Bois 1920: Santalo et Thé

Whilst filling out my P-Port papers today I ventured into a luxury department store to take a look-see if they had anything of interest to my nose. I had never tried the Bois 1920 line (it just seemed so gimmicky) so I figured I might as well give one of them a test and see how it was. Out of the 8 scents on display I chose Santalo et Thé since I have been appreciating sandalwood more and more lately. Here goes the play by play review:

Yuck! This stuff is cheap and awful; the intial blast is overwhelmingly plasticky. The tea note is most prominent in the opening stages (and pretty much the rest of) this fragrance. I don't understand what they were thinking when they created this; if I didn't know what I was smelling I wouldn't have been able to distinguish it from a $5.99 bargain bin "fragrance oil". Not only is the construction of this fragrance poor and very, very common, the green tea accord that they threw together (in a matter of minutes I think) does not even attempt to replicate an aromatic high quality tea as in Creed's Tabarome, but maybe that of a two dollar scented candle. It's that bad. Now that we have got the "thé" part over with, lets move on to "santalo". Santalo must be the code word for vetiverol + cedramber over at the 1920 marketing department, because there isn't really much "sandalwood" here to speak of. I pick up a few whiffs of something that reminds me of those cheap Australian Santalum Spicatum essential oils from the health food store. This stuff was really dirt cheap to put together and it shows. To tie everything together theres an awful foody-spicy note that just makes me feel kinda dizzy and sick if I sniff the back side of my hand too much.

I had low expectations for this brand, and this fragrance somehow managed to fall short of even those. I will not pass judgement on the entire line before trying a few more of them though - lets hope they are better than this !