Bois 1920 Vento di Fiori

There are two distinctly different ways of experiencing Bois 1920 Vento di Fiori — from a distance, and up close and personal.

At a distance, Vento di Fiore is a quiet shimmer of forest and lemon, yet up close, it’s a green, mossy heaven for those who think heaven smells like an intoxicating snootful of forest moss spritzed with lemon rinds (if you were shooting for a heaven of milk and cookies, then Vento di Fiore might very well be a huge disappointment).

Galbanum is a lead player here, with its green, resinous character dovetailing nicely with the moss in the base. Allegedly, there’s some jasmine floating around in the mix, but it appears to act more as a smoother and filler rather than standing out as a prominent feature. The drydown is a soft woodsy amber (dry, not sweet) with a bit of dark smoke drifting across the horizon.

I find Vento de Fiori to skew decidedly masculine, though that doesn’t mean a female can’t or won’t wear it — women that love classic dark chypre scents (from Now Smell This: “Classic chypre fragrances generally have sparkling citrus and floral notes over a dark, earthy base of oakmoss, patchouli, woods and labdanum”) might actually adore the h*ll out of it.

As you can see from the photos below, I liked it well enough to purchase a bottle — the packaging is striking, all antiqued gold and lit up from within:

Listed scent notes: lemon, cardamom, tarragon, jasmine, galbanum, patchouli, amber, oak moss, musk and birch. The birch adds a slight charred edge to the base, but it never overpowers the citrus and galbanum. The overall balance to the mix is excellent, with the ingredients pulling with one another instead of fighting against each other.

The concentration is an EDT, however, so the lasting power isn’t as long as what you’d get out of most EDP and Parfum formulations, but I can still smell it on my skin five hours later — the volume is just turned way down (and it was never loud to begin with).