When Parfumerie Generale first released Bois Blond in early 2007 it was a limited edition. Perhaps Pierre Guillaume never expected this odd non-perfume to become popular. Maybe it was an experiment, who knows. The limited edition problem and the short period of time Bois Blond was unavailable/hard to find caused so many fans to email, plead and beg for more. Luckily, Parfumerie Generale relented and added Bois Blond to the Private Collection line.
Bois Blond is dry dry dry. It's all about grass baking in the heat, hay and tobacco. It has the galbanum bitterness (but none of the green feel that usually accompanies this note), though as the scent expands on the skin it gains a musky quality and loses that particular edge. At times Bois Blond smells very woody, but to me it is mostly an open horizon, a vast hay field that stretches for miles and smells like a never-ending summer day. It reminds me of the early days of dating the Blond. He grew up on a dairy farm and took me on many a walk in the freshly harvested fields. I'm not and have never been a country girl, but the smell of hay is delicious (as long as you're in a safe distance from the cowsheds).
Bois Blond is comforting and promising in winter and even more phenomenal in the summer. The dryness is bracing, fresh and clean in the best possible way. Pierre Guillaume created the antidote to sweaty August days in a perfume that makes even NYC smell better. , while maintaining a personal relationship with one's skin. At times I feel an animalic aspect in the dry-down, something about its sweet muskiness. Still, it's a very polite perfume to wear even in crowded spaces. I think it smells outdoorsy and almost natural, and it goes beautifully with a crisp and lightly starched white shirt, his or hers. Some consider Bois Blond as masculine, but since when is a good roll in the hay gender-exclusive? I love wearing this Parfumerie Generale fragrance because it's so beautiful, sunny and satisfying. It tolerates heavy spraying because the sillage is quite minimal, even though it clings to my skin for hours (and once after accidentally spraying the palm of my hand I discovered Bois Blond survives hand washing).
Notes (from Luckyscent): cereals, grass, galbanum, cedar, hay, blond tobacco, amber, musk.
Bois Blond ($110, 50ml) and the rest of the Parfumerie Generale line can be found at Luckyscent.
Art: Late Fall Field by Josef Kote
