Replica - Soul of the Forest Maison Margiela 2016

When I was a child, there was an annual competition between my father and my uncle at Christmas for the most beautiful Christmas tree.

While we had a fir tree every time, my uncle's house had a spruce tree every year. Both trees were splendidly and affectionately decorated and my uncle always used much time on it extra still branches and Zweiglein to attach additionally into holes drilled for it around the tree more fullly to let work. At the spruce hung also always tinsel, which was already frowned upon with our fir in the 70s.

On Christmas Day now traditionally came my uncle with family to us, big hello, gifts were exchanged, coffee, punch and cookies. The tree was admired, great, so straight grown and "fat", and how the smells, madness! And then every year the sentence from the Loriot sketch came grinning from my uncle: "There used to be more tinsel!"

On Boxing Day then always took place our return visit, big hello, coffee, beer and snack. The tree was admired. The comments of my father were always about so: Bit crooked he is already... There he has but quite a gap... Ui, the nadelt already... Who did not know the two would have considered that as quite tactlessness, we grinned at us and knew that it was the usual Frotzeleien between brothers who liked each other very much.

With Soul of the Forest, that childhood memory comes back to me. I grew up near the woods, almost every farm in the neighborhood had a piece of "woods", that is, a forest plot. There was also a state forest nearby. The fir tree in the living room at Christmas was beautiful and smelled very good, but compared to the trees and smells outside in the real big forest, it always seemed small and a bit intentional. Not to mention my uncle's spruce ;)

Soul of the Forest has a similar effect on me. Unmistakable fir, wood, resin, something earthy. But rather as if a tree has been standing in the warm living room for a long time and becomes dry. Or standing next to a pile of logs that have been there for a while on a cool day in the forest. That smells really good, but does not embody the soul of the forest for me.
A bit I must also criticize the weak sillage. At me, the fragrance after an hour is already very close to the skin what I find a bit of a shame. Nevertheless, I absolutely recommend a test if you are looking in the direction of "forest fragrance".