Blue Santal (2013)
by Comme des Garçons

Blue Santal leaves an impression of cold resting on a bed of soapy, non-creamy sandalwoodiness and cedar. Juniper freshens the whole thing up. When I breathe it in, I feel like I'm in a snowy forest where the wind has died down and pure, woody, evergreen air surrounds me.

Definitely a wood scent worthy of consideration. The opening wood note, according to the scent pyramid, is pine; and I have no reason to disagree that it’s there, but I get a soft, dry, not-quite-natural sandalwood right from the start. The sandalwood is not “natural” because it has a bit of a metallic tinge to it.. I think it’s the juniper berry note that is responsible for the metallic – possibly the “boozy” – tone that Darvant mentions. I thoroughly enjoy this version of sandalwood.

I find that Blue Santal is pretty much linear. It is a subtly unusual fragrance – a creative rebel that disguises itself as a conformist sandalwood. I enjoy sniffing it, and in the course of the scent, I smell mostly sandalwood in its different guises… it is sandalwood-light… it is metallic sandalwood… it is boozy sandalwood. It’s not as creamy as the sandalwood I smell in… say… Tam Dao. The metallic tinge of the sandalwood isn’t the only difference: Blue Santal has less cedar than Tam Dao, which I think is a good thing if one is looking to buy a sandalwood fragrance.

Perhaps exaggerated by its linearity, Blue Santal has very good longevity. Its sillage is light to average, and when it stops as a sillage-maker, it continues for a few more hours as an enjoyably sniffable skin scent. I’ve already purchased Blue Encens; this one may soon be on my shelf too.

A bright, very cool sandalwood. The intended effect is to have icy notes contrasting with the warm wood -- a shimmering effect sometimes called moiré. It succeeds.
Ultimately, I find this to be an attractive but somewhat simple cool-wood scent. But, it has very good wood notes and the "cool" is not a screechy synthetic.

Together with Blue Incense (and far over Blue Cedrat) another amazing new "blue" creation from CdG. Try to figure on mind a somewhat (but basically far less) "turpentinic" sort of Black Tourmaline's type of incensey peppery dustiness as basic platform and colour that reputable sombreness with a mild (yes Wonderwood's-like) fluidy and dry sandalwood-green tea (slightly pencil shavings) aroma turned out slightly effervescent by a simil Blue Incense's typical "coniferous resins-parasol pine-juniper-mint-mineral amber crystals" frozen green effect plus hints of un-salty ozonic molecules, a slightly angular lime-orange support and a sweet spices (cinnamon for instance) brush-stroke, .... well you can probably guess as Blue Saltal smells like. The minty water-sandalwood aroma is broad, aromatic, slightly "mountainous" and almost fizzy/boozy (with a sort of dry vodka or better boozy gingery aqueous undertone), finally taming a bit its almost gingery sparkling "swarming" in order to embrace a more typically dry aromatic woody substance. I find Blue Santal far more interesting, approachable and wearable than the mentioned Odeur 53 which (is more properly rubbery in the sense of plastic and not woodsy resinous) I find similar but effectively more weird, laundry/freezing, synthetic in approach, "cybernetic" and "ozonic/oxygenate". The final Blue Santal's aroma is an olfactory overlook over a wide canadian forest waiving landscape in a frozen sunny/blue sky day (you bewildered as a grain of dust in the middle of hills, mountains, sparkling air and aromatic piney breeze). I place this fragrance immediately after Blue incense and for sure before Blue Cedrat in the scale of my "Blue trio" preferences.

Soft, mellow, cozy balsamic scent. Fresh and dry at some point, but still floating on a warm - soapy, sweet woods warm - base. Frankly a bit negligeable for my tastes, but I admit it's balanced and well-made. As I am testing it with Odeur 53 on my other wrist, I agree there is a connection between the two - as Alfarom user suggests below.

7/10