Deep Forest Bogner 1995 Eau de Toilette

A somewhat coniferous barbershop fougere, Deep Forest is a melange of herbs and spices at the beginning, with Aldehyde C-12 MNA evidently making an appearance and imparting that fresh pine needles and crushed rosemary effect, with artemisia further contributing the forest understory. The vetiver and labdanum ground the composition in the heart and base. A cool, rainy spring day is perfect for something like Deep Forest.

I would argue that this predecessor to YSL Rive Gauche is actually superior, and while also discontinued and rare, comes at a somewhat more accessible price depending on where you look.

Attempts at explanation after one has sullied the civilized fragrance past of several scent enthusiasts as a ghost driver.
But I can't help it.
And I hope that after reading about my brave endurance in the Pantheon of Germaniens, my assessment of the holy grail will become clearer.

1995

Goodness, what has become of the fragrance world of the men's sector?
Rounded, softened, fruit-laden, diluted.

The German fragrance providers were juggling Lübeck marzipan at that time.
And so I had high hopes that at least Grinsekater Willy Bogner could still ride the ski slopes through wonderfully alpine landscapes like he once did.

Corporate perfumery.

Palim palim.

Green bottle as usual, the arc in the usual place.
The name, unfortunately, is uninspired and mass-compatible in an Anglo-Saxon way.

Hiss!

Whoa, deep orange to greet us. More like the beautiful dried slices with the cozy aroma.
Nutmeg is not skimped on. This provides warmth.
A hint of rosemary brings back memories of the 1980s highlights of the house.

But…

Dry cinnamon and bitter lavender flowers darken the initial ski lodge mood by the fireplace.
Along with the creamy accord of musk and sandalwood (not declared) in the base, rounded off with labdanum.

Here lies the dark and dull side of the fragrance, which is pierced by a bright, slightly piercing counterpart. Neroli fights its way through and is slightly sour, supported by vetiver.

The resting bed is formed from earthy patchouli, soft incense, and slightly bitter moss.

But after a while, about two hours, the fragrance shows its true face.
The sandalwood is supported by cedar, and the vetiver gets that green-gray shade that signals office suitability.
It continues to be rounded off with creamy musk.
The spices are barely noticeable, and nothing remains of the orange. Instead, there is a vanillic resin just to the taste of the lovely 1990s.
No deep forest in sight on Munich's Ingolstädter Straße with its office buildings.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was limited back then.
I had indeed perceived a variant of Rouge Eau de Toilette as orange.
Where were the inspirations from Bogner Man (1985) and Bogner Man II?

Today, the fragrance would fly off the shelves, no question.
The perfect companion in the cold season.

Unfortunately too creamy for me, initially with somewhat discordant contrasts and a technically solid but too reserved base for my taste.

What I do hold high for the composition is its inspirational power. After all, not a few creations this year smell similar, sharing their basic structure.
From this perspective, fans of the fragrance should find replacement options quite easily, which are still being offered.

So, and now the experience.

At that time, a giant joined our circle of friends.
He was as tall as Thor's lightning but also suffered from low blood pressure.
His appearance was pale, ash-blonde hair, bright gray-blue eyes, chalky skin.
He was serious, laughing only at extremely good jokes for twenty seconds and quickly calming down again.
And he felt sad, far away from his mystically fairytale forest homeland.
A spiteful soul (after a ended relationship, consequently poisonous like an angry viper) dubbed him Butler Lurch of the Addams Family.
But for me, he was the coolest connoisseur of symbolic protective spells on half-timbered houses.
Just the way he described the creepy aspects of common Germanic deities sent cold shivers down my spine.
He illustrated everything so calmly and composedly, almost like the chronicler of the local cemetery.

Oh yes, you can guess three times which fragrance he generously applied according to his height.

“So this is how my forest smells,” he murmurs full of homesickness and quite annoyed when I teasingly tried to make it clear to him that cinnamon stars probably belonged to his divine diet.
As unversed as I still am, I can only guess that goddess Freya distinguishes between allowed and forbidden cookies.
So in the motto of the cryptic saga, when that Germanic youth dared to devour the pretzel twisted three times and not twice, she transformed him into a squirrel!

Our first disagreement, of course, did not take long to arise, and I, the simple Alberich, explained to him that the fragrance exhibited neither pines nor firs, but rather spices from distant lands. And sandalwood is not a native plant.
Wouldn't he want to try Krizia Uomo Eau de Toilette?

Oh dear

Wodan, Odin, Thor, you name it, quickly brewed a barrel of revenge in his attic.

What awaited me…

Our gang had fun that evening in the Frankfurt cult club Plasik in this beautiful villa in the middle of Bethmannpark.

But Thor's wrath had other plans.

Classically, dancing-sweaty and a bit tipsy, I didn't think about his suggestion to follow the trail of the hanged at the Main.

And so we drove through the dark night along creepy places. The mood was supposed to become darker the further we steered towards hidden sites of horror.

To emphasize it further, he let one of those obscure EBM groups run on cassette with those expertly dosed texts of hell.

What didn't quite fit was the creamy scent of reserved woods and vetiver.
In hindsight, I would say that I sat next to the accountant of the funeral home. Back then, however, I found his bogner-like emanation somewhat off-puttingly proper.

Well, that didn't stop him from precisely describing to me the tasks of the executioners, the chosen location of the court lime tree, the offenses of the damned, and their fate.

Somehow, I slowly had the feeling that my later disappearance would cause unsuccessful search calls from the police on the radio.
And I suddenly felt inexplicable fear.

In the northeast of the Main metropolis, we finally stopped at a hill.
There, the ghosts of those headless would still take revenge on the living.

In the darkness, I could only make out a large tree in the meadow, probably the execution site.
He huffed a bit while walking but laid his paw on my neck and began to ponder the execution methods.

That’s it, I’m history!

But…

In the darkness, he overlooked a rabbit hole and stumbled, automatically pulling me with him, and we landed on the cold ground.
Startled, a cute animal with sparkling eyes howled and giggled at a bush.

A fox!

The giant began to hyperventilate in panic; this creature could transmit rabies!

And before I knew it, his low blood pressure played my saving trump card.
He fell unconscious for a few moments.

To make a long story short, I managed to wake him up with a slap, drag his heavy mass to the car, where we then laughed happily that we still managed to stay among the living.

But he would continue to keep the fragrance as his signature.

By Teutates!

Deep Forest is a superbly constructed, perfectly balanced perfume: a technological edge applied to a forest theme, what could be more German? However, this does not mean that the perfumer was not French. German oak or resinous fir forests are less present here; the orange-herbaceous opening, the fougère-powdery heart accord of lavender, cinnamon, and patchouli, and the balsamic base have more of a Mediterranean elf forest feel, as if the Brothers Grimm were Occitan fairy tale tellers from the depths of southern France. My favorite part of the story is the base, a warm, creamy, slightly anise-like accord of moss, labdanum, and incense. Deep Forest clearly looks back from the nineties into the "Once upon a time" of the golden men’s fragrance decades, with no trace in the beautiful olibanum note of the impending incense revolution of the new millennium, when the titans Duchaufour and Buxton, in the name of Comme des Garçons, fused the old resin and the cool new Iso-E-Super into the wonder weapon of niche perfumery (and like Einstein and Oppenheimer, they had no idea how much mischief would still be made with it). The incense forest of Deep Forest is a remnant of ancient times, completely unknown to most, too eerie for others who might still vaguely remember it, a beautiful place perhaps only for those who still sing the old elven songs. Ma istal quet' Eldarin?

The best Bogner? Probably. Actually, the good Willy doesn't have much to offer in the men's segment either; the very old Bogner is nice as well, perhaps a bit "more special" and stylistically more nailed down to the 80s.

The "deep forest" is a balanced, fresh, slightly woody, moderately spicy, slightly misty, minimally sweet, and simply excellently composed 90s scent.

What might this interesting forest scent, strongly balanced between bitterness, freshness, and sweetness, come from?
I would love to experience something like this again in today's mainstream releases, where a perfumer sits down for as long as it takes to find the perfect mixing ratio to create such an interesting atmospheric aroma.

Nutmeg for the underbrush, neroli for the mild freshness, vetiver for the green, lavender for the woody-ethereal, cinnamon for a hint of sweetness, a bit more moss for the woody-bitter, frankincense and labdanum for a touch of (fir) resin?

Anyway, similar to Davidoff's equally great "Relax," Bogner's perfumers simply succeed in creating a very, very fine scent that unites sportiness, masculinity, and well-groomed refinement. Why isn't it available anymore? Shit!

Yes, it is grass green, this "Deep Forest." But I can't decide whether it is, according to fragrance genealogy, a Fougerè or a Chypre. And sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish between these two "classifications." This "border crosser" is, for me, this "Deep Forest," which Bogner actually created for men. Yes, this "actually," a word that shouldn't even exist normally, ACTUALLY includes or excludes several possibilities and ultimately means nothing. Especially in relation to fragrances. And this Bogner's "Deep Forest" can be worn by a forester in a green jacket, as well as by a nature-loving lady, or someone in their leisure time or at the office... and so on. In any case, the scent starts spicy and citrusy, with a fine sweetness in the background and yet herbaceous. A while later, lavender seems to approach from the background, along with patchouli reminiscent of damp earth (forest earth!!!), and grasses greet you, not lawn as such, but rooty-scented so-called vetiver. Woodsy all the way through the scent journey. Rich moss, lush grasses, fragrant wood, and simply wonderful. And in the end, there's a little surprise: a fine note of incense sneaks cleverly into the forest. On quiet paths, creeping. Simply everything is SO GOOD (GRUNT!! in delight). And it doesn’t matter whether "Deep Forest" is a Fougerè or a Chypre. The main thing is being in the forest. And that without "actually....."!!