Bowmakers 2012 Eau de Parfum

Bowmakers (Eau de Parfum) by D.S. & Durga
Bottle Design Kavi Moltz
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8.0 / 10 283 Ratings
Bowmakers (Eau de Parfum) is a popular perfume by D.S. & Durga for women and men and was released in 2012. The scent is woody-resinous. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Woody
Resinous
Spicy
Smoky
Green

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes Top Notes
Violin varnishViolin varnish MahoganyMahogany Air accordAir accord
Heart Notes Heart Notes
ColophonyColophony CypressCypress Maple woodMaple wood
Base Notes Base Notes
Tree resinTree resin CedarCedar MossMoss

Perfumer

Ratings
Scent
8.0283 Ratings
Longevity
8.0224 Ratings
Sillage
7.1227 Ratings
Bottle
7.8193 Ratings
Value for money
6.464 Ratings
Submitted by DonVanVliet, last update on 13.04.2024.

Reviews

9 in-depth fragrance descriptions
8
Bottle
8
Sillage
8
Longevity
8
Scent
Chizza

273 Reviews
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Chizza
Chizza
Top Review 24  
Olfactory instruction of a bow making
Bowmakers is by name alone a fragrance I really like, because first of all I like creative names and not just something like "Leather" (Forgive me, AdP) or something like that. Secondly - you may hardly believe it - but I like to do things like fishing, horseback riding or archery, mostly on holiday of course. In this respect I had sympathy from the beginning. Now I know both versions of Bowmakers, I find the older version slightly better, but I also have to admit that the new bottle has already started the maturing process and the wood is getting darker and more oily and gradually gets the characteristic lacquer note. In this respect I take a relaxed view and won't compare both versions in the further course of time, as the differences are marginal, although I would rate the older version (still) half a point higher.
Of course the violin varnish stands out at the beginning and only here the difference between the two versions is relatively clear to me. While on the one hand the perfume takes on the scent of a violin varnished some time ago, the reformulation shows us rather a freshly varnished violin. The mahogany reminds us of old furniture from our parents' house, for example; I think everyone can imagine something like that. Very noble but also with a mature character.
With a smooth transition Bowmakers travels back in time. Where just a moment ago the olfactory focus was on the finished product, we are now in a carpentry workshop and initially manufacture the final product. It smells of shavings, stains and varnish as well as a melange of a variety of woods. One can easily sense a hint of incense, which comes from maple. More dominant, however, is the cypress which, with its limey character, provides that little bit of freshness which catapulted us into the production process.
A sentence about the component colophony, here probably meant is violin resin: this consists classically of various coniferous woods and that's how Bowmakers smells. As much as I appreciate the cypress, the question of whether it is used sensibly here always resonates for me because I find the result good but it would have its charm to perceive these woods without cypress.
Maybe you don't have to wait that long, because at least in the older version the cypress retreats quickly or is displaced. In the newer version it offers more resistance and never quite goes.
It gets exciting in the base, because the cedar fights its way forward; the later one does not hurry the first violin (I had to install it) but the second one does. Actually more outstanding in the old version, if you know that it is included. Slightly cool and herbaceous moss rounds off the scent and appears more herbaceous the younger the scent is. Personally I appreciate a less herbaceous attitude but it is empirically clear that this point is only a matter of time. Like probably the cypress and the prelude.
Regarding durability and sillage, the newer version is stronger, although both are good. The newer one smells more intensive, longer lasting strong and stays in the room for hours even when sprayed, as my little daughter impressively demonstrated to me. Since then, the most important fragrances in my collection are also slightly higher but this is only mentioned as a small anecdote in passing.
Bowmakers is - if we use the older fragrances from D.S. & Durga - my favourite. Undisputed. Burning Barbershop is also nice, the rest is solid to good, but doesn't reach me as much as these two. This is simply because of the symbiosis of varnish and resin. In general I like darker wood scents like Norne but also Arso better than rather light variants. In this respect it's astonishing where we finally have the lime cypress here but it harmonizes extraordinarily here in the main.
In so far as my purchase recommendation for its implementation I can recommend a natural cosmetics supplier from Germany. There is not much to be found in the prices of the individual suppliers, unless you buy this fragrance with a bit of luck in rare offers. I stayed with my natural cosmetics retailer who added several samples including a 12ml bottle. Plus a handwritten and perfumed letter, I appreciate that.
18 Comments
7
Pricing
9
Bottle
8
Sillage
9
Longevity
9
Scent
Ergreifend

40 Reviews
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Ergreifend
Ergreifend
Top Review 33  
The grandfather's violin
My grandfather's violin, who died in 1973, still hangs on the wall in the bedroom of my mother's parents' house. Somewhere in a small village, in a high clearing in north-eastern Bosnia. Unfortunately, I never got to know him, but I have looked through all the photos that remain of him countless times and they not only stand out in our memories, but also look good in the bedroom. It has charm and exudes a lot of life. Grandfather was a passionate violin player. It was his constant companion in his all too short life.

Last year, our grandchildren took the trouble to refurbish and reframe all the pictures. In black lacquer picture frames. The old furniture, which was made in what was then Yugoslavia and still holds its own. We treated the wood and gave it a new mattress, as well as blue silk bed linen that Grandma treated herself to sometime in the 90s. Of course, the violin is also often treated by the local master violin maker, who is already approaching 93 years of age.

Unfortunately, Grandma passed away in 2019, leaving the house empty, but it is still a meeting place for us all. It is always a pleasure to enter the house, especially the room. The smells that build up, the pictures that smile at you from the wall. You can literally hear, smell and feel them. The smells and the room remind me of this fragrance! Right from the first time you touch it. The smell of the different types of wood and the subtle scent of lacquer combine so harmoniously that it makes your heart smile. As if in slow motion, warm resin drips from the ceiling onto the dusty floor. Hay flickers in the somewhat stuffy air, repeatedly sending dark waves of shallow smoke through the room for the first time. It becomes much darker and a little more serious. Smoke, combined with ageing wood and pure resin, that can be something! Over time, however, it no longer seems so serious, but deliberately more flowing. Beautiful, warm accords, above all that subtle scent of hay, stir up the dust in your head. Lacquer, as smooth as if you were stroking the violin with your warm fingertips.

What a stunner! It also has an impressive longevity, although I don't know whether my brain is playing tricks on me here and simply keeping me in this fragrance bubble for longer. Because memory. Because grandfather. Because I never met him.

A great, timeless fragrance that takes me back in time.
Happy to have found something where I can remember.
Thank you, I have finished and thank the anonymous donor
25 Comments
8
Bottle
6
Sillage
7
Longevity
8
Scent
Schallhoerer

56 Reviews
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Schallhoerer
Schallhoerer
Helpful Review 16  
Arc of tension from woods and resins
The Bowmakers is a snapshot for wood affine scent friends. Here it resins and creaks at every second. The sawdust flies around our ears. Varnishes are applied and leave noses on the wood. And hasn't someone forgotten the soldering iron in the wood here?

The scent starts me a wonderfully authentic mixture of fresh sawdust and all kinds of glazes. I had before the first testing the concern that these varnishes or glazes could go in a pungent or even biting direction. For me, however, they radiate an immensely comforting and soothing aura in combination with the clearly perceptible cypress. Anyone who has ever been in a woodworking shop and witnessed the construction of a wooden instrument will immediately recognize this smell in the air. While I don't know anything about violin or bow making, I do know what it smells like to a luthier who builds guitars himself. And it's exactly this kind of snapshot that the Bowmakers is able to reflect in a truly three-dimensional way. The wood shavings that fall to the floor, the fine dust that trickles out of the saw and the varnish in all its viscous beauty. I know rosin from my own use in playing the guitar. If you "abuse" a violin bow and play the guitar strings with it, the most beautiful distorted tones come out. This rosin chord of different resins is wonderfully staged here, realistic and comprehensible. Nothing seems synthetic or artificial. The individual notes intertwine wonderfully and result in a composition of resins and woods. In the opening, Bowmakers reminds me of Richard Lüscher Britos' 46°N 08°E for a brief moment, but then quickly goes in a different direction. As it progresses, I smell something that reminds me of the smell of a soldering iron in wood. As if one would burn his initials into the wood or solder.

The Perfomance is then with me a double-edged sword. While wearing my sample I was not satisfied with the durability. I could perceive the fragrance often already after 1-2 hours barely and a radiance was as good as non-existent. In the meantime, however, but a bottle has moved in here with me and this performs but significantly better on my skin. 6-7 hours, the scent is thereby perceptible while he radiates the first hour quite strong and then withdraws and becomes much more intimate.

The bottle is minimalist, slightly retro in appearance and with a decent weight. The sprayer of my copy is unfortunately not very good. Since only a rather short and small spray comes out. At the price I expect there simply more or a better sprayer.

The Bowmakers has me contrary to my first assumption very quickly under its spell. This mixture of essential aromas of the varnishes and glazes paired with the dry sawdust and woodwork results in the sum of a wonderfully authentic fragrance experience for fans of wood and resins
8 Comments
5
Scent
PBullFriend

308 Reviews
PBullFriend
PBullFriend
Helpful Review 4  
a very tiny violin
I used to play the violin when I was a child, so I certainly recognize the smell of a violin's varnish, along with the smell of the chalky rosin one applies to its bow. But my two wearings of Bowmakers didn't give me any recognizable amount of these scents.

This one is mostly about pine resin, which is nice. It's not, though, something for which I would pay $145 for a 50 ml bottle. Again, D.S. & Durga writes gorgeous ad copy: "Amongst the transcendental woods of the 1800s, craftsmen from the Massachusetts Bay Colony built violins & bows in the tiny towns of the Pioneer Valley. The shops were riddled with old growth mahogany, burled maple shavings, amber pine rosin, aged walnut & their unique secret varnishes." Again, I wish they would spend more time on creating a memorable scent.

Lest anyone think that only department store fragrances use nonsensical notes, by the way, DS&D brings you the "outdoors accord." Really? I have lived in and visited more than a few places, and I notice that the "outdoors" can smell significantly different according to which place I am in. Seriously - to which "outdoors" are they referring?
2 Comments
Mlleghoul

352 Reviews
Mlleghoul
Mlleghoul
Helpful Review 3  
A YouTuber filming a capsule wardrobe video
DS & Durga’s Bowmakers is lovely and weird and I want to bathe in it. Bowmakers is all cool, peculiar woods, maybe cypress and cedar, a fleeting leatheriness, and what feels to me like the synthetic woody cozy ambery muskiness of ISO E super. This is how I imagine the scent of a Scandinavian minimalist YouTube lifestyle vlogger’s cozy 400 square foot apartment in wintertime. Specifically chosen sandalwood candles in amber apothecary jars, a very aesthetically pleasing and strategically placed tube sweet almond and musk hand cream, hundred-year-old but well-cared aromatic hard-wood floors. A tiny capsule wardrobe displayed prominently on a coat rack, where a thrifted leather jacket in excellent condition hangs for guests to admire, the fragrance of which mingles with a chilled early morning breeze gusting from the open windows while they’re airing out their bedroom as part of their 5 AM morning routine that they are currently filming for their subscribers.
0 Comments
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Statements

7 short views on the fragrance
BoBoChampBoBoChamp 4 years ago
7
Sillage
8
Longevity
7.5
Scent
Initially challenging spicy-smoky synthetic... a gently fresh, yet dusty dry-woody Fall fragrance, balanced by a solid earthy-resinous base.
0 Comments
VerbenaVerbena 8 years ago
8
Bottle
7
Sillage
9
Longevity
9.5
Scent
Carpenter’s workshop. Wood shelves, oil-coating, varnish and sawdust. Genuine fragrance, warm, grounded, down-to-earth, and honest. Simply great!
0 Comments
Ch03npCh03np 19 days ago
The "varnish" accord at the top smells peppery and a little vintage, in a sense. The woods come out in the dry down and almost turn sweet.
0 Comments
EinfinkenEinfinken 5 months ago
6
Bottle
9
Sillage
9
Longevity
6.5
Scent
Smells like a realistic Luthier's workshop, but one I like to smell in a room vs wear. Too masculine for my tastes.
0 Comments
TombbbTombbb 3 years ago
8
Scent
Opening is sharp, off-putting, the weakest part of the scent. Then it descends into peculiar woods, cypress mostly. Mixed, but rewarding.
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