Miel de Bois was launched in 2005 by Serge Lutens.  To truly know Miel de Bois, you have to really smell it.

It opens with notes of oak, ebony and guaiac wood.  The woods are dry, and heavy. There is a sharpness, like vinegar, that comes from the oak, but there's a slight sweetness too. The guaiac has birch tar facets, and the ebony is bitter, almost to the point of being unpleasant. If you embrace the wood accord as part of the experience, you will be rewarded with a fabulous, golden, raw honey note that's soft and sweet but not enough to be in gourmand territory and animalic. The creaminess of the honey is the perfect counterbalance to the bitterness at the top so that only a lovely woodiness remains. A sweet, floral hawthorn note echoes the honey with its animalic aspect at the base, while a powdery iris adds another floral dimension to Miel de Bois. The flowers lie atop a note of sweet, musky beeswax.

Miel de Bois dries down smooth, warm and woody. But that honey/woody balance is what keeps me reaching for Miel de Bois again and again. And that bitter, acrid opening? I've come to see it as the perfect way to showcase that beauty that comes after it, and so I've come to appreciate it. Oh, Mr. Lutens, you really are a genius.

Notes: oak, guaiac wood, ebony, white honey ether, hawthorn, iris, beeswax, animal notes.