Le Wild

This is far and away the best (practically only) perfume out there that captures the full beauty of gardenias. As Luca Turin points out this isn’t easy, and both I and my wallet have suffered in the search for the fragrance of my favourite flower. I tried them all - including from Dame perfumery, (close but too much plastic), Estée Lauder - (gorgeous but mainly tuberose), and so the Goldilocks search went on. The only thing that came close previously was the enfleurage from Trygve Harris’ New York store, which is gorgeous but only available as natural oil based scent and is necessarily (heartbreakingly) fleeting - but a fab addition to body products and a natural mood lifter. Le Wild nails it. It is the full gardenia experience, from start to finish, and once the initial gorgeous burst is over it settles into a beautiful skin scent with good sillage and which retains both freshness and that slight waxy, lactonic sweetness all at once. There is nothing unnecessary to detract from the full, fantastic, technicolour experience of the flower. I have at last found my signature fragrance and the perfect gardenia. Please always keep producing this jewel!

Le Wild is a beautiful gardenia fragrance and I can't smell much of anything else in it, other than some tuberose and a tiny hint of jasmine maybe. It really smells like a gardenia flower straight from the bush and it is up there with Tuberose Gardenia by Estée Lauder and Kai eau de parfum, as far as the best gardenia scents go. Le Wild has a bit of indolic skank to it, but not so much that it is overpowering. I feel very classy and sophisticated wearing this perfume, as well as wildly feminine, as if I was a woman from a Pre-Raphaelite painting, playing with my wavy tendrils on a boat on a pond near a gardenia grove. There is something very pure, simple and yet grandiose about this fragrance. Plus the bottle is just beautiful too, what with its heavy and weighted glass, fine etchings and beautiful crystal cap as well. I got a good 5 hours wear from this fragrance and an arm's length sillage, so it is a happy medium for me. You can smell it for sure, but it is not going to knock you out either. My rating for this fragrance? A perfect 10/10.

The bottom line: a gardenia version of Baiser Vole EDT by Cartier. Bearing the Chantecaille name, Le Wild comes with a hefty price tag. Le Wild attempts to distinguish itself from other gardenia scents by the use of gardenia leaves, a note that is mentioned in the official website but not here. The result? A very green, very fresh and lush white floral. It smells elegant, young, and proper. The sweetness here is very subtle. I am always reminded how soft and fragile flower petals are when I wear this. As time goes on the greenness fades and more pure floral sweetness can be detected. Now whether a green gardenia is worth spending $200 on is up to you; I got it with a 25% discount and still think it's asking a bit too much for what it offers. The scent definitely has quality, but projection is soft and longevity is within 6 hours. Should it last longer I would've been much more satisfied.

No joke, I have been looking for 15 years for a gardenia perfume that actually smells like gardenia. Growing up, we had gardenia bushes in our front yard. I could never forget that intoxicating smell, and Le Wild is absolutely IT. The pure flower. I love Chantecaille perfumes and didn't even realize they had a couple of new ones. When I saw that one was based on gardenia, I knew I had to take a risk and blind-buy it. IDK what is up with all the notes above saying, "floral notes" or "wildflowers" when it should just be a single note of gardenia. Le Wild lasts a long time on my skin. I don't need to spray much, just one or two spritzes. I only spray on my wrists, and I could smell it wafting up through my face mask for a couple of hours. If you are looking for straight-up pure, intoxicating gardenia, still white on the bush with no brown in sight, voilà! My search is officially over.

I must say I am adoring these beautiful perfumes by Chantecaille!!! And to know that they don't test on animals, and are so environmentally concerned warms my heart. I love them! And Le Wild is absolutely wonderful. Beautiful flowers!! Just totally beautiful. The most gorgeously sweet and fresh and adorable gardenia! It's TO DIE FOR!!! Truly it is. It's so lovely, and it lasts well too! A good 10 hours! And I relish spraying more on anyway, when it begins to fade, so I don't mind it not lasting forever! (forever for me is 24 hours and more! Most perfumes last a long time on my skin - lucky me! - usually more like 18!) Le Wild is absolutely feminine and so pretty, but mature and womanly. Alluring and gentle. Sensual and most attractive. Gorgeous. LOVE IT!!

Le Wild from Chantecaille is the most realistic gardenia scent I’ve found and I’ve sampled many. I’m indebted to a Fragrantican for including this sample in a recent swap. I grow two kinds of gardenias in my garden and this is an exact dupe of the scent they make. This is gardenia flower both when it’s in its prime and past its prime. The creamy deep gardenia scent envelops you, but it’s not a big projector....not that I need it to be. This is for the gardenia lover, I don’t pick up anything else in the composition. I wish this had a bit more longevity, I’m only getting 2.5 hours on my second wearing. Still, I’m now on the hunt for a large decant or a good price for a FB.

Le Wild is very beautiful, for lovers of a pure, naturalistic gardenia scent. However, it so resembles several other very naturalistic gardenia scents -- Dame Perfumery Gardenia and Forever Florals Gardenia, for example -- that if you have one or more of these others, you don't really need Le Wild. Plus, Le Wild is significantly more expensive. When I did a side-by-side of these three aforementioned perfumes, I'd expected Le Wild to outperform both Dame and Forever Florals due to the expense of the materials, but it didn't; all three lasted between 3-4 hours. In this situation, my inclination is always to go with the better deal. All this being said, Le Wild is gorgeous.

This is the exact scent of gardenia flowers. I think Luca Turin says something like this about Lauder's Tuberose Gardenia, that a soliflore of gardenia is really a full perfume composition in itself, perfect already in nature and satisfying as a perfume - and he's the one that doesn't normally think perfumes should just make us smell like flowers! I agree about gardenia, anyway, and I think Le Wild is just as good as Tuberose Gardenia. I feel that these two are the best gardenias. I actually really like Elizabeth Taylor's Gardenia too, but it's not quite as accurate as Le Wild. I love Le Wild's bottle, the name, and just the heady gorgeousness of gardenia.

Insanely beautiful! Subtle, natural, photorealistic. I can't say I've ever smelt a gardenia flower but this satisfied my endless search for a scent that signified honeysuckle. An extraordinary blend of honeysuckle, Jasmin and tuberose. And gardenia (probably, who knows!?). It smells like the greatest garden you've ever entered. Don't be put off by the large bottle (I tend to buy small bottles wherever possible), it only lasts a couple of hours in it's intensely floral phase so you'll want to respray.

I assume it's difficult to do better when it comes to realistic white floral fragrances. Lost lasting (hours) on my skin, several days in my hair (until next shampoo). This is a simple fragrance but perfectly made. An intoxicating and natural gardenia/flowery small. Green, like straight out of the jungle. No sweet note, just purely botanical. I wish I discovered Chantecaille fragrances before.

This is sticking your face in a gardenia blossom. It's so thick that you definitely get that buttery leather gasoline element. There's no vanilla sugar caramel or sweet dainty lily to girly this up. It's petrol buxom waxy flapper-girl gardenia all the way down. And I love it!!!!

Pure gardenia. Reminds me of my grandma gardenia garden. Bouquet of white flowers/floral and green notes.. would a great wedding perfume

A summer/spring scent. The name "the Wild", absolutely befitting. Wearing on a sunny cooler Spring day, it doesn't last at all. Green and floral. Cheerful and pleasant. Youthful but not at all immature Not the least bit girly. It's a cross between vent verte and gardenia Passion by Annick Goutal. Lovely, but not toDieFor in the least. II Update 2017 beginning of Fall. Sunny day Springish but Crisp. Very sunny day, hot in car, but light jacket appropriate when out. although not necessary. Wore Le Wild to Apple store in upscale Mall. Very soft and mature but friendly smell to wear around those kids (millenials). On the verge of being matronly I feel. Motherly - for sure. Millennial-friendly if you’re older but not a baby boomer

I love gardenia centered scents, but this is a monstrosity to my nose. I swear this has a crap ton of the skankiest'raw' smelling jasmine I've ever had my nose on. Maybe my sample has turned, but the source was legit, so I just think my nose can't handle the unrelenting indoles assaulting it. I've smelled waxy gardenia (especially if it's overdone), green gardenia, 'dry' gardenia, 'wet' gardenia, and heaving bosom lush gardenia. Never have I smelled one radiating gag-inducing dust-covered fecal matter, so I'm assuming the 'white flowers' in the pyramid is really code for the most indolic jasmine I've come across. This is a huge letdown for me, but I know now to avoid fragrances that have 'white flowers' in the scent pyramid.

OMG...flowers, wildflowers, gardenia, white florals. This perfume smells absolutely rancid on my skin. Initially, I detect mustard and onions. There's something disgustingly green, earthy and vegetal about this perfume that makes me nauseous. Going into the garbage as soon as I finish this review. It's that horrid for me.

Though Chantecaille's marketing verbage for Le Wild emphasises Gardenia, Le Wild is in truth a rather complexly mixed white floral. If any pale blossom can claim the lead here it is most likely tuberose, ...or perhaps lily, as its spiciness does add a distinct frisson to this sumptuous floral savagery. By the way 'Brazilian' gardenia is not a 'thing'. There are no gardenias native to South America. In any case, the gardenia note in perfumery is always a constructed accord developed in a perfumery lab, ...so any growing location is only a myth for the marketing team to manipulate. So anyway, is Le Wild an good? Definitely, ..if you like rich white florals a lot. Because there is a lot of aspects of white flora richness to experience here: indolic, honeyed, sharp, green, sweet, and spicy to name but a few. Also by the way, Fragrantica has made two similar review pages for Le Wild Chantecaille (2016). This one shows the bottle most people are likely to see, ...but the other one gives the reader a better, more explanative, note pyramid. I'll just double-post this review on both pages.

This is my second chantecaille bottle after frangipani. Le wild is a photorealistic gardenia similar to cruel gardenia by guerlain which is also a love for me. Le wild is a tad stronger, it is not a delicate gardenia flower, it is the whole damn bush. I actually cannot believe how realistic it is from the mixture they used, as the scent from gardenia flowers cannot be extracted. I bought the special edition bottle with beautiful hand painted flowers from the website. Beautiful

This is the most realistic gardenia scent on the market. Hands down. Believe me I've tried many. More realistic than gardenia essential oil. This is so realistic, and dries down the same way it goes on. Straight fresh cut gardenias in a bowl of water. This is the exact smell! It may be too realistic for some people to want to wear. This makes Michael Kors, Gucci Bloom, and Diptyque Do Son smell like synthetic body sprays. I'm surprised this house is underrated too.

To me it smells like ylang with all its facets: Tropical, heady, non-sweetened. Gradually it reaches the point when it meets gardenia. And they form an opulent floral perfume which certainly makes a statement. I wish they did it in smaller bottles. 30ml of even 20ml would be spot on. I don't like to have too many perfumes which are not going to get used up before they expire. Otherwise, i'd buy it without shadow of a doubt!

This is surprisingly one of the closest and most realistic gardenia fragrances I’ve smelled! I used to think Kai was as close to the real thing as I could get, but this one is the winner so far! Very nice! 😃

Almost a dead ringer for Lush's Lust- an animalic jasmine (I'm really not getting much gardenia) that starts out a little harsh and heavy with the indoles, then softens into a soft musky skin scent.

Dense gardenia vines twining along the edge of a secret meadow in a rainforest. The most raw floral I've ever experienced. Lush and lovely.

Smells exactly like you are holding a gardenia blossom in your hand. Amazingly realistic olfactory experience.

Has a similar root beer vibe to Serge Luten's gardenia, but less melancholy...cute :)