Milly-La-Forêt
Christian Dior (2010)

Flowers listened as
Sun and clouds held their debate
While trees cheered and stilled.

A surprisingly delightful clear floral with a truly excellent sandalwood base. Jasmine and iris form a quiet floral window, through which orange blossom magnifies the spicy aspect of highest-quality sandalwood. The woody base is remarkable, and reminds me of my favorite Chanels like Eau Première, with less cedar, so the sandalwood fine structure is clarified at low volume.

Gender? "Neither", per my wife, to be distinguished from "both", and I agree.

While most "unisex" scents are mixed bags of louder and more common gender tropes, this is a refreshing new problem of too little junk to grab either way. The floral aspects can easily be called feminine, but they're so clear and naturally fresh, they're dangerously close to men's "sporty". The woody, spicy aspects are a super-quiet version of the ginger-and-sandalwood grainy male goodness in Twilly d'Hermès, yet they are subdued below the necessarily mannish levels found in more muscular Chanel woody-based clear-floral feminines.

It's less a woman in a forest, than a painting of a woman in a forest, or maybe even a painting of a forest by a woman.

Highly recommended!

I am so happy I took a chance on this. Orange blossoms and jasmine flowers. Iris butter and musk. So Enchantingly beautiful and fine. I view this as a timeless classic. Perhaps the 20-somethings may not appreciate this, but those of us "mature ladies" (curtsey) will appreciate the gentle subtlety of this scent.

Kind of sweet and definitely feminine fragrance with a good dose of jasmine and iris. The orange blossom note makes it seem kind of dated. The musk and sandalwood kind of brings it back to date in the midnotes. I see the ladies really liking to wear this one (mature ladies). 7/10