DSH Perfumes Bois Fumee courtesy of the brand
Put down the madeleine, Marcel. As we know now, the quickest route to memory is scent. Everyone has a clutch of childhood memories that flash alive when they encounter a particular smell: the conch shell roar of the ocean; the smell of mom’s perfume as she leaned in to kiss you goodnight; bread baking; coffee popping in its pot; lilacs in spring; summer rain on hot city pavements. For me, having grown up in the Northeast, the smell of a chill autumn day, smoke from a nearby campfire drifting through the wet smells of earth and forest, puts me right back in my yellow wellies and blue parka, age seven or eight, in the woods at the end of my street. But this scent time travels with me; through ghost stories told around the hearth, an open window blowing in winter phantoms; of Bonfire Night in England, swigging hard cider with my friends and giving pennies for the Guy to enterprising kids; winter tromps through the fields of Wiltshire at Christmas with Katie and Tessa. Few scents can take me so many places at once.
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz of DSH Perfumes
DSH Perfumes new Bois Fumee is the scent of a dozen such recollections. Part of a trio of wood fragrances (Series no. 2) along with Bois de la Jungle and Bois du Desert, Bois Fumee is an evocative, olfactory mood ring; smoky and somber one moment, crackly and gleeful seconds later. Bois Fumee stands squarely between arid, incense-y Andy Tauer’s L’Air du Desert Marocain and Spencer Hurwitz’ ambery, cozy Axis Mundi. It is strikingly smoky yet also unexpectedly translucent, leaning into woody notes at times, incense and myrrh at others. Later, it wears like a woodsy skin scent as it dries down, balsamic, toasty, smoky, with a slim ribbon of lactonic sweetness that cuts beautifully through the birch tar and cedar in the base.
Embers by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz
Although DSH Perfumes Bois Fumee is redolent with dense, bosky aromas, Spencer Hurwitz’s elegant, balanced construction gives it an unexpected airiness. I find it a wonderfully changeable fragrance, shifting like shadow as the temperature drops or the sun comes out. On first spray, I am struck by how quickly the smokiness manifests, but also Bois Fumee’s gentle, balsamic creaminess. The birch tar, which has ruined a fair few perfumes for me when used extravagantly, is reined in neatly here, flanked by sweet myrrh and smudgy frankincense. The fragrance becomes more cedary and time goes on, but, somewhere in the middle, begins to sway between oakmoss and sandalwood. Perhaps most distinctive to me at this point is the myrrh, whose cashmere, medicine cabinet warmth adds just a touch of Christmas. A slightly boozy drip of caramel sweetens everything up, but never knocks the compositions smoky, woody aromas off-kilter – it just cozies things up.
I’ve now been wearing DSH Perfumes Bois Fumee for several hours. As I walk in the unseasonable heat today, complete with blaring sun, I am caught by how lightly the fragrance wears. This may be one of the few woods fragrances I’ve tried that doesn’t become thick and heavy in muggy weather. Several days ago, when it was considerably cooler, Bois Fumee felt like a friendly ghost of all those Bonfire Nights past, swirling around me in a quiet, smoky cloud and occasionally wafting back in a dry, woody puff like the smell of cracked log as it burns in the open air.
Bonfire Night courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
As I write this, I am a bit wistful. It is Bonfire Night in England, the commemoration of the foiled plot of Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Always one of my favourite holidays, it was a yearly ritual to head to Highbury Fields in North London to cheer on the burning of an effigy of Mr. Fawkes on a blazing bonfire and chugging hard cider as we watched showers of fireworks. So many years later, there is no more bonfire on Highbury Fields because of modern safety concerns. My mates from those nights and I are scattered to different places, and I haven’t had cider, hard or otherwise, in longer than I can recall. But, for a few moments, wearing Bois Fumee even as the thermometer reads 80 degrees, I can close my eyes and hear a little boy calling “penny for the guy!”
Notes: Ambergris, amyris, balsam fir, birch tar, brown oakmoss, caramel, choya ral, ciste absolute, , frankincense co2 absolute, Mexican cedarwood, myrrh gum, sandalwood, Virginia cedar.
Disclaimer: Sample of DSH Perfumes Bois Fumee very kindly sent to me by DSH Perfumes. My opinions, as always, are my own.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
DSH Perfumes Bois Fumee
Thanks to the generosity of DSH Perfumes, we have 10 ml VDP of DSH Perfumes Bois Fumee for one registered reader worldwide. To be eligible, and please leave a comment saying what appeals to you about DSH Perfumes Bois Fumee based on Lauryn’s review, what your favorite DSH Perfumes fragrance is and where you live. Draw closes 11/10/2022.
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