Origins & milestones

Woody did not arrive as one bottle. The timeline below keeps Grasse, Guerlain, Chanel, Nahéma and IFRA as proper names, not metaphors.

Read the years as a map of trade and reformulation, not as a ranking of beauty.

Timeline

1. 1926Bois des Îles

   Ernest Beaux / Chanel: sandal, aldehydes, ylang — wood as couture.

2. 1973Iso E Super

   IFF’s woody-amber molecule; later a genre.

3. 1992Féminité du Bois

   Lutens / Sheldrake / Bourdon: cedar as a feminine manifesto for Shiseido then Lutens.

4. 1998Déclaration

   Ellena for Cartier: vetiver-woody spice, watercolor woods.

5. 2006Terre d’Hermès

   Ellena’s flint-orange-cedar; mineral wood as a bestseller.

6. 2006Molecule 01

   Geza Schoen’s Iso E Super solinote.

7. 2000sTam Dao woods

   Diptyque’s sandal-cedar temple woods.

8. 2010sWoody haze

   Every masculine brief asks for Iso E and Ambrox.

9. CITES yearsSandal pressure

   Legal woods shift formulas toward cedar and synths.

10. 2010sPencil revival

    Virginia cedar as a named niche (Comme des Garçons, etc.).

The eras

• Furniture and incense — Wood as material culture, not a “woody family” aisle.
• Couture woods — Bois des Îles and occasional masculines.
• Cedar feminine — Féminité du Bois re-genders the pencil.
• Iso E decade — Molecule 01 and Terre teach haze and flint.
• Ambrox-wood default — Designer masculines as wood-amber uniforms.

Milestones

• Bois des Îles, 1926 — Wood inside Chanel modernism.
• Féminité du Bois, 1992 — Cedar as a woman’s spine.
• Molecule 01, 2006 — Wood reduced to one IFF molecule as a product.

Woody keeps moving; the other six chapters say what one date cannot.

Origins & milestonesNotes & accordsCraft & methodCulture & meaningIcons & legendsHow to wearMarket & bottles