I can't believe I just made a pun based on Huey Lewis and the News' "Hip to Be Square", but hey, back in the day, that was a jam (as corny and ridiculous as it may seem now). But back to today's order of business: DSquared2's first fragrance, She Wood (which was launched last month and follows its male counterpart, He Wood). The woody floral scent, developed by Daphne Bugey, features three accords: light (lemon, jasmine petals, neroli brigade), sap (violet blossom and leaves, heliotrope, musk), and wood (cedar wood, vetiver, vegetable amber).
When developing the fragrance, DSquared2 founders Dean and Dan Caten envisioned a blossom-bearing tree. Each scent grouping, then, speaks to a different aspect of the wood theme. The base wood notes function as the root and core of it all, the defining element. The sap notes, then, are meant to represent the fluid matter that envelops the wood, the lifeblood circulating through the tree trunk and the branches which, in turn, gives way to the head notes, which represent the enchanting blossoms growing among the tree's leaves. The metaphorical description of the olfactory experience is fitting (though I have to say that the most prominent notes in the fragrance are the jasmine petals and the violet blossoms, so that the floral aspect overrides the woodier notes).
Personally, I think the inspiration for the fragrance speaks to what womanhood is all about: having a strong sense of self and a resolute will (like a tree, we won't be moved), nurturing our own creative juices and those of the people we love (like the sap, which is the lifeblood of it all), and beguiling others with our feminine charms (like the blossoms).
DSquared2 She Wood fragrance, $70 for 1.7 oz. Visit Sephora.com
