Our inventive friends at Comme des Garçons have been busy whittling away the hours perfecting their most recent perfume offering Wonderwood - a thorough exploration of wood in all of its incarnations. This eau de parfum is a medley of woody accords both natural and synthetic that bewitch and bewlider... it is somehow sappy and damp, but also smokey and dry at the same time. Wonderwood is mysterious and unsettling... it fosters all the fear a child would face when finding himself lost in the woods at night, frightened and disoriented. It is black as ink, and yet still manages to evoke sensations of warmth and luxuriousness.
Supporting the Comme des Garcons avant-garde ideology, Wonderwood is unique in that the structure of the perfume is focused more on the heartnotes instead of the basenotes. It opens with bergamot, pepper, incense and nutmeg, and then shifts into a dense heart of cristalon (a rich, plummy, fruity accord), cashmeran, guaiacwood, cyprus, cedar and caraway. These aspects swell at the core of this scent and provide the framework for the perfume. Beneath, synthetic accords of javinol and pachminol (balsamic sandalwood/rose) are grafted onto true notes of sandalwood, vetiver and oud.
The result: an explosively good wood!
Wonderwood requires liberal application, otherwise if applied to sparingly, once the stunning heartnotes have diminished, you might not feel like you are actually wearing anything. But this is a small price to pay for this exceptionally good bombardment of wood. The 100ml is a wise investment.
Wonderwood can be purchased online from www.essenza-nobile.de in both 50ml and 100ml sizes.
6 comments:
Wonderwood is good! I thnk I still prefer Hinoki for a sense of being in the woods, but Wonderwood is very enjoyable.
Dimitri -- Great minds apparently think alike: Just 10 minutes ago I
posted a blog piece on two favorite Comme des Garçons scents, plus a
blitz review of Wonderwood (which I just sampled today), and then I
find you couldn't resist either. Great review you've written.
Did you get the soapy-aldehydic note as well? It's hard to say where
the woods end and the soaps begin, or if perhaps some of the woods
simply have soapy features. Whatever the case, after an hour or so it
was very prominent, and very pleasant. As I had written, this isn't
reinventing the wheel by any means -- but that's not always necessary
either. I like it. (But I've hardly got any room in my fragrance
calendar for anything new anymore; what about you?) :-)
Have a great weekend, see you.
XO
Michael
Dimitri:
I love this, too, and agree with you: a liberal application is necessary (I was beginning to wonder if I was perhaps anosmic to some ingredient). With a name like Wonderwood I expected a very BIG, pushy fragrance, perhaps because I always think of Wonder Woman when I read the name. According to Wikipedia, Wonder Woman's powers "include superhuman strength, flight, super-speed, super-stamina, and super-agility." But Wonderwood has none of that hyperbole; it is sophisticated, sedate, contemplative. A bit dark, a little brooding, more Batman than Wonder Woman! Longevity is good, but it wears close to the skin.
Thanks for the great review!
@ Michael:
Thanks for your comments and also for sharing the piece that you wrote... I think your observations are also spot on! It does have a sense of soapiness as it transitions.. a dewiness that smells kind of clean, for all that it is woody. Much like yourself, I have so many other purchases that I hold as priority over this release, however I would be very happy to own a bottle at one time or another. I feel it a welcome cousin to my beloved CdG 2 man. :)
@ Scott:
So nice to read your comments here! I like your Batman analogy very much... Wonderwood is shadowy and contemplative, despite the titanic name it was given. I personally view the "Wonder" in the name as being taken from the word "WonderFUL"... which is one word I can most easily use to describe this release. It is a lovely skinscent indeed!
Hi Dimi! Nice post about this perfume. I like it a lot but it is too much for me. I would think it could be a "lighter" brother to " Black Afgano...
I prefer the woody notes of "Dover" By Comme des Garcons or even " Bois Marocain" By Tom Ford.
C ya soon!
Alex - the empty bottle -
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