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I am a superstitious person. This is thanks in large part to my mom, who raised me with a throw-salt-over-my-shoulder mentality. My friends often make fun of me for telling them to knock on wood—and then following up with “no, really, do it”—when they say something that no one would like to actually come true. When it comes to my superstitions, I have an unlikely kindred spirit: Christian Dior.
Dior was famously superstitious, and even went so far as to always keep a piece of wood in his pocket for easy access. Now, Francis Kurkdjian, the creative director of perfumes at Christian Dior, has created a fragrance version of knocking on wood. The scent, Bois Talisman, pays homage to Dior’s penchant for lucky charms, and it has quickly become my new favorite perfume.
Bois Talisman has just two scent notes: cedar and vanilla. The cedar gives the perfume a woodsy warmth, almost reminiscent of pencil shavings—and that’s not by accident. “I imagined [the] cedar wood would be like the pencil [Dior] would use to sketch dresses,” Kurkdjian says.
As for the vanilla? That’s Kurkdjian’s own twist. While Dior kept wood in his pocket, Kurkdjian keeps a sugar cube in his before big meetings. To marry his superstition with Dior’s, Kurkdjian chose vanilla to represent sweetness. “The idea was to combine his piece of wood and my sugar,” Kurkdjian says. “It’s made to be half and half.”
Though it’s meant as a stand-in for sugar, the vanilla in Bois Talisman isn’t syrupy. It’s a deep, buttery vanilla with just a hint of sweetness. It’s like eating rich, artisanal ice cream flecked with vanilla bean, rather than a fast food soft serve. Kurdjian was able to achieve this by using three different types of vanilla: vanilla infusion, where vanilla is steeped in alcohol; CO2 extracted vanilla, which uses carbon dioxide to extract pure vanilla without additives; and vanillin, the natural molecule in vanilla that gives it its distinct smell and taste. Kurkdjian says that each type of vanilla brings something different to the fragrance.
The layered result is a warm, creamy perfume unlike any I have in my (rather large) collection. Its beauty lies in its simplicity. On my skin, the cedar and vanilla melt together to create a smell that stops people in their tracks. I wore Bois Talisman to a party recently, and enough people complimented me on how I smelled that it quickly became a talking point—I held up my wrist, and they opened their Notes apps to remember the perfume for later. Without fail, every time I spray it on, my boyfriend says, “Mmm, that smells good.”
Bois Talisman takes superstitions and distills them into something sexy. Not only do I smell good when I wear it, but I’m also taking my own talisman to go—wood to avoid tempting fate and a bit of vanilla-soaked sugar for luck.