Fig Tree

Several years ago I studied abroad in the middle of the rainforest in Tropical North Queensland, Australia. I lived there for 5 months. I've smelled many, many green perfumes since that time in my life, but nothing has ever stirred up memories of the rainforest like this before. It opens up beautifully green and fresh, not citrusy and sharp like too many "fresh" perfumes. The moment I inhaled, fragments of memories flashed through my mind at lightening speed. I was finally able to focus my mind on a clear memory that didn't flicker away--Ficus virens, aka the Curtain Fig Tree. There were tons upon tons of monster-sized fig trees all over the rainforest. There were many other Ficus (fig) species as well. It's like I'm right there again with the bright green canopy above me, opalescent waters filled with leeches, and thick, humid tropical air filling my lungs. I am so grateful for the lack of coconut in this fragrance. Coconut ruins fig perfumes for me. If you want to smell like the beach with a few palm trees strewn about, go for coconut. But if you want a dead-ringer for the Garden of Eden, with lush green forests, King parrots, and deadly snakes, Fig Tree is your ticket!!! Nothing is going to stop me from buying a bottle of this.

So sheer and bright! I get the fresh pulp of fig first, sweet but lightly tart, almost like apple juice if it were made from figs. Then the earthy, woody note of the fig trunk comes through. The base stays surprisingly light and airy: fresh fig and fig wood. As it dries, it softens, becomes rounder and more woody. Compared to Philosykos by Diptyque, which is creamy, this feels more sheer, with a slightly sharper fig pulp. Delicious!

After a green fig leaf opening, the scent quickly turns into a smooth, smooth, creamy fig leaf/wood, lactone and tonka smell. To me, there's also a bit of a maple syrup sweetness, maybe coming from the tonka. The extremely milky lactones do smell a bit like coconut at times. It's a very comforting scent, and it lasts and lasts. I could swear I can smell a little sandalwood, but maybe it's just the cedar + lactones.

Such a classy, beautiful fig fragrance. I love fig fragrances but usually they either don't last long or smell too fruity. This one though is my favorite fig fragrance. It smells so natural and rich. If Chanel made a fig fragrance, this would be it. Fig Tree is the Chanel N°5 of fig fragrances. It's intense, green, woody, creamy, herbal and musky. It feels very vintage, nostalgic and different from most fig scents. This is not an edible fig, but the entire tree put into a bottle. The longevity is great and it radiates like a sticky fig tree in the heat of the summer. This scent is surely unisex and would make a wonderful alternative summer scent to all the other generic blue, aquatic male scents out there. I purchased this in full size from Laurie, who is very sweet, generous and truly a genius in the perfume world.

So fascinating! It hits my nose like the sensation of choking on honey and caramel thickened with salted butter. I start out hating it, but I can't take my nose from my arm, and it quickly fills my throat and brain, and I'm won over against my best intentions. On me, from a distance, it's very lactone heavy, musky, it has the sharper, grassier sweetness of tonka before the thicker one of vanilla, and the patchouli and the fig make a sour green nearly leathery contribution. When I shove my face into it, it's all cream, brown sugar, and a bit of dry wood.

A woodier rendition of a fig fragrance and as with all the fragrances I've tried from this line, smells very natural. Fresher, greener in the opening, verging on soapy for a short time. Then mellows down to a lactonic musky fig which is only slightly sweet. I used to love fig fragrances ala philosykos by Diptyque but my interest faded at some point. So I didn't have many expectations when I ordered this sample. I would consider another figgy trial with this fragrance but not sure I'd get a full bottle. But who knows?

Opening is wildly green, to the point that is sharp and reminds me of soap. Awaiting further developments. EDIT: the green note slowly fades after 2 hours to a pretty inoffensive creamy musk. Still quite tinged with green. EDIT: After another hour or two, the green goes away completely, and what's left is the pleasing lactonic musk. It loses quite a bit of sillage at this point (Basically a skin-scent), though I used a dabber sample. Other reviews describe some major sillage and longevity, so maybe I just under-applied. In any case, the base note is very nice, but I wouldn't buy a full bottle of this. The green accord is too clean and sharp, and the lactonic musk base is nice, but not anything I'm obsessed with. That said, if you love green, clean notes and/or lactonic musky notes, you should certainly give this a try! EDIT 6/8/22: Okay. 180-degree turn here: I love this. Maybe because it's spring now, I don't know. The opening doesnt feel soapy or sharp anymore, but just pleasantly green. The musk is actually addictive. Good perfume. I'll buy a full bottle sometime.

The fig scent in this is somewhere between dried figs and the smell of formic acid from a smashed ant. At the beginning, there's a bit of muskiness, too. However, it dries into sweetish formic acid with a whiff of cheddar cheese and dried figs. Kinda like the dregs of a picnic, I guess. I'm not sure I'll wear it again.

Green fig/leaf flavored hand soap you can buy from an organic foods market (for a good price).

Green scents are something that I’m recently new to after having weaned myself on dark leather and spices. Fig is also a new note, so in a lot of ways putting my nose on something like this is a departure from the scents that I naturally gravitate toward. However, when Laurie Erickson sent me these samples, I told her I liked darker notes, so she sent me a lot of amber, incense, and woods – what I love the most. However, when I review a house I have not discussed before, I sometimes like to do two scents that are of totally different types. So I’m pairing my Fig Tree review up with my review of Amber Intense. The notes consist of leaves, fruit, wood, green fig, lactones, cedar, vanilla, tonka, and musk. Fig Tree comes off as a highly angular, sweet, fresh, green fig undergirded with the milky quality of coconut-like lactones and dry vanilla. Into the heart, the fig turns dewy and less aggressively green. There’s also something incredibly summery about its appeal. It’s almost like Laurie managed to not only capture the fig, but also the warm air and the sunshine. As it sits on my skin, the greenness of the fig settles down quite a bit, the woods become drier and more champagne-like, and the musk starts to evolve. Deep, deep in there I think I detect some floral notes of some kind. Muguet? Gardenia? I don’t know. But there’s an exquisitely faint, lingering floral quality to the base that sets off the entire perfume with such distinction. I never did give this a “full body” wearing, but I can attest to the fact that its staying power in the application spot was above average, and I would catch a whiff of it every time I moved my arm around the vicinity of my head, which I consider to be the perfect amount of sillage. It has a staying power of probably six or seven hours, and that’s on my skin, which eats perfume for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Unfortunately, lactones seem to not sit very well on my skin, so I would have difficulty wearing this. However, almost everyone else wears them beautifully, and I know there are boatloads of fig lovers out there. Every single one of you need to try this. Every modulation of the fig is available here: from fresh green to dewy to dry and ever-so-slightly musky. In fact, the way it ages on the skin is one of the most beautiful things about this perfume. This comes *highly* recommended to anyone who wants a serious, but not austere green fig that presents the entire life of the fig from bud to ripe fruit. Exquisitely composed by a perfumer whose many kindnesses and generosity are unmatched.

This is definitely not foody in the full sense of the word, and compared to Diptyque's Philosykos it has nothing in common at all, in comparison Philosykos smells like slightly woody un-ripe banana. There's just the slightest hint of what's described as the lactonic sap notes here but quite dry and sharp. My favourite from Sonoma so far is Fireside Intense which is quite light on my cool dry sort of skin. Fig Tree seems quite clean at first (if you were just to smell it drying down on a test card the clean note remains) on skin there's a light smoky, slightly burnt jam-like fig note,quite nice, and I did start to get a quite pleasant ground cinnamon for some reason too. It then faded down to a lightly smoky and slightly sweet ambery musk (gives me a slight head-ache)and to my nose a cinnamon-like note is still there. Smells slightly retro for some reason (as in pre 60s). I find the musk note difficult

Before I tested Sonoma Scent Studio's Fig Tree, I was expecting something soft and a little fruity. However, sweet, or soft do not describe the opening to this scent at all. Fig Tree opens with a very green note which borders on sharp, and is almost medicinal. At that point, I was convinced that this is not a fragrance for me. However, after around 1-2 hours, I was very pleasantly surprised. As it dries down, the fragrance transforms from being harsh and green to being softer, with the vanilla coming out to play and whisps of the tonka also breezing through. If you love woody, non sweet fig scents then you might enjoy this, but it's really in the dry down that the beauty of this fragrance really shows. It's not my favorite from this house, mostly because of the opening, but it makes up for it with a really heavenly dry down.