Comme des Garcons Wonderwood – Urban Lumberjack (Antoine Lie, 2010)

Scentrack

Pulp – The Trees

In 2010. Comme des Garcons (CdG) launches Wonderwood, an uber woody masculine scent. The perfumer behind is Antoine Lie of Takasago. Antoine Lie is very prolific perfumer, famous not only of his works for CdG, Etat Libre d’Orange or highly niche Puredistance, but also turbo mainstream Armani Code (in collaboration with Antoine Maisondieu).

From CdG you always expected the unexpected, but there are no surprises here. Plain mixture of various woods. Am I disappointed? Not at all. Modern, urban and easy to wear masculine woody scent.

Photo by T.D.

As the name suggests correctly Wonderwood opens with tones of woods. Green cypress, fresh cedar accompanied by a light trail of Guaiac and sandalwood. Shadowy Iso E Super, blast of pepper and nutmeg give a dimension more to the otherwise humdrum woods. There is only a touch of incense, and I do not detected any oud. Vetiver is completely in the background, giving fresh green tonality. On my skin Wonderwood is almost linear, becoming only a bit sweeter and powdery as time goes by.

Archaic by the notes, yet modern by execution. A traditionally synthetic scent, transparent and easy to wear. Maybe not so revolutionary, but extremely easy to love.   

I'm just a sucker for woods, and Wonderwood satisfied my needs for that olfactive atavism. In a very contemporary and urban manner.

Longevity / Projection

Very good (6-10 hours) / Average

Suggested Wearing

Daytime in autumn and winter

Alternatives

Gucci Envy for Men (discontinued and too expensive nowadays)

Balmain – Carbone (smoky fig on barbecue)

Juicy Couture – Dirty English (sweeter and cheaper oud-centered woody scent)

Photo by T.D.

Pros

Masculine and woody

Easy to wear niche fragrance

Distinctive signature scent

Beautiful bottle and sack package

Price

Cons

Too conventional for CdG (for someone)

Not for wood-haters

Rating

8 / 10