Monday, September 22, 2008

First Day of Autumn: A List of Beautiful Sandalwood

Today is the beginning of Autumn and kicking off my love for Autumnal fragrances; I am taking a look at my favorite sandalwoods (later on I will be looking at ambers).

1. Chanel's Bois des Iles, was way ahead of its time and still is. This aldehyde wood confection starts off with the perfect candied bergamot peel moving on to a clove tinged rose and carnation heart, before it settles into one of the most glorious sandalwood dry downs out there. Perfectly ladylike but utterly natural. Intelligent and comforting; it is hard to believe no one has tried to copy it. What I would give for another woody aldehyde scent....
2. Omnia by Bvlgari, this is my first sandalwood fragrance. While everyone speaks of the newness of the wood use in Sensous by Estee Lauder, I think they better head over to Omnia before making that proclamation. This starts out with a beautiful milky spicy opening based on Masala Chai and leads to a beautiful creamy sandalwood. This is one of my favorite comfort scents.

3. Burberry Brit Gold by Burberry; Burberry was right to christen this edition gold, for this dazzling scent is best described as a gold dusted sandalwood. Friends of mine smell this and usually the description, "This smells really expensive Jen."

4. L'Instant pour homme by Guerlain. There has to be some irony in that the Guerlains that work for me are their masculines, but that is for another day. This is one of those gorgeous gourmands for men that starts off with a beautiful elixir of toasted sesame, chocolate, patchouli, and mint before it becomes a dreamy chocolate laced sandalwood.

8 comments:

ScentScelf said...

{sigh}
I love Bois des Iles...unfortunately, am largely amnosic to the Omni offerings...but BdI makes up for that in spades!

Will have to try the other two...I do like a good sandalwood....

Unknown said...

So many are anosmic to Omnia, so don't feel too bad. Love to hear your thoughts on the other two.

Rose said...

I adore Bois De Illes, it was one of the full bottles I waited the longest to buy and was most excited to have and I still handle it like a special treasure.

The Omnia bottle is great but I don't remember the juice being that good on me. I am always keen to re visit though!

I like the Burberry Brits a lot. My absolute favourite is the red with rhubarb as it's so unusual but the gold is also lovely.

I still need to try L'Instant Pour Homme. I did go to the Guerlain counter last night but got distracted by the pure parfums and forgot...

Unknown said...

Love, the burberry brit red too, as for Omnia well the bottle for me is one of the greatest detractors (it has a notoriously crappy sprayer), and do try the l'instant pour homme.

Marzipan said...

If you love the glorious sandalwood drydown of Bois des Isles I highly recommend that you try Eden Botanicals new Caledonia Sandalwood absolute. It is an essential oil but it is so complex it wears like a perfume on my skin.

Unknown said...

Marzipan, totally taking your recommendation. How does it compare to Diptyque's Tam Dao?

Marzipan said...

have only gotten my hands on three dyptique samples and sadly, Tam Dao was not one of them. The first time I sampled Bois des Isles I immediately thought of Eden Botanicals oil....but you must get the New Caledonia sandalwood ABSOLUTE which is sweeter and less dry than their other sandalwood offerings....it is an oil so it sits close to the skin and has limits to sillage but once it is on your wrist you won't stop sniffing! (also, very affordable!) I also get oils/soaps/liquid soaps from another great co which I believe is based out in California...Inland Fog...I highly recommend their Hinoki Wood oil and Eyptian Musk oil...they are also four dollars a bottle!!!

Unknown said...

I love the scent of Hinoki, so I will definitly go find that one. How is their Egyptian musk? For awhile I was a Egyptian musk connoisseur :-).