Bois Pacifique

What the house declares

Tom Ford classifies Bois Pacifique among woody spicy fragrances. The house highlights three materials: turmeric essence, a fresh, aromatic spice; sandalwood album essence, with a hypnotic smoothness; and oakwood absolute, meant to evoke the grandeur of a coastal forest.

It also names cardamom essence, akigalawood and olibanum essence, a resin it calls fiery, as well as orris butter. The woods, cedar, oak and sandalwood, take root, according to the house, in notes of amber and vanilla.

Three tiers

The house does not break its fragrance down into tiers. Thomas Dunckley, of The Candy Perfume Boy, places turmeric, cardamom and akigalawood in the top, iris, saffron and incense in the heart, and cedar, oak, sandalwood, amber and vanilla in the base.

Hence the breakdown used here, without saffron: the first launch texts mentioned a fresh saffron, which the house’s current descriptions replace with turmeric. The incense appears under the name olibanum, the one the house uses.

What the label declares

The list Tom Ford publishes places, right after alcohol, water and fragrance, tetramethyl acetyloctahydronaphthalenes, a widely used synthetic wood. It declares oakmoss extract (Evernia prunastri), bergamot, patchouli, clove and sandalwood oils, along with santalol.

It also shows vanillin, acetyl cedrene, camphor, hexadecanolactone, a musky lactone, cinnamal and benzyl cinnamate, alongside citrus and flower constituents such as limonene, linalool, citral, geraniol or eugenol.

Three UV filters, ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane and ethylhexyl salicylate, protect the juice from light, and three colorants, violet, red and yellow, tint it. The house states that the list may vary and refers to the packaging.