Bois d’Argent is the shared eau de parfum that Annick Ménardo composed in 2004 for Dior, under the artistic direction of Hedi Slimane, alongside Eau Noire and Cologne Blanche. A floral woody for the house: an accord of wood pierced with powdery iris and studded with incense, which Wikiparfum rounds out with myrrh, honey, patchouli, and leather. A pillar of La Collection Privée, in 50, 100, and 200 ml.
Dior does not publish a pyramid for Bois d’Argent. The house describes an accord of wood pierced with a radiant, richly powdery iris note, studded with an almost mystical incense note, and notes that its concise formulas rely on materials selected by François Demachy, such as iris from Florence.
Iris and incense
Wikiparfum places Bois d’Argent among the woody fragrances and attributes to it iris, leather, myrrh, olibanum incense, honey, and Indonesian patchouli, without arranging them in tiers; the reference cites François Demachy, for whom iris plays an unusual role there, at once ambery, musky, and woody.
Doré describes a wine-like, sharp opening, due to the patchouli, quickly overtaken by the smoky effluvia of incense and myrrh; the animalic accord of honey and leather gradually brings a carnal warmth, joined to the powdery, earthy softness of iris butter.
Alavi perceives in the heart a silvery incense and an iris, in the base amber woods that distract from that clarity. The two reviewers diverge on the place of iris; the field keeps olibanum and iris in the top notes, patchouli in the heart, honey and leather in the base, all named by Wikiparfum.
What remains outside the declared accord
Myrrh, which both Wikiparfum and Doré name, is not tiered in the field, for lack of a source that places it, and remains in prose. Juniper berries, cypress, vanilla, and musks, which other lists attribute to it, appear neither with the house, nor with Wikiparfum, nor with the reviewers retained.
What the label declares
The house publishes for the eau de parfum a coded list of seven lines: alcohol, the word Parfum, water, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane, a filter that protects the juice from light, pinene and limonene from resinous and citrus essences, beta-caryophyllene, spicy and woody.