Christian Lacroix Tumult? Or Allure Homme? Something that kickstarted a trend more than a decade ago can't be new. Marc Jacobs and DSquared were just (fashionably?) late to the party...
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post #6 of 19
8/24/10 at 8:37am
My idea of "generic mall smell" is, indeed, woody.

That said, there have been excellent wood scents lately. But there seems to be a lot of dreck to wade through.
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post #7 of 19
8/24/10 at 12:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzzlepuff View Post

Personally I am much more excited by a new good woods fragrance (such as Bang) any day than these two (Bleu.Aventus) late entries into the aquatic fresh genre that are trying to put perfection and fine points on an already worn and played out style of fragrance. No doubt Bleu and Aventus will sell tons but I would rather find something new.

Aventus is not aquatic. Its a fruity-chypre, its key elements being a pineapple-tart apple top, a patchouli-blackcurrant heart, and a smoky birch, oakmoss, ambergris base.

The key elements of a fruity-chypre are a dense/intense fruit top (perhaps inconcert with other citrus notes), a floral and or earth heart, and a mossy chypre-earthy/ base. All elements that Aventus follows to a tee.

Want to know famous fruity chypres? How about the progenitor Guerlains Mitsouko, a very clear peach top note (funny how no one complains about a very prominent peach fruity note here), and a mossy chypre base.
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post #8 of 19
8/24/10 at 4:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by zztopp View Post

Aventus is not aquatic. Its a fruity-chypre, its key elements being a pineapple-tart apple top, a patchouli-blackcurrant heart, and a smoky birch, oakmoss, ambergris base.

The key elements of a fruity-chypre are a dense/intense fruit top (perhaps inconcert with other citrus notes), a floral and or earth heart, and a mossy chypre-earthy/ base. All elements that Aventus follows to a tee.

ZZ - thanks for correcting my incorrect generalization and categorization of Aventus. I like how you categorize it. I learned something with that. I have always tried to guess a fragrance was a chypre by sensing the chypreness of the scent - the sort of soft chord like transition from the opening (bergamot or fruit, floral) to oak moss and patchouli. There is a softness that is purely chyprish and I sense that with Aventus. Good call!

Back to this thread - It is possible saying that "wood is becoming the new aquatic/ozone" is a forced assumption that reality just does not fit. Actually wood fragrances don't really have any relationship to or from aquatics / ozone fragrances at all - nor do they relate much to fruity chypres for that matter. But I do think this decade has seen plenty of great wood fragrances rise through the ranks while the ozone and aquatics seem to be losing interest.
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post #9 of 19
8/24/10 at 5:00pm
woods or woody ?
Woods can smell very acquatic/transparent.
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post #10 of 19
8/24/10 at 6:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzzlepuff View Post


Back to this thread - It is possible saying that "wood is becoming the new aquatic/ozone" is a forced assumption that reality just does not fit. Actually wood fragrances don't really have any relationship to or from aquatics / ozone fragrances at all - nor do they relate much to fruity chypres for that matter. But I do think this decade has seen plenty of great wood fragrances rise through the ranks while the ozone and aquatics seem to be losing interest.

As discussed before, woods (cedar, oud) have been in vogue for the past couple of years...with the rise of Iso E Super and Oud, and aromachemicals able to simulate its various facets every house now wants to create an Oud fragrance. Maybe we can hold Montale responsible for this. I like aquatics fine...especially when they are used in an innovative way, i.e., deftly integrated in interesting compositions and not just laid out bare to carry the composition. I blame the perfumista dominated blogs and sites for the slams against aquatics....these are the same perfumistas who get all mushy over bombastic loud florals and orientals with their synth powered Texas-sized bases you can smell from the Moon .
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post #11 of 19
8/24/10 at 7:13pm
As far as I'm concerned, the more wood, the better! If it is a trend, I welcome it.

My favorite wood de jour is L'Occitane Cedre.
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post #12 of 19
8/24/10 at 7:44pm
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I don't necessarily think wood is the new "it" thing, but I do notice a lot of new scents have some sort of pepper in them...
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post #13 of 19
8/24/10 at 8:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by perfectscent View Post

Lately there have been many succsful fragrances on the market with the woods theme, do you thing the mass-market trends are changing?


What are your favourite "woods" fragrances?

I also intuitively find this question reasonable. I was thinking the same recently because of Kenzo's new woody fragrance.
But still, wasn't the boom of acquatics unleashed by a certain couple of fragrances, namely Cool Water and Acqua di Gio?
I mean everyone wore that. They were so popular that naturally the market needed more of this kind - not exactly the same but similar - so that the sense of uniqueness is preserved after all.
From this point of view, I think there's never been a woody fragrance with such popularity and impact. Or is there? I can't think of any. For most people wood would rarely become a casual everyday fragrance; or The Only fragrance.

Maybe it's just that in our time variety is more valued than any trend.
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post #14 of 19
8/24/10 at 8:58pm
Evolutionary psychology may play a larger role in this. The "woods" or jungle is further back in the family tree than fruits, grass, and, if you follow the "aquatic ape" theory, -- aquatics. For obvious reasons, animalics will always be there but as long as Western culture is in power, the "clean" or "modern" scents would be most likely to dominate, at least in the profiles/pyramid.

As India and China become center stage and if they become major players, I can see trends following whatever scents they gravitate toward.

I think Oud could be a dark horse. Here's the game play scenario: The Muslim world is definitely familiar with it -- that's a pretty big chunk of territory, buying power, and tradition. The East/Far East/Southeast Asia is also moderately familiar with it -- that's another big chunk. India is certainly not shy of wood as a predominant note, so it might only take a little marketing to win them over to Oud instead of sandalwood.

Whether or not Oud becomes a hit in the West will depend somewhat on education, politics, and more importantly, a wildly successful fragrance incorporating the note. If Westerners are turned off by so much as one horrible oud-featured fragrance, it could make the path to success by those following a quite risky one. The education & political factors are fairly straight-forward: 1.) most don't know what oud is 2.) the Muslim vs. the West feud can make a Westerner not want to smell like their enemy.
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post #15 of 19
8/25/10 at 1:09am
Thread Starter 
My current favourite woodsy frags are


Gucci PH (sweet woodsy, light, wear it also as daytime frag) and

Kenzo Boisee (fresh, peppery, subtle, warm)

both of them seem to be compliment getters
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post #16 of 19
8/26/10 at 5:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sensual View Post

Evolutionary psychology may play a larger role in this. The "woods" or jungle is further back in the family tree than fruits, grass, and, if you follow the "aquatic ape" theory, -- aquatics. For obvious reasons, animalics will always be there but as long as Western culture is in power, the "clean" or "modern" scents would be most likely to dominate, at least in the profiles/pyramid.

As India and China become center stage and if they become major players, I can see trends following whatever scents they gravitate toward.

I think Oud could be a dark horse. Here's the game play scenario: The Muslim world is definitely familiar with it -- that's a pretty big chunk of territory, buying power, and tradition. The East/Far East/Southeast Asia is also moderately familiar with it -- that's another big chunk. India is certainly not shy of wood as a predominant note, so it might only take a little marketing to win them over to Oud instead of sandalwood.

Whether or not Oud becomes a hit in the West will depend somewhat on education, politics, and more importantly, a wildly successful fragrance incorporating the note. If Westerners are turned off by so much as one horrible oud-featured fragrance, it could make the path to success by those following a quite risky one. The education & political factors are fairly straight-forward: 1.) most don't know what oud is 2.) the Muslim vs. the West feud can make a Westerner not want to smell like their enemy.

Wow, I really disagree with pretty much your entire post. Evolutionary psychology has nothing to do with anything here at all. I don't think Oud or the "muslim vs. western world" does either. Nor do I think "...As India and China become center stage and if they become major players, I can see trends following whatever scents they gravitate toward". They also wear mainstream scents. "Western", as you seem to categorize them.

"...as long as Western culture is in power, the "clean" or "modern" scents would be most likely to dominate, at least in the profiles/pyramid" . I don't buy this. Its just the trend in the fragrance business and industry. Armani, Burberry and Kenzo do great in the "East". Kenzo puts out some pretty clean and fresh smelling scents. Ditto for Bulgari. Actually, Bulgari does really well world wide. Clean and fresh scents. Not a bad thing. Not a western thing. But a trend thing.

Woods are just part of the drydown. I agree with the first post in this thread to an extent. But, as long as the woods are light and are delivered by an olfactory hook of juicy freshness, its likely workable.
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post #17 of 19
8/26/10 at 5:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sensual View Post

Evolutionary psychology may play a larger role in this. The "woods" or jungle is further back in the family tree than fruits, grass, and, if you follow the "aquatic ape" theory, -- aquatics. For obvious reasons, animalics will always be there but as long as Western culture is in power, the "clean" or "modern" scents would be most likely to dominate, at least in the profiles/pyramid.

As India and China become center stage and if they become major players, I can see trends following whatever scents they gravitate toward.

I think Oud could be a dark horse. Here's the game play scenario: The Muslim world is definitely familiar with it -- that's a pretty big chunk of territory, buying power, and tradition. The East/Far East/Southeast Asia is also moderately familiar with it -- that's another big chunk. India is certainly not shy of wood as a predominant note, so it might only take a little marketing to win them over to Oud instead of sandalwood.

Whether or not Oud becomes a hit in the West will depend somewhat on education, politics, and more importantly, a wildly successful fragrance incorporating the note. If Westerners are turned off by so much as one horrible oud-featured fragrance, it could make the path to success by those following a quite risky one. The education & political factors are fairly straight-forward: 1.) most don't know what oud is 2.) the Muslim vs. the West feud can make a Westerner not want to smell like their enemy.

This must be the most shortsighted post on Basenotes ever.

I'll just ignore your flaws in argument for the moment. But to point out a fact: most Asian consumers actually prefer transparent, light scents. Refer to the launch of Bulgari Aqua Marine, for example:

http://www.nstperfume.com/2008/03/06...rance-reviews/

Quote:
A Bvlgari rep’s quote in Cosmetics International regarding Aqva Pour Homme Marine made me frown: It will definitely appeal to younger men and women, especially in Asia” (11/2/07). We all know what young men and women like: “fresh” and “clean” and rather “simple” fragrances (I’m generalizing, of course) and it is constantly mentioned in perfume news that many Asian perfume customers don’t like to smell of “perfume” at all — they appreciate fragrances that are barely noticeable.
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post #18 of 19
8/26/10 at 5:33pm
Fragrance goes through trends, fresh and light, gourmand, masculine and woodsy, etc, it evolves.
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post #19 of 19
8/26/10 at 7:30pm
Hopefully! Wood is good. I like polo and M7
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