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Bois de Filao Comptoir Sud Pacifique 2003

6.6 / 10 47 Ratings

A perfume by Comptoir Sud Pacifique for women and men, released in 2003. The scent is fresh-woody. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Fresh

Woody

Citrus

Green

Spicy

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Lemon

Bergamot

Papyrus

Heart Notes

Pink pepper

Violet leaf

Base Notes

Amber

Casuarina wood

Patchouli

White musk

Ratings

Scent

6.647 Ratings

Longevity

5.435 Ratings

Sillage

5.432 Ratings

Bottle

5.036 Ratings

Submitted by DonVanVliet · last update on 03/31/2024.

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Reviews

5 in-depth fragrance descriptions

03/09/2014

2Scent

Silverfire
134 Reviews

Silverfire

Helpful Review 4

A Hairspray Bottle, a Pepper Grinder, and Unwashed Shells

Bois de Filao goes on with the smell of wet hairspray -- close, damp, hairspray. Doesn't smell like violet leaf to me (at least compared to Rugby by Royall Lyme of Bermuda). There's also pepper. The pepper recedes and underneath is something like chlorinated pool residual -- calcium maybe? This is supposed to summon up images of the beach, and it does, to an extent, if you care for the smell of sun-bleached, rotting driftwood, or the smell of shells brought home without washing them. It's THAT smell. Ugh. Maybe beaches smell skanky like this in France, or generally, but it's not something I like to smell like. I sprayed with one spray on each wrist, so I know I didn't overdo it.

It gets worse. One hour in and it becomes aromatic, so cube neighbors can smell unwashed shells, too, mingled with hairspray. The projection must be three feet at least! I want to hide.

Later on, musk shows up, combining with the hairspray smell to make it feminine-leaning, and at five hours, it mercifully becomes a skin scent.

I ended up giving this away by leaving it on the bench outside a Sephora. Men beware.

01/07/2013

7Scent 7.5Longevity 7.5Sillage

Sherapop
1240 Reviews

Sherapop

Helpful Review 2

A Papyrus Book with Pressed Violet Leaves

Comptoir Sud Pacifique is a mystery house to me. The made-for-women perfumes nearly all smell too sweet and foody. The made-for-men perfumes seem to be obviously unisex, and they generally smell very good. BOIS DE FILAO is no exception to the rule. I noticed that most of the Parfumo members who own this perfume are women, so clearly my sense that this creation is truly unisex--not appropriate only or best suited for men--appears to be shared by others.

This particular scent features papyrus, which I've found recently in a number of niche perfumes, and here it really works with the violet leaf and the clean musk and the amber. There are no flowers. To my nose, this is almost a skin scent. Okay, it's true my skin unadorned does not smell like papyrus. The combination of notes is really quite likeable and uncommon. Think Amouage OPUS perfumes, but dial down the intensity and the citrus and the green elements. BOIS DE FILAO is not bitter or musty at all. It smells to me like a big book made out of fresh papyrus in which violet leaves have been pressed.

I wish that I knew more about this mysterious house. They seem to do no marketing whatsoever. My understanding is that Pierre Montale was somehow implicated early on, which would explain in part the aloofness, the aluminum bottles, and also the niche-esque quality of most of the CSP made-for-men perfumes. There really is a huge distinction in quality between the sweet tropical perfumes and the woody perfumes of this house.

Adding to the mystery, I have never seen these perfumes for sale anywhere but online. They are either sold at niche emporia for full MSRP or at discounters for a fraction of MSRP. My bottles I acquired blind for TJMAXX-like prices (though I've never seen any of these there). Do I think that they are worth MSRP? To be honest, I'm not sure. They are a fantastic value, however, when purchased at deep discount, because they do smell much better than mainstream vat-produced chemical soup.

I also recently realized that Comptoir Sud Pacifique was a concept house long before any of the others, including Scents of Departure, which has also tried to float the vacation perfume idea in recent times...

01/03/2014

5Scent

Knickzimt
102 Reviews

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Knickzimt

Very helpful Review 7

The Shallow Soft Violet

Comptoir Sud Pacifique; a company with a sure hand for sweet scents of every shape and color. Whether it's the cooked-milk-vanilla "Vanille Extreme" or the silk chocolate of "Amour De Cacao," they have mixed all sorts of delicious things. And this here? Is this a wood scent? I wait and take a sniff.
The opening surprises me with a nice, almost juicy freshness. Can they also do bergamot well? The small citrus wave is already confidently rolling onto a calm almond beach within the first two minutes. Unlike many here, I have to think more of gentle marzipan than smoky vanilla. And, oh dear, a violet has already crept up behind me. It adds a delicately shallow sweetness to what I just called almondy, which drives me completely crazy over time. It’s quite vexing: hardly do I cross my tolerance limits with a jolt and order a fragrance that has a flower listed in its pyramid, and my anti-floral tendencies are annoyingly confirmed. The violet sings and twitches and rises in its vehement delicate cuteness above everything that started beautifully in the scent. The gradually rolling wood is very nice, but overall too pale to create many contrasts. Since those would have been necessary, the scent ends up a bit flustered and overly sweet.
So for me, this was the first disappointment in the range of this nice fragrance workshop. But that’s okay, I’ll stick with it anyway. :)

08/01/2013

7Scent 5Longevity 5Sillage

DaveGahan101
535 Reviews

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DaveGahan101

Top Review 4

Too Stupid to Smell...

...the last time I really messed up at something was at 17 when the driving instructor said, "Yes, of course you can look over your shoulder, signal, gently let the clutch out, and accelerate softly at the same time." I thought I would never manage it... I'm just too stupid.

This long-buried feeling rang my doorbell again today... what would S. Freud say about this...?!?

Either this fragrance and its individual noble components are made so well, or I am just too stupid to smell... or both... but with the fragrance diploma, it seems like nothing will come of it. I smell so many things in this perfume but can't pick out a single component, a nuance. Looking at the pyramid, I thought... AHA... maybe you should slowly look for another... lighter hobby... maybe something like rock hammering or so... is that the perfected art of perfumery?

I can't pick out a single one of these nuances... no lemon, bergamot, or even papyrus (I probably should have lived 2,000 years ago)... is there anyone at Parfumo who knows what that smells like???? Just as little do I know how the supposed filao wood smells... Zero points awarded!!!!

But what I do know is that this fragrance is simply wonderful... it starts fresh... with "Fresh-NoName"... after 10 seconds, however, an immediate "NoName-Sweetness" comes in... for me, it's closest to a smoky vanilla... a non-sweet sweetness... I had to struggle for words like this last time on a first date with my childhood sweetheart... the fragrance is not fresh... it is not sweet... both at the same time... the individual components merge for me into a very sensual and erotic-exotic note... which is hard to resist... the fragrance develops very quickly... even the warm sandalwood (filao?) is already noticeable after 15 minutes and dims the vanilla note a little. The longevity is really good at over 6-7 hours. Throughout the entire duration, the sweet and fresh note remains parallel... side by side... sensational mix!

I have never been to the South Seas or on a Pacific island... but a combination of Bois de Filao and Virgin Island Water creates these images in my head and brings them to life, making one think... yes, that's exactly how it must smell there.

I can't do it better, so I hope that someone among you (who knows about this) tests this dreamy exotic and provides me with the missing words.... or maybe "Yellow Pages";-)!?!

11/16/2013

7Scent 2.5Longevity 2.5Sillage

Leimbacher
2873 Reviews

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Leimbacher

2

Papyrus rolls enveloped in vanilla smoke in a light wooden box

Thanks to Dave for the sample, an interesting scent that unfortunately only ranks mediocre for me. Although it is actually a semi-gourmand with its airy, smoky vanilla note and sounds appealing to my taste. But I think Amour de Cacao from the brand CSP is more my style. Overall, however, CSP seems to me to be an affordable brand that receives too little attention for many beautiful, simple fragrances dedicated to a theme.

The fragrance starts with citrusy-powdery wood that is so dry that one could really associate it with the smell of old, dusty books. Slowly, a smoky but very soft vanilla joins in. This I have only previously experienced in Atelier Cologne's Vanille Insense. The scent lingers for about 2 hours before it fades into a woody base. A short time during which the heart note simply disappears for me. No pepper and no violet floral notes. The rest blends very well, high-quality but calm, almost meditative and too timid.

Bottle: more like a deodorant style than a perfume bottle.
Sillage: very tame. The sweet-woody hint of vanilla barely lifts more than 15 cm from the skin.
Longevity: for me just under 4 hours, then only faintly detectable to my nose.

Interesting vanilla and the powdery papyrus feeling, which does not quite reach Carthusia's 1681, are huge plus points. But these only feel really warm and nice in the later stages. Until then, too much bothers me. Too stuffy, almost too powdery and slightly bitter. Maybe it’s the violet that bothers me, but the fragrance shifts from 50% to almost 80%.