Philosykos Eau de Parfum

Give yourself a hug. With this EDT, it’s warm, loving, natural, comforting, and even joyful. In fact, I’ve been giddy all day since wearing it; it just makes you happy. The opening is the damp soil, the soft grey bark of the Ficus carica and its green, pubescent leaves. But it’s all about the fruits, the hard green figs that become sumptuous and ripe, a glaucous deep purple with a tear of syrup at the ostiole. These figs—beckoning you to pluck them from the tree—are only a spray or two away. Notes: • The largest volume is 100ml / 3.4oz for $120. I feel this price is good for the complexity and quality of the fragrance. • No headaches, rashes, or sensitivities to report. • Completely natural. NO SYNTHETIC NOTES! • For me, the intro is green, and you get the soil, and the leaves and the bark. • The fragrance then gets sweeter but never cloying. • The drydown is very soft and comforting, some men may feel this is feminine. I recommend the fewest amount of sprays to avoid this? • Over-spraying will result in a very slight metallic sheen to the figs in the drydown that you’ll detect if your doing a lot of nose-to-wrist business (which you will). • It lasts a very long time on me—all day. • I feel positive and happy wearing this. Your cheeks will ache from smiling so much. • Perfect for day, summer. Appropriate in the evening, summer. Potentially appropriate for fall, even winter. • The drydown is also creamy which adds to this fragrance’s trans-seasonal potential. • As a man, I don’t feel ‘sexy’ per se, but the creamy drydown alludes to these possibilities. (But don’t buy this just for sexy-time). • Appropriate for a man and woman. Young and old. • Mood: casual. Attire: casual. Not for work days at PriceWaterhouseCoopers or similar venues. I just purchased this fragrance so I will perform more ‘tests’ in the near future, performing various activities, indoors and out, hot and cold days, on clothes or on the skin. • Projection is still being determined. I have samples of James Heeley’s Figuier, L’Artisan Parfumeur Premier Figuier (EDT), and Hermes’s Un Jardin en Mediterranee. I will do a comparison soon too. Enjoy! (...my first review)

If you're a botanist, this is your fragrance. So this is completely not my type of fragrance. I steer away from fresh and green scents. But there came a day, a warm humid day in late May, you know that day in western Europe when spring gives way to summer, and you feel it in the air, rain feels warm, humidity turns tropic, and we go from easygoing 20 degrees to 30 overnight, humidity and rain give way to drought and scorching sun, and there we go! Summer falls upon us! So in this kind of transition period into summer, I suddenly got a craving for... a green, fresh but milky scent, WITHOUT tea. The "without tea" is important, as I cannot stand green fresh scents with focus on green tea, bamboo, and the like. So I thought: what have a I heard of that is green, fresh, but grounded, not up in the air like all the teas, bamboos and hinokis I have tried. So I ordered a sample of Philosykos right away and oh my... it fits the season perfectly. It's so so so vegetal, so close to the ground like plants, think green colour that is wet, the air is humid. There is a very very very slight sweetness (fig fruit I assume?) but it does not come to forefront at all, it's the green parts of the plant that are the focus here. Where the opening is airier, more humid, it takes us into something milky, balmy, think coconut milk but still very green and wet. I absolutely adore the fact that this is a fresh green fragrance but it's so wonderfully weighed and grounded. The green notes in this make me think of green vegetal scents from early 2000s. Their only problem then was that they weren't grounded by anything at all, and they were so so so fleeting. Seeing how Philosykos was created end of 90s, my association fits. A fantastic green fragrance, only drawback is it's so intimate and if only I start moving around, it disappears from the skin fast. Does hold to textiles though. If EDP is so fleeting, I don't want to know how short lived the EDT is. I would love to have a bottle of the EDP, but I am still unsure - the price is high, while this is good for only a particular time in the year.

Created in 1996 by the exceptional nose Olivia Giacobetti, Philosykos is not simply a perfume, but a hyper-realistic journey to a land kissed by the sun. Inspired by memories of Greek summers on Mount Pelion, this masterpiece from the Legnoso Aromatico group remains, decades later, the absolute point of reference for anyone looking for the fig note in perfumery. Philosykos has the extraordinary ability to photograph the entire fig tree, not just its fruit, evolving on the skin in a magnetic way. The beginning is a burst of disarming realism. The fig leaf dominates the scene, giving a green, bitter, almost crunchy sensation, slightly dampened by the natural sweetness of the ripe fig. It's the smell of a broken leaf between your fingers. As the minutes pass, the fragrance softens. The green notes continue to keep the scent fresh and airy, while coconut makes its appearance. Be careful, though: it's not a "beach" or sweet coconut, but a creamy, tart coconut milk that perfectly recreates the white, milky sap of the tree. In the finish, the fragrance sits on a solid and comfortable base. Fig tree, woody notes and cedar wood emerge to give structure. The perfume loses its initial green humidity to transform into the memory of wood warmed by the summer sun. It is at its best in spring and summer, where its botanical freshness shines, but it can be a splendid nostalgic cuddle even in the cold months.Performance (EDP)Compared to the Eau de Toilette version, the Eau de Parfum is denser, slightly less green and more woody. It has good persistence on the skin and an intimate, elegant, never intrusive trail. Philosykos is an evocative, almost therapeutic perfume. It is the ideal choice for those who love "botanical" fragrances, clean and elegant, far from opulent or hyper-sweet commercial clichés. Wearing it means bringing with you a piece of Mediterranean summer, the shade of a tree and the freshness of lifeblood. A piece of niche perfumery history that never ceases to fascinate.

summer is just starting. me and my mom go to south italy for a short vacation. on our way home from the beach, we pass by a small store with fresh fruit. we buy some figs, the green ones that are still kinda hard, and flat peaches that are still hard on the touch. we come home, and i come to the kitchen to this exact smell. i love every second of wearing this. i kept doubting the blind buy for half a year, because of how often perfumes that are described by people as “too green” end up not being green enough for me, and i wasn't ready for disappointment. until i got to try it in duty free on my trip. this was love at first smell. my flight was delayed, and i think i paced around the diptique island for hours. money was tight with consideration for spendings on the trip, and it would be a greater decision to order it later when i'd be back home. but i couldn't wait and just bought it right there. it is as green as i wanted it for first two stages of breakdown. simply perfect. when it dries down, it has the slightly lactonic coconut feel, that just finishes the composition perfectly. i did't get any strong dry wood in this, more like sweet juices of under the bark. love love love to this one. it also mixes well with other fragrances, adding missing greenness to scents that i enjoy for other reasons.

Philosykos was my introduction into niche perfumes. I told the SA that I was looking for something green, grassy, nature-inspired, and she handed me this. It opens with a green, astringent, split open live branch. It's fresh, hyper-realistic vegetal note that immediately conjured up a lost memory. The memory of me walking around the fence perimeter of my childhood playground. Listening to Pearl Jam's Ten in my Walkman while the rest of the kids played on the jungle gym. Yes, I was the weird, introspective, artsy kid. In the corner of the playground, I noticed some sappy fruits peaking through the fence from a fig tree. At the time, I didn't know. My curiosity was piqued and I picked the fruit and opened it up. The branch produced a milky sap. I recall the forest green leaves, like sandpaper. I tasted the mildly sweet, jammy fruit without reservations. This was the age of innocence, curiosity, adventure, and when the entire world was at my fingertips...the carefree days before technology became commonplace...the days when children played outside and not behind a screen. To me, this perfume is that memory in a bottle.