Woody Sandalwood

Ooh, so this is *very* unique to my...admittedly, rather uncultured...nose. I live in the south, and this scent profile never caught on in the small town I’m from. Fancy people down here wear Bath and Body Works. I have never smelled anything like this. So it was quite an experience, smelling this for the first time at the local “Wal-Mark.” (As in, “Hey, I’m fixin’ to go on down to The Wal-Mark, y’all need anything?”) Needless to say, I’m not familiar with the original Le Labo fragrance. 🤣 At first, I was a bit repulsed. “This doesn’t smell like a perfume,” I thought. “It smells like something you’d cook with. Hell, it kinda smells like Home Depot...gross...” *takes another sniff anyway*... ...*ends up buying the whole bottle* Fast-forward a few weeks - now I love it and find myself craving it. It’s such a natural, herbal scent. Completely unisex. And to be honest, I’ve always loved the smell of Home Depot. The longevity is great, maybe 6-8 hours on skin? It projects nicely, too, so I’d be cautious about over spraying. This scent makes me feel super chic and cool. Also like a free-spirited Bohemian type who wears turquoise jewelry and practices reiki. I’m into it. 🤷 Disclaimer: I did smell the pickle note at first, but after letting the bottle sit for several weeks, it seems to have disappeared. 👍

Bought this because my bottle of Santal 33 is almost empty and I don’t plan to spend that kind of coin again with how it performed on me (I could smell it for 30mins tops before I went noseblind/my body chemistry ate it). Thing is, I love the S33 scent profile and I gotta say this is a pretty good dupe. It’s not perfect, but nobody expects that at this price point, but it IS wonderful. First spray is very close to the “inspiration”, it dries a bit more paper-y/woodchip-y on my skin which I don’t mind, and which Santal 33 also sometimes does, then as it continues it warms up very gently and sits quite close to the skin but I could not stop smelling my arm. So glad to have found an incredibly similar scent profile (I’d say 90-95%) and be able to actually smell it too. It is also very similar to Molinard’s Santal Insolent which also has that dry paper/woodchip quality to it. It also smells almost the same as sandalwood oil I purchased at a perfumery in Florence (not certain how pure that was but it smells so cold and green and spa like/meditative to me). Bravo Dossier! Thanks for saving my wallet.

Woody Sandalwood by Dossier is a love-at-first-sniff for me. It instantly made me think of Book by Commodity BUT this is the desert sister. Disclaimer, I only smelled Book from a sample I got years and years ago. If that version is discontinued or reformulated, I don't know what the new version smells like. I'm not knowledgeable about perfume notes but I can paint two distinct pictures for you. This fragrance makes me think of being in a desert for a relaxing spa experience. And, I also picture a New Mexico desert but it just finished raining. The opening is surprisingly fresh and green with something zingy (makes me think of ginger even though there's no ginger here), and it dries down to something woody and musky with subtle sweetness. Similar to rain water quickly drying up on desert land, and yellowed plants briefly turning green again. Very unisex. I can't smell any pickles, but your experience may vary.

I bought this one a year ago, and was initially so almost horrified by the intense vegetal green woodshop blast, but have grown to absolutely love it, so much so that I also have the Dossier diffuser in this scent, and am going to be ordering it again. It is such an elegant, rich, comforting scent. It feels luxurious. I love Dossier's Orchid and Sandalwood at Dusk as well, one of their original scents, which definitely has echoes of this one. They have several Le Labo dupes, Citrus Tea, Floral Rose, and Citrus Matcha, in addition to this one, and I've enjoyed all of them. I could not afford the original fragrances, so this is such a fantastic way to experience a similar vibe! I am so interested in how our noses evolve in our interest and appreciation for fragrance. I have grown to really enjoy this scent profile so much, and the longevity and silage in this fragrance are just excellent. Highly recommend.

I grew up catholic, and thus spent a good chunk of my childhood attending mass. I no longer consider myself a practicing catholic (I like to say I’m “culturally catholic”), but I’m still drawn to a lot of the aesthetics of catholic cathedrals. all this to say, this scent really reminds me of the smell of incense and wood when you enter a church. it’s deep (though not as deep as the Le Labo scent this one is inspired by, apparently) and august. even the sour note accentuates the whole experience. this thing lasts forever. it will last a full day on my skin, that’s not even mentioning how long it lasts on clothes. I will parrot the proverbial sentiment regarding dossier, which is that their scents tend to be linear. this one is no exception, which isn’t to say it’s a bad thing, but you won’t get any surprises. this is a good one to add to your collection if you don’t want to pony-up for the original.