Okay....so I really tested myself with bois d'argent and had no prior knowledge about this scent. I was happy with my olfactory skills when I looked at the notes on here and discovered that you get pretty much all of them. The order that I got them was leather, patchouli, musk, honey and definite sweetness of iris and some amber too. The musk mellows and then some vanilla comes in the heart. It's reminiscent of elements from lots of fragrances the opening powdery leather reminds me of Midnight in Paris. The almost chocolately patchouli of Tom Ford Noir and then the warmth of honey and vanilla reminds me of Serge Lutens Chergui and Lanvin Avant Garde...I could go on...but I won't. Despite having made all these comparisons this fragrance has it's own thing going on and it's very nice...just something about it that's not for me. The drydown becomes almost gourmand as the fragrance settles on my skin, very luxurious but ultimately not what I'm looking for. It's complex and transitions nicely from the opening through the notes in a very smoothly blended outing from Menardo and Dior.