Scentroulette Day 24: Serge Lutens Un Bois Sepia

Every now and then it's just too tempting not to describe a particular scent as "unlike anything else on the market" or some variation thereof. Oscar de la Renta's groundbreaking 1981 scent Pour Lui--explosively bright, penetratingly strong, a spicy, floral, green, leather chypre, nearly the whole history of men's perfumery in a single bottle--would most certainly have fit that description. It smells of nothing except itself. I would have called it inimitable, utterly unique.

Until yesterday, anyway, when I smelled Un Bois Sepia by Serge Lutens, launched in 1994, which smells very, very, very much like Pour Lui, only not as good, with an echo of the long-discontinued 1992 Etienne Aigner scent Private Number. I am so disappointed in this.