A passion for scents, architecture and design are the cornerstones for Véronique Le Bihan, creator of this young haute couture French niche brand, Atelier Materi.

About the brand

I discovered the brand a few months ago while searching for yet another great rose, but I found much more. The discovery set through which I got to know it offered me fragrances with clean compositions, focused on different transformations of raw materials, both traditional and unexpected, but always exceptionally precise.

My favorites are Rose Ardoise (hardly a surprise), Cacao Porcelana, Santal Blond and the reason for this review, Bois d'Ambrette.

It's rarely difficult for me to describe a fragrance, especially one I like so much, but with Bois d'Ambrette I find it hard to make my classic top-heart-base dissection, because the transitions between them are so skillfully done that they leave you with the feeling you've missed a turn and are already somewhere else.

The opening is the easiest part for me to describe: a bright, sparkling mandarin like the one in the blue line by Tom Ford, followed by my favorite sweet, amber-like musky ambrette, which carries an inimitable resinous feel in the drydown. Interestingly, ambrette is a synthetic ingredient that usually serves as a fixative for sweet, rich notes, yet here it sounds so natural and full of life, as if I were spraying straight from the source. A very sparingly dosed black pepper sneaks in, sprinkled as if over wet angelica, alongside perfect balsamic notes, sandalwood, musk and ambroxan, which make the ambrette glow over a soft, woody base. An extremely smooth, imperceptible transition, and again I missed the turn. The fragrance is moderately complex, everything is audible, but nothing sticks out, and each note seems to politely skip ahead of the next, without losing even a single nuance.

Bois d'Ambrette vibrates and switches between several contrasting frequencies the entire time. There are layers upon layers, a carefully built sensual tension into which you'll be unexpectedly drawn after a deceptively fresh and uplifting opening. This can also be invigorating, a real serotonin rush, which will then carry you into a melancholic balsamic level, only to push you forward again, to the turn where ambroxan blends with musk and a creamy sandalwood note! In the drydown, Bois d'Ambrette turns into an extremely personal, even intimate scent on my skin, but a MUCH better kind of fragrance, completely unisex.

Worn on different occasions, at different temperatures, it revealed different accents on my skin, at a different pace, like a magnifying mirror that amplifies exactly what we reflect into it.

By acquiring this perfume, I got ambrette in its full radiance: lively, casually elegant, far from any pathos. It sounds very simple and stylish, without being imposing, like a skin scent, but sexier. It's the kind of perfume that wants to be worn in order to complete us. Nothing like those complex masterpieces I don't know where to wear, but something solid, comfortable and very practical. For me it became a form of therapy and a new beginning for my perfume-loving soul, oversaturated with complex fragrances.

A minimalist bottle in midnight blue, with a truly unique (I don't love that word!) cap made of concrete and mineral alloy, cast, polished and finished with an antique bronze patina entirely by hand. A genuine haute parfumerie experience.