Fir Balsam L'Antichambre Parfum

Uncommented Scents No. 98

Currently, there is a small hype around forest scents, and while I usually find most trends rather suspicious, I genuinely enjoy this one because I have always liked perfumes that evoke associations with solitude in the woods, underbrush, thickets, greenery, wood, trees, moss, bark, and damp earth.

While we forest dwellers and lovers were once just happy to have a few Fougères or scents with a strong moss base that conjured these associations, today the number of authentically smelling forest fragrances has increased tremendously. There are some brands that do not disclose their recipes and likely create a perfume that smells like trees, forest floor, and brushwood using synthetics; on the other hand, there are now also some manufacturers in this genre that focus on hardcore nature, foremost among them the colognes / room fragrances from Juniper Ridge, where you can feel that the wild young crew making the stuff dumps the plants straight into the pot or distillery right after collecting them from their rough hands after long climbing tours, to capture the authentic aromas of wild plants and trees without losing time.

I don't care. I expect a fragrance not to cause skin irritations or allergies (I always recommend checking codecheck.info), but if it achieves this with synthetic formulations, that's fine too. No one really knows for sure. In the case of Antichambre's Fir Balsam, I can't say how it behaves, but one thing is certain: This is one of the best forest scents I have ever smelled.

I would be pleased if those responding to this comment would try to list the most beautiful authentic forest scents down below, and I will name a few in advance to get that out of the way.

Absolutely wonderful is (Tomayas) Divergent "In the Deep Forest," which has already been extensively praised by Meggi along with its sister scents in a blog about Divergent. The YouTube reviews by Siebter are also highly recommended! For those who know: Fir Balsam is quite similar. Which one is better? Some say this, some say that.
In addition, we have the scents from Juniper Ridge, which I won't list all because they often tend in this direction.
Soivohle also has some colognes of this type in their portfolio, so I will spare myself from naming them here and possibly differentiating them.
The same goes for some scents from CB I Hate Perfume, which, while having quite different offerings, have long focused on smell (forest, dampness, forest floor, mushrooms, bark...) instead of "fragrance." I think that's great, and I know there will be some dissent here again. But why shouldn't one wear SMELL instead of FRAGRANCE? Fragrance initially only means pleasant smell, while smell in the true sense includes pretty much everything, even the scent of a decaying sewer rat. But there is something in between, for example, the smell of a weekend forest walk, which is for me just as beautiful or even much more beautiful than a few silly aldehydes or a musk base, which I don't like anyway.
Additionally, there are also the fine perfumes from Euphorium Brooklyn, one of which is even named after how it should smell, namely "Forest." There are also several from this brand that want to lure us into the underbrush, and I won't name them all.
Tom Ford has also discovered the forest floor, with his luxury series in this segment under the 'Vert' category. Vert d'Encens is absolutely wonderful, which is of course less authentic than artificial, but nonetheless very successful. The other Verts are not quite as great and even further away from the idea of forest, but still interesting and certainly above boring average, it seems to me.
The same goes for Slumberhouse Norne, Odin Tanoke, and Knize Forest!
I would also think of Fir Balsam by Franck Boclet, which shows more art than nature.
Good Fir by Krigler is already from 1911. I don't quite believe that.

Surely this category would also be worth a blog, and perhaps it would be better placed there (and maybe I will turn this into a blog), but for now, I am also here to honor scents like "In the Deep Forest" (which you can't find here yet - and therefore can only be honored indirectly) and scents like Fir Balsam, which is just great. So how does it smell, - if you want to know, but don't know how "In the Deep Forest" smells, which unfortunately is not very widespread yet?

Well, quite simply, it smells quite a bit like the resin of coniferous trees: somewhat sharp, menthol-like, like sauna infusion, green resinous, black-barked, needle-woody, tree-fallen, forest-walking. So simply put, it smells like resinous fir forest. Got it? It smells like NATURE!

It should contain pine (of course, the resin from it), cedar (yes, of course, wood fits), leaves (here I am already skeptical again about how they want to pack those in without it becoming quite bitter: so synthetic after all?). In addition, there is a small, (aroma-chemistry-) suspicious sweet note in the base, which "In the Deep Forest" does not have, but which is also guaranteed not to be synthetic-free (why would it be?)! I can highly recommend both scents to everyone.

And now I open the floor for forest scent suggestions. For that, you can spare every compliment for this comment!

Now I have to get out! Best into the forest!