Figues et Garçons

Gorgeous aromatic pear, with woody accords. Almost gourmand-like. Petitgrain and green notes temper the ripe fig and ripened kiwi note. Yes, pitbull friend, that soapy, citronella you smell resonates with me also. Love how it's used here. Reminds me of a male version of Cristalle by Chanel. The drydown is heavenly for all you cedar/sandalwood/vanilla fans. I love fig fragrances and this is going to become one of my staples.

A delicious edible green scent. I can smell the tart, sweet, and herbal tones of fig leaf and fig fruit, and petitgrain, backed by the fruitiness of kiwi and rhubarb's unique scent. Farther along the drydown, a deep, sweet, and resinous cedarwood pops out. The whole concoction is a refreshing unisex treat- totally edible, even with the cedar and greenery mixed in. It reminds me a bit of Olympic Orchids Elektra and Alkemia Les Mysteres, though they do not smell alike necessarily- all three do share a particular approach to fig that I really enjoy.

Not enough female reviews here in my opinion! I tend towards the gourmand spectrum of fragrances, and I love this! I won't compare it to all those other well known figs because I don't feel it's like any of them. On me this is a bright sunny kiwi fig scent. Refreshing and sweet, never cloying and with some great cedar depth in the background. This should definitely be marketed as unisex! Women can and should try this!

When you first spray this fragrance on your skin you are met with pretty strong petitgrain, cedar, fig leaves and other "green" smells. The opening reminds me of vintage Silences by Jacomo. These first notes may strike you as nice, but pretty typical of a middle of the road masculine scent. Do not discount Figues et Garcons at this point. The best is yet to come! After about an hour on skin, things begin to develop in a beautiful way. Tart fruits come into the mix, joined with just a bit of sweetness that appears to be from the fig fruit, but this is not one of those awful jammy, too sweet fig fragrances. This is fresh, like the tart, but faintly sweet fragrance and taste of a fresh fig. I smell vanilla in the mix and with the musk this scent dries down to a real beauty, stunning after about 4 hours, fresh with just a bit of sweet fruits with green and woods, like a picnic in a garden near a forest on a windy spring day. Longevity is good. You can smell it on your skin the next morning. Ladies, do not fear this one. The drydown is absolutely beautiful and very appropriate for a man or a woman. To me, it smells more like a woman's scent in the drydown, but it would smell so grand on a man. This was a most serendipitous blind buy for me, thanks to my favorite niche store that put this beauty on sale!

It's probably time for me to face the fact: Nez à Nez and I were never meant to be. It must be the base which is immediately recognizable to me, so that the moment I apply one of their perfumes I identify it as having been produced by this house. That's what happened this morning: I selected out of a box a sample labeled only FIGUE ET GARCONS, with no knowledge of the house, but the moment I got a sniff of it, I knew that it was Nez à Nez. In the case of FIGUES ET GARCONS, the house sweetish orientalish base has been embellished with a quite perceptible fig note, so those who like the base and also like fig, may find much to like here. I don't know why I do not find their base appealing. To my nose, it just seems kind of gunky and moving toward the stale oriental category. But that's okay. As they say, every pot has a lid, and mine is not this! I should perhaps add that this composition does not seem at all masculine to me. If anything, it's unisex, but to me it seems more like a designer level oriental perfume for women.

This particular fragrance opens up with a somehow sweet pear note that at the same time looses a little bit of it's personality given the co-appearance of an evident kiwi. After a couple minutes this fragrance acquires a green slight soapy aura but it disappears after some hours. Fig in here is a mere supporting actor present only in a very faint leafy form which also disappears fast. If you wanna buy this fragrance just because of it's name, don't do it! There's almost nothing of figs in here, trust me.