Thank god for copy-and-paste, because I could never get my keyboard to do all those fancy French-Canadian accents all on its own. Never mind that there’s probably an easy enough solution, a keyboard is only as language-literate as the person pounding away on it (and the less said about the grades I received in university level French, the better).
But any copy-and-paste, failing-grade-French angst on my part is only in service of one of independent Montreal perfumer Claude-André Hébert’s new releases, Bûcheron (translated: “lumberjack”), a curious leather-gourmand hybrid that performs with gusto and wears as comfortably as an old flannel shirt (with even the familiar red and black buffalo plaid printed across the back of the bottle itself).
Hébert’s own inspiration for the Bûcheron fragrance is as follows: “My dad once told me that when he was young, to make money quickly, he left all winter to go logging in the woods. This was not the high life! The winters were cold and hard, and the loggers lived together in a cabin where they slept on bunk beds stacked one upon the other. They were far from civilization surrounded by fir, birch, pine and especially a lot of maple trees. It was very difficult for him and all the other men who practiced the profession of woodchopping, but they all had a sense of freedom within the lush forest. To comfort them, the Cook made pies with maple syrup.”
The above goes a long way toward describing the Bûcheron fragrance: masculine, full of the scent of various woods, plus layers of smoke, leather and a surprising, sweet maple note that edges the composition into a more rounded, pleasing take on the traditional rough and ready genre than words like wood, smoke, loggers and leather might imply.
Official notes are: Canadian balsam fir needles, Silver fir needles, maple-syrup pie aroma, Amyris/Rosewood (for a smoky, woodland note), Indian sandalwood (for a slightly urinous, animalic note intended to evoke the olfactory image of horses and hard labor), Tonka bean, pine candy and Birch (a traditional, smoky leather note).
The pine needles create a citrusy sharp intro that’s at once tamed by the smooth maple and rosewood notes. The scent of sharp pine needles segues beautifully into the leather and woodland forest aspects of Bûcheron, with the whole thing progressing, hour by hour, into a casual, wearable, smoky maple-sugar gourmand that, at times, reminds me of the richly layered heart of M. Micallef Aoud Gourmet.
I got the impression that both the Micallef and Hébert fragrances are attempting the same thing — to wrap a sweet, mellow, toasted sugar note around a dry, more challenging wood and leather accord, and both succeed marvelously, with Hébert’s Bûcheron edging slightly out in front as far as ease of wear is concerned (the comparably buzzy oud intro of the M. Micallef requires more than a passing familiarity with the ways of oud).
As far as the leathery, horse and sweat part is concerned, I do get a sense of leather and flesh, but these are incorporated with great precision, and always accompanied by smoother, pleasing notes that prevent the fragrance from tilting into a range that’s too experimental for the average consumer.
During my several week test run of Bûcheron, I actually had someone ask me if I were wearing Chanel for Men (aka: Pour Monsieur), but I couldn’t answer properly as I’ve never worn Chanel Pour Monsieur. Yet Thomas at PereDePierre writes that Chanel Pour Monsieur is a work of restraint, a classic ideal of masculinity with no single detail standing out but, rather, all the pieces working together to create a pleasing whole.
This would describe Bûcheron, as well, almost to the letter, which leads me to believe that the warmly sugared elements to Bûcheron push this independent fragrance into mainstream-friendly territory, and that’s nothing but good news for Hébert, as his little Montreal shop is deserving of wider attention.
The fragrance arrives in a reusable, black cloth pouch instead a cardboard box, as Hébert is very conscious of reusable materials. The bottle is a splash bottle (i.e. no spray mechanism), even though the fragrance is an EDP formulation, which, again, is about lessening consumer-packaging waste as the bottle can be easily refilled from Hébert’s shop when needed. The red and black plaid print on the back of the bottle is kitschy in a friendly, humorous way that yet keeps the idea of what the fragrance is meant to be about (lumberjacks, naturally) front and center.
The longevity of Bûcheron is excellent, lasting a good 8+ hours. The first half is more wood, maple and leather, while the latter half is where the smoke and gourmand richness fully comes to bear.
I like Bûcheron quite a bit, and experienced one of those rare and involuntary goose-bumpy moments when I first opened the bottle and took a sniff, so I can confidently say that its pine needles, smoke and leather, toasted maple sugar mix is pretty much my idea of a modern masculine fragrance.
And any reference to lumberjacks has to, of course, include the Monty Python video below:
“He’s a lumberjack and he’s okay, he wears suspenders and a bra!”
***Note: Bûcheron can be ordered from the Claude-André Hébert website. It’s available in only the 100ml size, at present.
