Willow

I purchased the Skylar perfume palette and of all the scents I tried, Willow is my favorite. I love that this line is clean, cruelty-free, and you can mix scents to find a signature fragrance that works for you and your body chemistry. Out of the 6 scents, Willow is my favorite. It's earthy, green, mossy, and woodsy. I like it. I really do think of walking through a forest or the woods when I spray it on my pulse points. There's nothing groundbreaking about the other 5 scents. Though they are lovely, they're also unremarkable, at least two are forgettable, and most all are so light that they disappear in a matter of minutes. Willow's longevity is much better than the rest, though still crappy as compared to other fragrances I own with similar notes. Willow opens with a distinct pine-like note. I can smell the cedarwood which can come off strong as an essential oil, but it's well balanced in this fragrance. For some reason, I smell some type of red rose in the dry down but ever so faintly. Sillage is moderate when you first spray it, but it settles pretty quickly into a skin scent. Longevity is terrible. Within 20 minutes, I can't quite smell the fragrance unless I press my wrist to my nose. Perhaps this would perform better if it was sprayed on a top. The frags in this palette are safe for office wear given how light they are, but I highly doubt I'd pay the $80+ for the full flankers, purely based on how bad longevity is. I have other clean-line frags that last the entire day within the same price-point, so I'd rather go with those. I'll give it some time because there's a part of me that wouldn't mind buying a full flanker of Willow. We'll see. I'm really glad I purchased the palette and got a good sense of how each fragrance performs before investing in full flankers. p.s., the first time I sprayed Willow, I was struck by how familiar it smelled. It took some days but I finally realized which of my other perfumes has a striking resemblance to it. Good Chemistry's (another clean line) "Firecracker" (not in Fragrantica's database). This one has starfruit, lotus, and vetiver which gives it that earthy, woodsy, outdoor smell that Willow has. Firecracker has a better price point and longevity/sillage. I'm really surprised it doesn't have Cedarwood which is what I first pick up on in Willow.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of this scent. It had very mixed reviews and I guess you would have to like green scents to truly enjoy this, but to me it really does smell like walking through an enchanted forest and finding a beautiful waterfall along the way. It is very earthy, deep green moss and fern just after a rain in the morning. Very beautiful and enchanting. There are only 3 notes listed, I can smell the cedar and I definitely smell the bitter green of the galbanum, I also get something a little sweet, like an aromatic floral which stops this scent from leaning too masculine, could be the bensoin, but I’m not sure if it’s just that. Do perfumes sometimes have hidden notes, or could it be just how the notes blend together? Either way, I’m in love with this! It takes me back to my childhood of being in the woods, climbing trees and making forts, or just sitting on the huge old tree in my secret spot way back in the woods behind my house that had fallen over the creek, where I would go to often with a blanket and a picnic and a good book to read.

I don't often leave reviews but too much hate on this one! I found this on a deal at TJ Maxx and I'm stoked. It's a stunning woodsy smell. It starts very green and woody, like an actual fresh forest rather than JUST dry wood smell. It dries down more dry and the green fades away, but it does still have a sweetness to mellow out the dryness. Most woody smells lean masculine to me, but this is true unisex and a beautiful fragrance. *do NOT take a shot every time I say wood. lol*

I honestly don’t understand why Willow gets so much hate. It’s very green and woodsy. I personally really like green fragrances so this one is good in my opinion. It’s simple and when I wear it it gives me the idea I am walking on a forest. If you’re expecting something super sophisticated, go somewhere else. This one is not for you.

Out of the perfume palette set I was happy to purchase at my local TJ Maxx, I love Willow the best. It’s almost a dupe of my top fave ImaginaryAuthors (IA) Memoirs of a Trespasser. I’ll buy a full bottle but I have a feeling I will not reach for it all the time. I will invest in a full bottle just to have in my collection. 🥰

Sweet woodsy smell. Starts strong on fresh pine, then mellows down to a sweet resin. Lasts longest of the 6 signature skylar scents for me, and has a nice personality.

Smells just like fresh cut grass! Very nice

When I first received a sample of this, back before it was discontinued, I was indifferent. I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t smell like something I’d wear. Flash forward a few years, and it’s something I find interesting and intriguing. I’ve started enjoying green notes in perfume, and this one has a green note unlike others I’ve tried. It reminds me of freshly cut ivy stems. I also pick up the cedar note. I love cedar when it isn’t overly synthetic-smelling. This one initially smells authentic, yet becomes a bit more ambroxan as it dries down. Still nice, though. There’s a negligible touch of sweetness from the benzoin. This green woody fragrance is highly wearable on my skin, yet still perfectly unisex. As it continues to dry down, it starts leaning a bit more masculine, but I like it. My husband could easily wear it, as well.

On me this is a very woody fragrance - almost has a hint of oud, which I like. I don't get any fresh or green notes after dry down, like other reviewers talk about. Honestly, this is the best Skylar fragrance I've tried yet. The others are too light and nondescript for me. At least this one you can smell after the first 20 minutes. I realize these are supposed to be layering fragrances, but I'm looking for one and done when getting ready in the morning. Maybe they just aren't my cup of tea.

Out of the bottle this smelled pretty nice, seemed promising to be a new favorite. Not tooo earthy, no patchouli, a little mossy plus a tiny hint of floral/sweet to lighten it up. Reminiscent maybe of a fairy hideout out in the woods with some sunlight creeping through. But sadly, on me it just smelled sharply green, like fresh cut grass.

I got the sample kit, liked this one, and bought a larger roller one. Feels like you're walking in a Pacific NW forest or something. Very green and woody. I don't really use it that much though so I probably wouldn't purchase again.

Out of the 7 Skylar fragrances I’ve tried this is my favorite, but it’s just okay. It starts off great - a dark, forest scent that brings to mind fir needles and moss. It’s a bit sharp at first, but quickly mellows into an almost incense-like, resinous blend that still has strong moss and tree notes floating around. But then it dries down and, like every Skylar scent does on my skin, it turns into a candy-sweet mess with hints of fabric softener. I don’t know what it is they use in seemingly all of their fragrances that does this, but no matter how it starts out, every Skylar turns into the sticky, queasy, cheap chemical fragrance smell on me within an hour. Granted, I have a difficult body chemistry for perfumes, I think. Very few synthetic scents work on me and I always think they smell like vanilla laundry. So maybe it’s just me. But Willow is a no-go for me and I think after 7 tries, Skylar is a house I won’t be revisiting.

Willow is green in a lightly mossy/fresh cucumber way. I want it to smell dirtier and danker with a hint of soil and more woods, personally. It has also gone very sweet on my skin as has the previous Skylar fragrances I have tried. The sweetness creates more of a dewy almost aquatic green rather than the "enchanted forest" Skylar says they're going for - according to my body chemistry. One thing that is clear about Skylar fragrance is that they're going to morph on the skin in a different way than fragrance companies with dissimilar standards. This can be a good thing because one can find a fragrance that works well with their chemistry and go from there, but it also can be a down side when one doesn't have the experience to predict how a fragrance could morph based on their body chemistry. Soft silage and soft longevity (I have dry skin that tends to absorb these sorts of fragrances so longevity and silage will vary person-to-person). Try before you buy.

I gave my mother the sampler pack for Christmas, from which she was allowed to sample to her heart’s content and then choose the full bottle of the one she liked best. Willow is the one she chose. (For reference, she is over 70.) I have it on now, and like katrsdid below, I find this to be very green—yes, like “fresh cut grass”! It’s sweet, light, and green-grassy. It’s not herbal, but about five minutes in, I did get some sort of peppery vibe. And I’m wondering if there’s actually sandalwood in here instead of cedarwood?! Anyway, I’ve been waiting for something else to show up, but a grassy sandalwood is where it has landed. I don’t like it, and I’m honestly surprised she chose it out of the bunch. Sillage is fairly close to the body. Longevity is moderate, which is to be expected, as this is a natural fragrance. The bottle feels nice in my hand, and it has that “apothecary” milieu.

A sharp yellow floral with lots of balsamic sourness. I can see this one being popular with the over-40 crowd since it smells like the perfumes of the 80s and earlier. This is definitely not modern.

I tried it again today because I forgot that I'd tried it before. Today, my skin ramped up the "earthy" note, and it smelled like nothing but dirt.

Ugh, Willow is the kind of green perfume I really don't like. It smells like grass, straight up wet grass with a sharp metallic soil. I don't know why anyone would want to smell like this. It doesn't last too long, thankfully (!!), but it is very strong when you first apply. Unpleasant.

I wanted to like this one but it gave me a headache right off the bat. Did not smell natural at all. Nothing about the forest, or woods. Just a strange green scent that really made me feel angry when I sprayed it. I couldn't get away from it fast enough.

On a card, this smells like an expensive yoga studio, which I love. On my skin, it immediately morphs into something absolutely terrible— maybe if Irish Spring soap could rot, this is what it would smell like. Not for me.

I can kind of understand the strong "dislikes" since this is likely to bore those with more adventurous tastes and put off those who want something more conventionally pretty. But I think Willow is one of Skylar's more successful offerings. There's a strong galbanum note, but it's softened by the creamy, almost vanillic benzoin. The spicy earthiness of galbanum is tempered, and as much as I love that note in its pungent form, Skylar is clearly going for something softer and dreamier, which it achieves. This is cradled in a nondescript but still grounding woodiness. Along with Meadow, this is the kind of fragrance in which Skylar hits its particular stride, creating uncomplicated, casual scents for people who want to smell vaguely "natural". To that end, I think Willow achieves what it sets out to do.