Bois Farine

Very first impressions: everything I imagined and wanted it to be and then some! I feel very blessed to have gotten my hands on a bottle for a reasonably good price. I’ve been wanting this for years SINCE it’s been discontinued, so I certainly wasn’t expecting to grab a bottle anytime soon if ever, so I when I came upon one for a decent enough price I just had to have it right away! In fact I’ve been wanting Jour de Fete for YEARS, well over a decade, but that one is even MORE expensive and harder to find, and this was often compared to it, so I figured if anything I’ll get this one first. I’m lucky enough to have the older bottle too, the clear and light one with the gold cap. Ok so at VERY first spray yes I totally smell the peanuts/peanut butter, but this only lasts for like literally a minute on my skin and it’s never bad it’s just..peanuts. But again only for a blink. Then it gets this playdoh smell but in the BEST POSSIBLE WAY and in exactly the way I was hoping for! You see, I LOVE that playdoh smell! But most scents that have it are decidedly SWEET, like hypnotic poison which I LOVE, but for the longest time I’ve been craving a less sweet version of that delightful playdoh accord without sacrificing any of the, well, playdoh-iness. THIS is IT!!! It’s got that playdoh accord down to a T, but it’s only barely sweet-just enough! Other than that it’s mostly just a delicious, milky, almond-tinged (but never almond-based/centric sandalwood. I totally ADORE this scent, and I’ll be looking to secure more bottles so that I can actually wear this without abandon and just spray it all over myself and wear it frequently as I’d love to do! That’s the only real downside of falling in love with and securing bottles of rare and/or DC’d fragrances-you want to wear them all the time, but can’t! Of course, now I ALSO totally want a bottle of Jour de Fete! One day! At least now I know it’s definitely worth the splurge for me. You see, this is one of my very favorite types of scents EVER. Lush had an amazing delicious scent/perfume called snow-something (not literally “snow something”, it was “snow”, I think, followed by something else, but I just can’t remember the name) that smelled like marzipan and it was AMAZING but VERY thick and it could easily get cloying. Jarling by JAR is also very similar to the lush one. Anyway, this is like a light, airy, reduced sugar/sugar free version of that scent and it is PERFECT. As for performance, L’Artisan is notorious for struggling here, and while it’s too soon to comment on longevity, it performs wonderfully as far as strength and sillage go. Perhaps this is due to having an older bottle, but if all bottles are like mine then I don’t know what the fuss is about! The performance is great so far! Of course I’ll update when the time comes. But so far I’m just taken aback by this beauty! I’d say that if you also love this type of scent, then it’s absolutely worth a blind buy, even at the prices it currently goes at!! Again, this is one of my VERY FAVORITE categories of scents, yet I have NEVER in all my years smelled something that is identical, dupe-worthy, or even decently similar to this! An amazing blind buy that I’m beyond thrilled to have! Edit: something about this, and I’m not sure what, is deeply nostalgic to me. If I figure it out, I’ll update with what.

Love this! I usually like everything from Jean Claude Elena. So unique and nothing like it in market. And to me that’s the point and best part of searching for a unique fragrance no one has and you can wear and be different. The problem people are having is that they have not trained their nose or are not comfortable with being bold or trying something outside of their comfort zone. Some say they don’t want to smell like peanuts but why not? Everyone loves Peanuts and even the ones allergic to it would want to try them. We all love other scents that normally would be strange and wouldn’t want to have on if it weren’t for us being used to them already in other fragrances. This would be amazing during winter and cold weather especially during the holidays. This is NOT for everyone upon initial trying, may think of peanut shells and some even would find this “bad” or “disgusting” as one person said, but it’s not it’s just different. People tend to forget that others smell you differently then how you smell a fragrance or think of it on yourself. Remember that people knock down things that are “different” or things that are foreign to them or not a trend yet. And the understanding and appreciation of something comes from you being patient and cultivating it or someone starting the trend and being different and unique. But this is such a niche and unique fragrance that to the trained nose or the unsuspecting, it will envelope them in a nostalgic time of celebration, holiday and love...a night where you want to cozy up with a loved one reminiscing on old movies...or make one want to soothe their sweet tooth craving by recalling sweets they had at childhood or on a holiday and a happier time with family. This scent is, let’s see how to put it exactly so you can imagine it perfectly...”The scent of arriving to a Christmas party in Spain and being offered dry creamy nougat turrón made of toasted almonds and peanuts coming from an antique beautiful wooden box to share with family and friends by the fire beckoning for some second helpings and quenching your thirst with some holiday booze to compliment!”

Delicious and comforting wood powder with regrettable longevity/silage. BFis true to its name: wood flour. BF smells as if a combination of woods, almond, and iris has been dried and pulverized into a fine flour. This combo also gives me a peanut butter cookie vibe when sprayed. I can feel the "powdery note" mentioned by Fragrantica but it is quite transparent (it does not interfere with the other notes). It is there to give a powdery feeling (which the iris also has). There is a combination of woods here, but at first I cannot say one stands over the other. The almond and iris eventually tone down and then this delicious sandalwood scent becomes more apparent. It is warm, semi-sweet and balmy. This is the best part for me since I love sandalwood. The sandalwood stays until the end, as the more prominent wood scent. On the downside BF goes skin very quickly. Within 30 minutes only I can smell it. After the 1 hour mark BF becomes less powdery and gives out a faint sandalwood scent. BF is pretty much history after the 4th hour on me. In short, I madly love the smell of BF, but absolutely detest its longevity and silage. If you like the scent of a peanut/sandalwood confection mixed with a powdery smell of woods/sandalwood, and are looking for fragrance who won't stick to you for a long time, the BF is for you. I personally own it. And even though I don't like its longevity, there are many occasions where I find that desirable. For example, I often wear it at night after a shower knowing that, comes morning time, I don't need to wash it off to wear my daytime fragrance.

What an oddity of a perfume!! It is a very very soft blend of natural animalic (not in the greasy hairy way, just NOT the industrial chemical clean-laundry musk..more like the balls of musk out grannys used to put on the wardrobes between the clothes and sheets) musk and powdery "white" notes of someting like wet dough and wet plaster mixed together. As it cooks into the skin it turns sweeter, veering more thowards a faint cooked dough or bread scent rather than the mineral plaster or clay touch. It doesen't however loose the mineral feel of the plaster even though it turns way softer and stays in the background. Also the jazmine and the iris start to show up, but very faintly as well, way in the background, making this scent rounder and giving it the delicate sweetness. The woods also show up as the base, and they can be pretty noticeable, and the benzoin also adds some caramel like sweetness to the flowers. I can aslo detect some spices but extremely faintly and just from whiff to whiff of scent or it could be one of the several woods this perfume has on its base. It is a very interesting between sweetness (which often makes quite warm scents) and airy coldness. It is very very soft and kind of airy. It is very conforting too...very cozy. I'd say it is another category of femenine as it is not the typical flowery/sweet/fruity scent...it is almost angelic due to it's "whiteness" and softness, like little farine clouds. My only complaint : extremely poor sillage and longevity. Extremely soft and faint.. I personally adore it

You could be one of the finest bakers to understand this fragrance. I like to spend my insomniatic mornings surrounded by grains, seeds, nuts, cacao nibs, sugar, honey, and spices. I have a special drawer wher I keep my best chocolates and a favorite baking sheet for toasting grains and nuts to bring out their eepest favors. Bois Farine is those sweetened, toasted grains and nuts. Think ground almonds. Imagine being in this hot patisserie at 3AM, grinding your own almonds to make marzipan. You have secret spices you add to this marzipan to make it especially addictive, and you store the whole spices in a sandalwood box a lover brought to you decades ago: the carvings are filled in with pastry flour. The smell of bread baking and brioche dough rising surrounds you as well. And you are drinking a warm cup of chai, in memory of your travels with that lover when you were young. Slide your fingers through the almond meal you have made, is it fine enough? A few more pulses in the food processor and then you will add superfine sugar and let it pulse until the almonds and sugar come together, almost like a smooth dough. But just before that the spices you are blending in the stone mortar and pestle from Mexico—there's a hint of the purest Mexican vanilla nourishing the stone (both from a different lover; yes, another travel means another lover) and it gets added to feed the addiction and bring those hungering for more to your threshold.