Perfume Review: Bois 1920 Real Patchouly

Does it happen to you that by falling in love with a perfume you fall in love with a whole genre or family of scents that it represents? A couple of months ago I became obsessed with L'Ombre Fauve, which for me is a patchouly fragrance first and foremost. I sang praise to L'Ombre Fauve before but I will repeat that I think it is an incredibly sexy scent. When I smell it, my knees go week. And now patchouli in general has the same effect on me. My tiny bottle of L'Ombre Fauve is almost empty and on a desperate search for the next best thing I came upon Real Patchouly by Bois 1920. The line that I previously found underwhelming, but hey, lately it has been all about re-discovery and re-evaluation. Real Patchouly, despite the name, is not just about patchouli. It is heavy on woods and on vanilla, the supporting notes which make the star note simultaneously even darker, more forceful, and softer. Give me a well-done contrast in a perfume, and I am smitten. And the contrasts of dark and light, dry and sweet, harsh and soft, yang and yin that Real Patchouly showcases are my most favorite kinds. I don't get much development from the fragrance... not that a complicated and long-winded development is always necessary to enjoy a perfume. The sweet earthiness of patchouli, the woods, the vanilla are apparent at once and stay that way for all 8-9 hours of Real Patchouly's life on my skin. It is a "shared" fragrance in the best possible sense of the term. A fragrance that could have been his but is now part of your skin, melded with it, melted into it, making it impossible to tell anymore where one of you ends and the other begins. Real Patchouly is available at Barneys and Luckyscent, $160.00 for 100ml. Image source, chanel.com.