A Serge Lutens Which I Despise: A Review

I adore Serge Lutens perfumes. I think Mr. Lutens’ work is in a class by itself. I do believe that Lutens has breathed new life into the world of fragrance. There are many perfumers that try to copy his masterpieces, which seems fine to me, at least he’s given them some new material. I enjoy every single one of Lutens fragrances, except one. The one that I don’t like literally turns my stomach. It’s a scrubber to the point of getting a loofah, sprinkling it with and comet, and tearing my skin off. The one which I despise is Miel de Bois. From the description of Miel de Bois (henceforth MdB) I thought it would be enchanting. MdB is described as a warm, woody composition with a very natural treatment of honey. I found the listed notes and they are as follows: top notes of ebony, gaiac and oak wood, middle notes of honey and base notes of beeswax, iris and hawthorn. Still, it sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? I spritzed myself with MdB while writing this so I would be close to its natural aroma and not writing from memory. At this moment I am nearly gagging and am rather rushing through this so I can scrub it off. MdB smells like a dank, moldy, cobweb filled, mouse infested, 18^th century basement. The stone foundation is falling in and there’s a great deal of moisture building up in all sorts of dangerous spots. A house with a basement like this isn’t safe. I’m surprised it isn’t condemned yet. This house is at the end of the cul-de-sac and an elderly lady has lived here alone 15 years. Family or friends never visit. She’s rarely seen outside of the house. The exterior paint is peeling off in clumps, like a snake shedding it’s skin, and the local painters have long since stopped leaving their cards in her mailbox. Nobody in the neighborhood recalls having been inside the house, but if you’d ask the neighbors they’d say she has at least 20 cats, many feral, and they imagine the house smells thickly of cat urine. You might ask the neighbors why they don’t step in, offer to help this old woman who is elderly and obviously can’t take care of her property, and the neighbors just shrug and mumble something about the curse.

MdB is a curse. Try it if you’re curious. Perhaps you’ll like it. I imagine that someone who adores CB I Hate Perfume Black March might like MdB. To give Mr. Lutens some props for his ghastly creation, I will say that MdB smells like real honey. Not an imaginary clover-sweet fantasy version of honey, but what honey truly smells like if you came upon a bees nest in the woods. So, I’m sure Lutens nailed it, the true essence of honey, and laid this dank, nasty smell upon a bed of a fallen down rotting trees, next to a squirrel with rigor mortis set in, adjacent to some soggy decomposing leaves in late November.

I haven’t eaten honey since smelling MdB.

I’m off to scrub my arm.