Guerlain
Guerlain
454 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Laurel's camphorous bite arrives first, medicinal and green, immediately complicated by neroli's bitter-orange shimmer. Within minutes, saffron muscles its way forward with that distinctive metallic-sweet warmth, turning the whole composition towards spice-soaked wood rather than fresh aromatics.
Cedar and patchouli dominate now, creating a dense, almost oppressive forest floor accord where jasmine blooms incongruously through the undergrowth like white flowers pushing through fallen leaves. The saffron persists as a golden thread, keeping everything tethered to warmth rather than letting it turn austere, whilst the leather begins its smoky whisper at the edges.
Myrrh's resinous depth melds completely with the leather, creating something between incense smoke and old paper, whilst the woods become increasingly abstract—a memory of cedar rather than the thing itself. What remains is surprisingly skin-close: dusty, contemplative, faintly sweet from the lingering saffron, like the scent of an antique wooden box that once held spices.
Thierry Wasser's Songe d'un Bois d'Été reads like a fever dream of a Mediterranean forest, where aromatic laurel leaves crushed underfoot meet the austere hush of a cedar grove at high noon. The opening neroli provides only the briefest citric brightness before saffron's metallic warmth floods through, staining everything with its peculiar blend of iodine and honey. This isn't polite woody territory—the patchouli here is earthy and almost ferrous, whilst the cedar maintains a dry, pencil-shaving quality that refuses to soften. Jasmine weaves through unexpectedly, its indolic richness creating an odd, compelling tension against the leather's smokiness. The leather itself is less saddle and more well-worn book binding, dusty and contemplative rather than animalic.
What makes this fragrance remarkable is how the myrrh and leather conspire in the base to create something genuinely ambiguous—neither overtly masculine nor feminine, neither entirely old-world nor modern. It's got the gravitas of vintage Guerlain but with a contemporary sparseness, as though someone edited out all the sweetness and left only the skeletal structure. This is for the person who finds most "woody" fragrances disappointingly timid, who wants their cedar to smell like actual timber rather than air freshener. Wear it when you want to feel like you're carrying secrets, or when the day demands a certain intellectual severity. Summer in the title notwithstanding, this belongs to contemplative autumn afternoons and the sharp clarity of winter light.
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3.5/5 (1.0k)