Van Cleef & Arpels · 2017

Bois Doré

Luxury$$$$, 4 of 5
Van Cleef & Arpels asks $250 for 75 ml
75 ml$250

VersionEau de Parfum

Pepper and cool mineral notes over cedarwood and vanilla, drying to tonka, almond and white musk.

Van Cleef & Arpels says

You’ll smell pepper, mineral notes, cedarwood essence, vanilla, tonka bean absolute and white musk.

More from Van Cleef & Arpels’s description

It also mentions Almond accents and Woody notes.

The house’s page

The drawn Bois Doré bottle

Top noteswhen you spray it

Heartas it settles

Dry-downwhat stays

Bois Doré’s scent picture, a draft: black pepper, wet flint, cedar, vanilla, tonka (coumarin), white musk drawn so far; dashed outlines where nothing is drawn yet

Top noteswhen you spray it

Bois Doré, top notes: Black pepper, Wet flint, Almond

Heartas it settles

Bois Doré, heart: Cedar, Vanilla

Dry-downwhat stays

Bois Doré, dry-down: Tonka (coumarin), White musk

What’s inside it

What Van Cleef & Arpels names

PepperCedarwood essenceVanillaTonka bean absoluteWhite muskAlmond accents

What the label names

2 scent ingredients on the label, familiar names first.

A label must name certain ingredients, most of them ones that can cause allergies; some houses print more. It is never the whole recipe.

1 sweet1 powder

Sweet1

Coumarin (new-mown hay)

Powder1

Anise alcohol
2 more lines on the label, not there for the smell

Not for the smell2

AlcoholWater

The label, as printed on the house’s page

Our match of the notes

Shares its notes

ItalicaXerjoff · shares cedar (Atlas cedar), vanilla, clean linen and almond$300 for 100 ml · about the same as Bois Doré’s $250
Rouge SmokingBDK Parfums · shares black pepper, vanilla, tonka and clean linenabout $252 for 100 ml
Eros FlameVersace · shares black pepper, cedar (Atlas cedar), vanilla and tonka$149 for 100 ml · about half of Bois Doré’s $250
More from Van Cleef & Arpels1 more perfume

Matched by the notes each house names. A shared note is not a promise they smell alike.