Armani Privé Bois d'Encens
Giorgio Armani (2004)

A minimalistic, airy, and remarkably boring concoction of frankincense over a polished cedar or Iso E Super base. Despite critics and bloggers writing a paeon of praise to this bellwether of bellwethers of the incense genre, I was never able to ‘get’ its supposed complexity. To my nose, it is a micro explosion of black pepper and frankincense e/o inside a very small (but perfectly chic) black vase. Though perfectly formed – well, everyone keeps saying it is anyway – it is too featureless to leave much of an impression on me.

This has been reformulated, or something. I tried this years ago and adored it but couldn't afford it. that soft, incense-y woody comfort scent was just so lovely. I recently resampled this from a new bottle and it's loaded with that cheap aroma chemical that Armani has started to put in absolutely everything. I think it is a synthetic commonly used these days to boost wood notes, but I refer to it as Screamwood, as it is a screaming rubbing alcohol note that burns my nose and overpowers every other note in there. Look for the older bottles.

This fragrance features frankincense and woods, making it one of the best from the Prive Line, and possibly worth the money if you're a big fan of frankincense. Luca Turin gives it a four-star rating, but describes it as "incense animalic." While I do get the incense note, I don't find it to be animalic. It's wearable and slightly cozy, thanks to the sweetness from the labdanum. It's not a boozy or densely sweet scent, as it doesn't lean in that direction.

The Prive Line may be hard to find, but it should be available at retailers like Holts, Saks, or Nordstrom. It's definitely worth trying a sample.

Great incense scent, with a vetiver/pepper twist.
Probably one of the best, maybe even the best (in terms of scent).
Unfortunately it has poor performance, unacceptable at that price point, thus a neutral rating.

Armani Prive Bois d'Encens is yet another solid offering in the Prive line, understandably a staple in the line since its 2004 inception as it offers a bold, mostly-wintery, mostly-masculine contribution to the line that seems otherwise slightly lacking in the current line-up.

It's extremely spicy at its onset with lots of pepper and woods, and then almost immediately begins to calm down to be only very spicy, but still quite spicy and woody, as a resinous, semi-sweet base starts to unfold. It feels like the sweet rather than the animalic side of resins, though, nothing too untamed, the pepper perhaps being the wildest aspect of the whole risk.

The result is a masculine winter fragrance that's elegant for formal and nighttime wear but still has the air of being a men's anytime signature scent for cold weather, especially.

Performance is solid, well above average on projection and great on longevity.

I definitely recommend trying this out. I waited far too long to try my sample.

8 out of 10

Initially green, dry, unsweetly resinous, like a cracked branch of cypress. For me this makes it much more wearable than Heeley's Cardinal, vividly close as I find that one to neat frankincense smoke.
Unfortunately have to agree with others about the low mileage from this, especially for something as inherently tenacious as frankincense.
Thumbs up while it lasts.

Safe bet for fans of incense. Definitely doesn't shy away from showing it's synthetic-smelling mechanics, but they combine with piney, churchy frankincense for an amped up, long-lasting, arid, fuzzy incense extravagnza for a good 6-8 hours. Fits into the genre with Avignon, Full Incense, Lavs etc. but I have found it to be the most satisfying for an incense fix. I recently gutted my perfume collection to narrow it down to favorite essentials and Bois d'Encens isn't going anywhere, it'll be on my shelf for the rest of my life.

Really nice smell- frankincense to me- but the projection & longevity are poor at best, even after spraying clothing. Overspraying didn't seem to help either. I get an occasional whiff of it 3 hours after application and when I asked someone what they thought of it, they couldn't smell it and their nose was almost right on my neck. Someone else mentioned it was more of a skin scent and that is correct. For this kind of performance, it's worth nowhere near the asking price. This is something I'd spend $60-$70 on, not $200+.
Neutral rating only because of the smell.

I know incense and incense blends from an association with a monastery that made its own. Frankincense is essentially sweet and signature "incense" is derived from mixing it with other resins and woods (myrrh, rose, cedar) to create a rich, multi-layered fragrance which, when spooned over live charcoal, creates the smoke for liturgical ceremonies, dispersed through censers, swung around the altar.

What my nose picks up here is simply pepper and cedar - dry, bitter and rather nasty - this is the scent of "burnt" incense, not in the sense of consuming by flames, but in the sense of hard, black, ruined, finished incense, the point at which the censer should be retired to avoid offending the noses of both the congregation and the deity being honored.

It is a poor performance, and a joke considering the price. If you want true and beautiful incense, try Etro's Messe de Minuit, a quarter of the price and four times as good.

First sniffed this in 2004 at Sak's.
The Dry Pepper grabbed me, the Vetiver shook me,and the Frankincense sealed the deal. It was the first Armani, for me, that captured the essence of elegance since the Vintage Eau Pour Homme.
In 2008 I purchased it along with a pair of Black Label Gray Flannels.
It remains as my favourite of the Prive Line.

An excellent, mysterious incense fragrance, actually my favorite, it realy is a skinscent so if you are looking for "statements" avoid. It starts of peppery and then follows a pungent ambery, slighlty animalic note (labdanum) along with a light airy franckincense which also reveals a citrusy vibe. Then it dries down to a mainly musky cedar with some vetiver. Personally I find all the phases extremely beautiful and I adore the fact that it wears as a cologne. If you like incense BLIND BUY IT.

Without question, this is the highlight of the line and one of the best frankincense perfumes on the market.

It's basically a cerebral chin-stroker of a frankincense with cedar facets that are balanced out by what seems to me to be some kind of floral note. Frankincense can be quite bitter, and here it's smoothed over in a way that exalts the material's richness. There are some spices present, but they're really just there for texture rather than flavor. It's a cold scent–not quite as sharp as the similarly-themed Avignon–but chilling all the same. However, it has a calming, meditative quality to it that offsets some of the coldness. It's linear and it winds down to Iso E quite fairly quickly, but it's really all about highlighting the frankincense–and that's what this does well. It feels like a solinote, so if you're looking for a more developed perfume, I'd turn to Clive Christian's V or perhaps Sahara Noir, but this is great for what it is, and it's by far the best thing from the line.