Bois Lumière Anatole Lebreton 2014

Summer seems like ages ago. The days are getting colder and darker. The sun still shines, but she has lost her heating power. She looks more beautiful than ever, though, especially in the evenings. Sun rays fill the darkening skies, adding a golden shade to horizon. This setting is exactly how Bois Lumiere feels to me.

It all starts with a bit of a rough build-up, as the clary sage and immortelle are well upfront. But then the immortelle-honey accord opens up and smoothens things out into a low-pace, mellow ambery vibe. As if a golden mirage appears. A panoramic horizon with immortelle dust as stars in a sunset sky. The honey here is unsweet and ambery, not so waxy. Its color is golden but darkened to almost brown. I believe that is due to the fir balm, which gives off a warm-green impression.

This wears lovely in the colder days. It has an enveloping warmth, ambery glow and enough complexity to keep you fascinated all day. When temperatures go up, the character gets increasingly animalic-waxy. I like that in this case, but I can imagine not everyone enjoys that level of funk. If you enjoy honey in a spicy, non-sweet setting, give this a try.

Hmm… Well, it's more like a local fancy shop of handmade aromatic items in a corner of an easy street in Grasse. It's so like to be a home scent not body. Pure animalic beewax meets clary sage which is a breathtaking composition. Many may hate the volume of skankinss. And it intensifies by fir. Fir is the hardest conifer with oily damp green smell.
The composition sets down in few minutes and honey begin to appear with very consistent immortel. Seemingly our shop sells homemade food products as well. It emerges a nice safe and virgin feeling but I'm afraid to use in on myself in public.
5/10

Hay and honey from the very first sniff.
Waxy, dry, and incredibly textured, yet also warm and sweet in a syrupy, straw-golden way.

It is, definitely, quite skunky. Its sharp animalic flicker did surprise me.
But in lingering I found that it becomes strangely beautiful, giving the fragrance a raw, almost feral uniqueness that I couldn't quite put words to.

As it dries down, the scent grows yet more uric and animalic, while staying dry and herbaceous, with a dusty powderiness and faint floral halo appearing underneath.
The sweetness of the honey never becomes heavy; instead it feels sun-thickened and rustic, like it has been warmed in a field rather than poured from a jar in the kitchen.

I found that the brand describes it beautifully, actually: “Bois Lumière is a story of tanned bodies and landscapes ablaze, of dazzling light that makes you squint.”
And that image fits perfectly! The scent feels sunlit, dusty and alive with heat.

It evokes the strange intimacy of nature in the late summer: dry hay, warm skin, beeswax and pollen drifting through bright air.

Like honeyed breath in the woods on a hot day.

Anatole Lebreton is a craftsman, driven by passion, and self-taught. He launched his first fragrances in 2013 and his universe has been intriguing ever since. Why does his work resonate so deeply? Perhaps because we have lost the habit of natural raw materials and generous concentrations.

We are talking about Immortelle, a Mediterranean plant that smells nothing like dry straw. Not at all. It is often called the "curry plant", its leaves leave a spicy signature on your fingertips. In perfumery, we use the essential oil of helichrysum italicum. It is a temperamental material—alternating between earthy and honeyed tones.

But this isn't just about botany. Bois Lumière is a confrontation between the harshness of the earth and a relentless, scorching sun. This perfume is perfectly named, it possesses a solar, almost blinding radiance, yet hides a darker, more animalic facet.

It is a fragrance of chiaroscuro. With its note of forest honey, dense and slightly acrid, blending with the immortelle, it creates an effect of molten matter. It is liquid sunshine. You can feel the honey dripping and that heat that eventually clings to your skin like a second suit of armor.

It is brutal, it’s true, but it is generous. It is the raw emotion of a Mediterranean garden transported here, far from consumer testing or slick marketing. Can it still challenge us? Among lovers of character-driven perfumes, I highly doubt it.

When I think of a fragrance that is truly and indisputably niche, I think of Bois Lumiere. I am head over heels in love with this, but I cannot imagine this one setting the world ablaze, as it is raw. The honey is raw, the beeswax is abundant, the propolis redolent of pollen and tree resins. Luminescent as its name suggests, it's warm and primeval, something that brings to mind ritual and sacrament rather than flashy vanity and haute opulence. Its feral facets may make many wince, but there are those of you out there that live for this, and would lavish yourself in its peerless, unapologetic beauty.

Everlasting flowers and Sweet Williams in a vase, the rinds of eaten mandarins, beeswax candles on an old cedar table, the sound of a recorder playing a wistful tune. through the window I see the boughs of the firs and hemlocks sway in the wind. There's an afternoon glow, and I sit, and observe. I meditate on the distraction of lust, the objects of desire, and the struggle for pleasure. Bois Lumiere smells almost too real and vivid yet I am transfixed with how suggestive it really is. It makes me realize I may will myself into enjoying some perfumes, but here, it's automatic, a visceral limbic response.

Its radiance persists for hours, growing woodier (!) and more resinous over time. It's a sexy poet and thinker with dirty thoughts but a good heart. The kind that makes one weak in the (bee's?) knees, whispering sweet buzzes in one's willing ear, with a wandering hand and soothing voice. It's time to snuff out the candles...