Bohoboco, Parfum D’Empire and Passage D’Enfer Extreme – Skin Time June 2021

Bohoboco

In most, if not all, art forms, there’s a huge difference between ‘simple’ and ‘simplistic’. In the perfume world, speaking very generally, the former is perhaps best characterised by Jo Malone. There are exceptions, to be sure, but most of the brand’s scents are uninvolving, mono-dimensional affairs, using superb marketing to try to make a virtue of their blandness. And then on the other hand, we have an outfit like the Poland-based Bohoboco*, led by Michal Gilbert Lach. Their scents are also named after pairings of ‘natural’ ingredients (Vanilla Black Pepper and Coffee White Flowers, to name but two), yet they couldn’t be further removed from the hollowness at the heart of Jo Malone’s output.

Not all the Bohobocos are gems. Sandalwood Neroli is too crass and synthetic (in other words: too cheap?) to convince that it contains a meaningful quantity of its eponymous materials. Sea Salt Caramel is shrill rather than saline, unsuccessfully making use of a strident white floral note to build a bridge between the savoury and the sweet. And Vanilla Black Pepper is too thin and insubstantial to make a lasting impact. However, the rest of the range is more than worthy of your attention. 

Eucalyptus Patchouli pulls the wearer into a thick, leafy, earthy jungle, where sunlight gleams with metallic menace on swampy surfaces. In Olibanum Gardenia, a suggestion of musty florals is used to bolster a suitably flinty, frankincense note: film noir sultriness cavorting in a church. Coffee White Flowers runs the risk of being far too calorific for its own good (it is without doubt a syrup-injected, full-fat latte rather than a black Americano), but the woody-boozy cognac feel just about pulls the whole back from the edge of total gluttony. 

And then there are the two standouts. First, Red Wine Brown Sugar, in which a labdanum-heavy tannin note punctuates the darkness of green-smoky-singed immortelle: a crimson bonfire burning through a cloudless night. And Geranium Balsamic Note: a more-complex-than-expected marriage of Guerlain Herba Fresca with Amouage Jubilation XXV, where davana and incense mingle with minty, floral freshness to suave effect. 

Bohoboco has been somewhat under the radar in the UK since its wares arrived here – and I gather a few more releases have been added to the debut, 2016 collection – but it deserves a wider audience, even if only to prove to customers that a streamlined aesthetic does not need to be the least bit moronic.

Parfum D’Empire

From the new-ish to the new-to-me-ish. I’m not quite sure how or why this has happened – I suspect that, not for the first time, the blame lies with the insane number of fragrances released each year – but I have only recently started working my way through the much-lauded brand Parfum D’Empire** from perfumer Marc-Antoine Corticchiato. Most of you know this already, but oh my goodness – what an exceptional collection this is. I’m doing my best not to race through my samples, but it’s not easy to hold back.

So far, each one I’ve tried has been noteworthy in one way or another. Wazamba (2009) is a striking study in the sharpness of pine and cypress, made more piercing through a devilishly precise use of aldehydes. A beautiful combination of Serge Lutens Filles En Aiguilles and Etat Libre D’Orange Archives 69 — lethally tempting frost across an alpine forest.

Osmanthus Interdite joins the small field of nail-on-the-head osmanthus compositions, presenting not just the requisite apricot jam note, but also that much-needed leathery-woody funkiness. Probably through a hefty dose of hedione, the whole is granted huge lungfuls of air to breathe, making it one of the most open, liberating florals I’ve had the pleasure of wearing for many months.

Fougere Bengale (2007) is downright delicious. Yes, it contains sufficient lavender and moss to justify the fougere label, but there’s so much more at play here. Immortelle adds a lick of burnt, caramelised spice. Tobacco brings suave sophistication. Patchouli lowers the centre of gravity. We often talk about hairy-chested fougeres, but this goes one better. It’s all about hair below the waist — tanned legs in tight shorts, glistening in the summer sun.

Cuir Ottoman (2006) surprises with its softness, veering away from the excesses one might have expected to present a delicate, suede caress, sweetened through an expert use of tonka and vanilla. If anything, it’s even more sensual than Bengale (plentiful imagery of heavy nuzzling is evoked) albeit in a less direct way.

Finally for now, there’s Musc Tonkin (2014), the one member of the range with which I was passingly familiar. No-one makes this sort of stuff anymore, except Corticchiato, evidently. Like some distant cousin of Miss Dior who’s spent the last five years of her life in an obscure leather bar, it impresses with the filthiness of its animalic base as well as with the pristine, crystalline green of its top section. Holding the two extremes together is a divine, silvery-white floral note. Dangerous. And utterly irresistible.

L’Artisan Parfumeur
Passage D’Enfer Extreme

Speaking of danger, in 1999, L’Artisan Parfumeur released an Olivia Giacobetti composition called Passage D’Enfer. By most accounts, the name was something of a joke, playing on an address that was significant to the brand, as well as referring to the perfume being centred on a not-at-all hellish incense note. It would appear the creative forces at the brand have listened to the not entirely unjustified complaints that, beautiful though it is, the scent doesn’t last terribly long, because we now have Passage D’Enfer Extreme**.

It is precisely what the name implies: a stronger version of the original, perhaps with slightly greater emphasis on the floral aspects. It’s as admirable as most of Giacobetti’s work, but I wonder if the 1999 version remains superior. Her 2000 masterpiece for Frederic Malle, En Passant, is concerned with fleeting experiences, and perhaps that was always the main point behind Passage D’Enfer. Maybe it was never meant to be about permanence. You don’t linger — you pass through. A fitting metaphor, if ever there was one, not just for the unique power of perfumery, but for existence itself.

Persolaise

* sample provided by the brand
** sample obtained by me

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