Bath & Body Works
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
White thyme dominates immediately with its piercing, almost medicinal herbaceousness, whilst clary sage adds a bitter-green muscularity that borders on aggressive. There's nothing soft or blossomy about this introduction—it's all sharp edges and aromatic intensity, like crushing fresh herbs between your fingers until the oils sting.
Lavender emerges to double down on the aromatic theme, but Virginia cedar's dry woodiness begins to soften the composition's harder edges with its warm, pencil-shaving texture. That peculiar mustiness—the mold accord—creates an earthy, slightly damp quality that adds unexpected depth, like walking into a garden shed where dried flowers hang from ancient beams.
Liquorice and vanilla finally offer sweetness, though it's restrained and anisic rather than overtly gourmand, whilst green stems persist as a vegetal thread that keeps everything grounded. The spicy-woody character mellows into something skin-close and quietly comforting, with just enough residual herbaceousness to remind you this was never meant to be conventionally pretty.
Francis Kurkdjian's Almond Blossom for Bath & Body Works is a fascinatingly contrary composition that upends expectations from its very name—there's barely a hint of marzipan sweetness here. Instead, this 2003 release opens with a bracing aromatic assault: white thyme's camphoraceous bite collides with clary sage's herbal muscularity, setting an unexpectedly medicinal, almost austere tone. The heart reveals Kurkdjian's subtle mischief—lavender adds to the aromatic intensity whilst Virginia cedar introduces a dry, pencil-shaving woodiness that anchors the composition in an oddly utilitarian space. That "mold" note listed isn't an error; there's a distinctly damp, almost cellar-like quality that lurks beneath, giving the fragrance an earthy, lived-in character that's simultaneously off-putting and compelling.
What rescues this from becoming entirely too challenging is the base's unexpected softness. Liquorice brings an anisic sweetness that plays beautifully against vanilla's creamy warmth, whilst green stems maintain that vegetal edge throughout, preventing the drydown from becoming cloying. The result is something oddly androgynous and deeply unconventional—imagine a potter's studio in Provence, clay dust settling on bundles of drying herbs, a faint trace of pastis in the air. This is for those who find traditional almond fragrances too predictable, who want their gourmands cut with something genuinely challenging. It's cerebral comfort, the olfactory equivalent of preferring your sweets with a pinch of salt.
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4.0/5 (211)