Bois d'Enfants
Maison Rebatchi (2021)

Out of all the Maison Rebatchi fragrances I've sampled, Bois d'Enfants initially struck me as the most unique. Its gauzy iris-musk forms a sort of celadon cloud, like spun sugar made out of blond wood, suspending droplets of iced berries and mint and tiny petals. It is utterly non-descript but charming in its airy vagueness. Its berries and flowers do not smell anything like what they do in real life. Better still, there is an intriguingly bitter, medicinal aspect to the frothy woody musks, like camphor or wintergreen that brings Bois d'Enfants into the orbit of my beloved Douce Amere or Bohea Boheme. Eventually though, I began to be irritated at the very abstraction that had initially attracted me, because upon deeper inspection, there is nothing truly substantial or interesting behind it.