Dsquared²
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Silver fir crashes into musk with an almost gaseous quality, like inhaling the air inside a Christmas tree farm shop. The vegetal amber reads wet and oddly mushroom-like, creating a damp woodland floor effect that's both unsettling and intriguing. There's a metallic, ozonic edge that suggests rain on plastic rather than moss on stone.
Violet leaf takes command with its signature cucumber-melon freshness, a green juice quality that's simultaneously natural and strangely artificial. The aquatic notes amplify this wetness but strip away complexity, leaving something that hovers between mineral water and fabric softener. Violet's powdery whisper tries to soften the edges but gets overwhelmed by the synthetic freshness.
Cedarwood finally asserts itself, dry and papery, like splitting kindling with bare hands. Vetiver adds a rooty, earthy depth that feels almost apologetic after the synthetic fanfare above it. The musk persists as a skin-close veil, clean but never quite warm, maintaining that peculiar distance the fragrance has cultivated from the first spray.
He Wood is a study in contradiction—a fragrance that positions itself as nature's whisper but speaks in the unmistakable language of synthetic construction. The opening announces this duality immediately, pairing the resinous bite of silver fir with a peculiar vegetal amber that reads more like wet moss scraped from bark than anything molten or warm. The musk here isn't clean or animalic; it's aldehydic and almost plasticky, creating an effect like condensation on the inside of a polytunnel in early spring. As violet and violet leaf emerge, there's a genuine green quality—that cucumber-tinged, slightly metallic freshness of crushed stems—but it's undercut by aquatic notes that veer dangerously close to laundry detergent territory. The cedarwood base is surprisingly substantial, all pencil shavings and dry timber, whilst vetiver adds an earthy, rooty foundation that grounds what could otherwise float away into complete abstraction. This is a fragrance for someone who wants to smell "outdoorsy" without actually spending time outdoors—the sanitised version of nature that belongs in urban environments. It's polarising, decidedly synthetic, yet oddly compelling in its commitment to this artificial forest construct. Worn by design students and creative directors who appreciate its conceptual audacity, even if they privately acknowledge its rough edges.
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3.6/5 (154)