Atelier Materi Bois d’Ambrette photo by Nicoleta©
“There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won’t remember and that she can’t even let herself think about because that’s when the birds scream and somewhere in her mind it’s always raining a slow and endless drizzle. You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken. Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again.”
Whenever it rains you will think of her. ” Strange Days, Neil Gaiman
To put it simply, Atelier Materi Bois d’Ambrette is how I would like my skin to smell like in the scented memory of somebody in love with me. But whom I did not love in return. At least not anymore.
Still from Strange Days 1995 Juliette Lewis
Atelier Materi Bois d’Ambrette vibrates and shifts between several contrasting frequencies at all times. It has layers upon layers of carefully built sensual tension that you will be diving in, unexpectedly, after a deceivingly fresh and uplifting debut. It can be uplifting, a real serotonin hit that will then draw you into a Lars-von-Trier level of melancholia only to push you further into X-rated sensuous scenarios.
On different wears, it showed different facets on my skin, with different tempos, like a mirror that will bounce back and amplify exactly what you feed into it.
Atelier Materi Bois d’Ambrette, photo by Nicoleta
Feeling: the crisp morning air and the feeling of renewed vitality and endless possibility that comes with every early spring. The days in which my mind feels like a serpent that has just shed its old skin and is cheerfully slithering around, covered in its brand new scales. Sweetened slices of mandarin float in ginger tea, delicate and refreshing, cozy and proper, just like the sound of a teaspoon hitting the edge of the teacup, waking you to life. “New skins for old ceremonies,” as dear Leonard Cohen would say.
Remedios Varo Les Feuilles mortes painting
Storm clouds hanging low, like the aura of a migraine, suddenly released into the taste of thunder and the hair-rasing-on-the-back-of-the-neck pleasure of watching the pavement slowly turn from grey to slippery shiny black, bit by bit, by the heavy drops. Transparent wetness with a slight metallic edge and the rain curtain, tapping down on the rooftops and echoing a rhythmic sound you can breathe in synch with. Suddenly, it feels like a taut spring of longing has suddenly sprung wide, with deep reverbs and out come memories, pouring: plans hung out to dry; the light of summer, filtered through the white crochet curtains; the freshly made bed, where you would crawl, young skin warming up the cold ivory sheets. The endless days of summer holidays, the familiar smell of your old haunting grounds that have shrunken in size year after year, there, in the remote parts of the city, where nature took back what it was rightfully hers. An earthy, powdery, herbal, floral woody memory bubble – a nostalgia you can’t help but revisit and float in, outside of time.
The debut is fresh and optimistic, with wet and transparent facets of ginger and mandarins, followed by a nostalgic valley filled with powdery and floral middle notes, only to get us in the lair of the beast, where ambroxan mixes in with musk and creamy sandalwood for a most sensual skin-on-skin experience. Here, in the drydown, Bois d’Ambrette turns to a highly personal, intimate, my- skin- but- WAY better – kind of scent, completely unisex and full on sexy.
Véronique LE BIHAN Creative Director of Atelier Materi photo courtesy of the brand©
“Guided by the quest for a rigorously precise aesthetic, I want to offer a fragrance that is a reflection of who I am. Emotional and distinctive, my creations are imagined around raw materials and those who transform them.” Véronique LE BIHAN
Notes: Top: Mandarin, Ginger; Heart: Ambrette, Angelica, Amyris; Base: Muscs, Sandalwood, Ambroxan
Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor
Disclosure: Bottle kindly provided by Atelier Materi, opinions are my own
Please read Nicoleta’s Review of Santal Blond, Emmanuelle’s review of Narcisse Taiji here Ida’s review of Iris Ebene here and the most recent 2022 perfume Rose Ardoise here, watch Steven’s video best chocolate perfumes of all time which included Cacao Porcelana here. Bois d’Ambrette was included in our highly curated Make it Musk Jovoy box by Cristian here
Atelier Materi Bois d’Ambrette courtesy of the brand
Thanks to the generosity of Atelier Materi we have a 100 ml. bottle of Bois d’Ambrette for one registered reader in the USA, EU or UK. You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest based on Nicoleta’s review and where you live. Draw closes 4/23/22
Available at Atelier Materi website
In the USA please find Atelier Materi at Indigo Perfumery, ZGO Perfumery, Scent Bar
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