Scent Four: Yoyogi

First impressions- oh my..... This was pure love at first dab. Despite the fragrance only being composed of 4 notes (cypress, chamomile, wormwood and grass), this is complex and a shape shifting fragrance upon first application. Sometimes I get a sweet caramel note, sometimes I get more green lush hay and fir. Somehow it all works together. I get an immediate visual of sitting alone in a tall, dark, forest filled with old and beautiful trees. It’s summer and the heat and humidity makes the tree bark and leaves radiate their scent while the grass and flowers below hum and slowly release their own sweet aroma. It’s peaceful, tranquil and somehow still slightly powerful and romantic. After a few hours - stays fairly green and citrus until it simmers down to a skin scent. Sillage and longevity - pretty good as well. I wouldn’t call it beastly but it definitely possesses some projection and decent sillage (I keep getting little hints of it from my neck and from behind the ears) The longevity is decent; at least 3 hours on the skin before it totally becomes non-existent. Would I buy a bottle - hell yes and I just may soon. This is a green scent that checks a box for me that I didn’t know I wanted/needed. It's different from the other green fragrances I have with the minimal composition of notes but still has a complex execution to it. Three words to describe this scent - serene, romantic, nature

On the nozzle of the bottle it smells sharp and almost screeches. On first contact with the skin it’s the same due to the sharp Cyprus. After 15 minutes or so it settles in to a calm, peaceful, and zen like scent. The cut grass on a dewy morning presents itself, while the chamomile also comes to life. The description is perfect. It’s like walking to work on an early summers morning, it’s slightly crisp and the lawns in the park are gettin mowed. The cut grass scent is sharp. Then at lunch you go back to the park, the weather is a bit warmer and a little humid, and the gentle scent of the cut grass pleasantly remains. It finishes gently. Projects well enough for a couple of hours. Needs a respray on the skin. Tends to stay well on clothes. Absolutely in love with this one. I’ve gone from Byredo De Los Santos to this.

It is early spring in central Tokyo. There is no way you will go on a jog, so you take a hung-over-laden morning stroll. You decide not to go to Meiji Shrine but instead walk around Yoyogi park. The shrine would have been too holy. You don't remember everything that happened last night, but you know you had a good time. The smell on your shirt has the residue of American Spirits––yellows. You had forgotten how good a cigarette is after being slightly tipsy. You inhale the freshly cut grass air, and as you exhale, you get a text from an old flame who was at the party saying, "it was nice to see u last nite." You grin. That's Yoyogi––nostalgically opaque and aspirational.

Wow. A wonderful, sparkling, crystalline green. The best wormwood ever, with a light chamomile aftertaste. Yoyogi is one of my all-time favorite clean unisex greens. Up there with Bamboo Harmony and Un Jardin en Mediterranee. Maybe even better. Sometimes you just want to smell like chlorophyll and fresh, bitter herbs...and that means Yoyogi.

My god, how beautiful this is! A pine forest in winter. Cold. Airy. Smoky. I am surprised to see there is no incense in this one, but I guess it is the cypress that makes it so smoky? Intermittent wafts of something floral, ethereal floating on top. Gorgeous. Longevity is good - I can still smell it the day after spraying.

Deep, meditative, lush, smooth, its like you are on the mountains in Japan, breathing in chamomile, grass and woods. I tried this whole CDG Monocle line now, and i think this is a masterclass in woods and green outdoorsy smells. This slightly reminds me of Nasomatto Absinth.

내가 좋아하는 풀향. 향수보단 룸스프레이로 더 좋을 향같다.

As you can see from my profile I’m a CDG fan. When I saw this in stock at Luckyscent I immediately placed an order, excited that there was another CDG to buy and with notes that I knew I’d love. I ripped open the parcel as soon as I got my hands on it and sprayed it on. An initial spray, very bright with wormwood and cypress - a tinge soapy nose to skin immediately brightened my day. It didn’t last long in projection and 15 minutes in it darkens and the almost camphorous minty airiness is juxtaposed by this chamomile and cypress - it comes across as almost incense and occasionally of matchstick heads ala Parfum De Marly Byerley or Guerlain Vetiver Extreme. So it has typical average EDT performance trying to compete perhaps for example very closely with EDPs such Olivier Durbano turquoise and to House of Sillage 003 or distantly A Lab On Fire Hossegor or Lubin Itasca at a whopping price of $120. Sorry but it just isn’t that good!!! I’d rather have any of the others which are the same price for more qty or even gladly pay the premium for 003 which is the best. So on that note - I get CDGs marketing for this but for the price this is actually a bit of an insult for price v performance.

Mixed feelings about this one. My first impression, on a scent strip, was of a gentle woody / spicy scent. It is a completely different experience on my skin. For the first 5-10 minutes it's exactly what I want, a complex warmth. But around the 10 minute mark, I suddenly get a undeniable blast of the smell that lingers on your hair and clothes after a cigarette. I was completely shocked and honestly repulsed by the intensity and realism of the cigarette smell. It's just not what I want to smell like, and as a former smoker I can't help but feel self conscious when wearing this. That said, the cigarette smell does dissipate fairly quickly, and is replaced by dry chamomile teabag / hay which I actually find very nice in the summer. Strangely it has been growing on me and I reach for it on hotter days. I just don't love the cigarette break in the middle!

First impressions. It's 1961 and I am sitting next to guy on a park bench before work. He's in a light rain-ready coat, chapeaux, dragging on his last ciggie before he makes his way into work as an ad man on Madison. Dark, clean shaven, handsome. The lawn mower guy drives by mixing in the scent of fresh cut grass and a gentle top soil turn. It's alluring. I am confident I convinced the Mad Men to join me for the morning tryst. Dry down almost immediate for me. After an hour the perfume became a very very subtle green and chamomile....surely we're in the after glow high tea and tiny sandwich phase of our "relationship" --- discussing when next we'll meet. ;)

I am not a CDG person, which seems to be an unpopular opinion. This, however, is the first I've liked, but it's not without caveats. On open, I'm transported to December 25th - I felt like a Christmas tree with this on. That's got to be the cypress, full press, no doubt. Once it mellows it still has the cypress note but it leans into the chamomile and grass on me - this is when its charm kicks in. The chamomile isn't a sickly sweet - it's nicely balanced by the green notes. It stuck on me all day and night and I felt more comfortable with it as it went through its motions.

I like this one enough. It is quite safe and inoffensive. I don't find it extremely interesting but I really remember enjoying its greeness more when I was first building my wardrobe. I feel more indifferent with it today and mostly now when I wear it I sometimes wish it went into more bitter, minerally, petrichor or grassy directions. Maybe I am expecting too much from a designer but one can always expect more especially when it comes to designers. It is quite nice for what it is and I think it would work as a simple spring green for a small wardrobe.

I like this, but not for me. On first spray, I get the cypress. As it sits on the skin, the grass and chamomile come through, but it's still very cypress dominant. The chamomile mostly lends an herbal quality, which is almost bitter, while the grass lends almost a soft sweetness. That being said, it was very hard to pick out those notes, I had to really sit & sniff. Very nice & fresh, but definitely more of a woody, masculine fragrance.

A nice aromatic green scent with many parallels to the Hinoki release from the same line. The central cypress note is surrounded by delicate hints of wormwood, chamomile and grass. The overall feeling is of contemplative lush serenity. Moderate in sillage and projection this masculine leaning scent mostly stays close to the skin offering quiet reflective comfort. Enjoy!

This scent feels so divided—one side is sweet, the other is bitter. Gradually, the sweetness fades a bit, but the bitterness never fully takes over. It lingers with a woody note.

Getting it on in the woods during summer. What an interesting mix! Sweet medicinal (almost candy-like) chamomile, an earthy (almost ashy cigarette-like) backing and what I'd best describe as "heat". At times the sweetness and ashiness smells like entering a fresh open park during sunrise just as the sunshine cuts through the morning fog and the dew is still on the grass. At others this smells like getting intimate with a cigarette smoker that wears overly synthetic floral/fruity hair cream on a wood log. The most 'out-there' of CdG x Monocle's collab and my least favorite of the four. An interesting piece for experience's sake but I wouldn't want to smell like this and there are better things I'd want to smell on others.

This is the first of several CDG fragrances I'm currently testing. On the opening I get cypress, but with the a strong sweetness from the chamomile; too much for my liking. Much like travisjames notes it smells like Christmas to me, but not all crisp tree, more like one of those fake tree sprays or an aromatherapy wax approximation of "Christmas tree". As that fades, I get some pleasant grassy notes, but the sweet Cypress continues. Nothing I'd want to smell like or smell.

Pleasant herbal candy notes with an undertone of wet, rotting lumber which makes Yoyogi smell like your washing machine has gone moldy. It's OK every once in a while. 6/10

I don’t like this scent, unlike all others from these series. There is a type of fragrances I find disappointing: green / herbal with sugery sweetness. It’s like you’re about to get something natural and fresh, but you get over-sweetened tea instead. This one belongs to this group.

Comme Des Garcon has always had an esoteric fan base. This is another offering that should appeal to that radical crowd. The chamomile aroma in Yoyogi is identical to the one found in the fan favorite Weinerblut Ex Voto. The blend of refreshing chamomile is perfectly complemented by a verdant combination of aromas, including wormwood, freshly cut grass and cypress. This is what I would call a personality perfume. I imagine an artsy woman outfitted in a slouchy beanie or a guy wearing one of those zany Meshika hats to pull this off. And to be honest, Yoyogi isn't as weird as I'm making it out to be. Absolutely John Doe and Jane Doe friendly. There's a reason why this house leads the stat sheets in oohs and aahs.

First impressions: This smells amazing but reminds me of something. Then, it hit me: this artemisia/wormwood is the same used, at least I think, as John Varvatoss Vintage. That is the only thing they have in common, but I do recognize it. Other than that, it's pretty green and lightweight. Granted, this is just from a dabber 1ml sample but compared to anything from Tauerville, this is definitely soft. I might get another sample, a spray one, to see how the sillage really is; it has the potential to be aromatic.

As soon as it went on, I LOVED it. So, I tried it again today (my sample is from 2019), and I just couldn't stop sniffing it, and then I remembered what it reminded me of -- a handful of Pineward scents, possibly Ocean Pine, Brokilan and another I just can't remember the name of! Cypress, herbaceousness and green notes all blended marvellously together! I much prefer the Pineward scents, to tell you the truth, but yeah, this one is pretty good, too...

photorealistic cypress on display, here, and it's amazing. there's some aromatic greenness in the background, too, but by and large, it's cypress based. i love all of CDG's Japan woods scents, but I personally don't want to smell like that. All these scents are such accurate and memory-evoking scents, but, it's not something i want to smell like. CDG does good japanese woods scents...

Oh, liking this a LOT! It smells like dried straw flowers, or dried golden hay. Really pretty, very light. The cypress is like the cypress bush, not the forest tree; the grass is dried in the sun, as is the chamomile, like the weeds on the side of the road we used to pick as children to make tea. No wormword/artemisia is detectable. Nice!!

unmistakable green note at the opening, but in tandem with something sweet, smoky, and medicinal. almost like a menthol cigarette? something in this shifts to a dentist office on me for some reason, like strawberry fluoride although not as fruity of course -just the same sterile sweetness.

Personally like the smidge of sweetness that exists from the chamomile. A great scent to remember early morning walks through the parks of Japan. Would work well as daily scent for some. Dries down to a generally non offensive skin scent.

Aah, not the right kind of sweetness for me. I definitely smell the similarity to Cape Heartache and there's something about the both of these that puts me off.

why am I seeing so many bad reviews on here for this?? This smells amazing. smells like a fresh start and growth

Doing it after dark, doing it in the park.