Chicago High

Wow! I am blown away with this one! I fell in love with Vilhelm Perfumerie after trying several of their masterpieces. So let’s talk about Chicago High...By the way my home city ;) It’s all about 1920s, retro chic and speakeasy atmosphere.... It opens up boozy, sparkling and accompanied with juicy pineapple and zesty bergamot surrounded by honey and tobacco smoke..... I close my eyes and the scent transports me into this elite secret bar in downtown of Chicago, where all the classiest and influential people gather to celebrate life with a fine drink and a smooth cigar and enjoy some jazz hits of that time... As time goes on citrusy and fruity notes tame down and I get even more tobacco which now is accompanied by leather and a little bit of amber and even less patchouli... Performance is beast on me...10+ hours and projects enough for others to notice To say I am obsessed with this scent is understatement I have never experienced anything even close to this.. It’s a must if you are into heavy night time slightly masculine scents...

A very rich and dry amber, combined with a boozy and leathery undertone. There's also a distinct immortelle note which isn't mentioned, but it adds a sensation of licorice and brown sugar to the whole. Due to the extreme opulence of the fragrance and the lack of cheap tricks, I'm going to guess this was created by Marc-Antoine Corticchiato as well (cfr Body Paint). Very well made, stylistically so different from the rest of the brand that it might have issues finding its audience.

Longevity is very long ,so I will venture to disagree with some of you saying its poor.Me,and my dry skin, on which everything dissapears instanteneously-this lasts all day. Fabulous perfume with those boozy,chick elements-truly a masteriece.The rest from this collection is no.None of them is worthy to spend money on.

What a unique fragrance. Very heavy on the booze, but sweet honey at the same time. I haven't smelled anything like this before. There is a small similarity between this and Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille, but I may like this one more. A bit more complex.

This is really good. I recently I went to Saks, and this wasn’t even on my radar. I smelled a ton of fragrances, but kept coming back to this. It’s like nothing I’ve ever smelled. Try it!

Freshly opened champagne, tobacco curls through the air, thick and heavy, mixing with the dense sweetness of honey. A regal mélange. Booze-heavy. A testament to excess.

I love this fragrance but I have a very specific memory association with it. It's definitely not for everyone. My husband hates it.

High end tobacco scent. It is not super heavy, but not weak also. It has significance elegance in it.

Very, very nice release... Beautifull scent with good performances. Worth money.

The best fragrance i ve ever smelled so far , its so warm and sexy

Didn't post this review until I gave the scent at least 5 hours. I typically try to sample without checking the notes or main accords. My original impressions were: Opening I get a combination of some sort of a fizzy drink with mild sweetness and an apparent darker base tone. A certain sweetness starts to pop up after the first 20-30 seconds that makes me think of Apple Brandy on the Rocks, but this clearly has way more depth, darkness, strength etc. I can't quite figure out what else this is, but it's some type of a hybrid between Apple Brandy OTR and something else. And surprisingly, there was 1 other person here that thought this smelled like Apple Brandy OTR. The problem with the Kilian, to me, has been it's horrendous performance (max 5-6 hours). Apple Brandy OTR, scent wise, is a 9-9.5 to me - something special that I love as a summer scent. However, it's important to note that this comparison fades as Chicago High dries down - the dry tobacco starts to become more and more prominent, making this a like, not love. In the deep drydown, say 6+ hours in, what I get is mainly a tobacco with champagne. I only put 2 tester sprays on my right hand and longevity appears to be among the best-in-class for honey-tobaccos, albeit the honey isn't as prominent as you may think. Total longevity will be 10-14 hours. This is a fall fragrance mainly, sillage will be moderate as long as you wear it in the heat/cold, not at your PC like I am right now. Profile is unisex, but might lean masculine like other honey-tobaccos (e.g. Naxos). 100ml now priced at €250, I don't think Vilhelm as a house is really worth it at this price level outside of you absolutely loving a scent. Here, you can get Naxos for €30 cheaper in the same size with better presentation. The scent isn't really like Naxos, but considering you're buying this as a fall-winter fragrance, Naxos fills the same function.

This perfume is old memories in a bottle, Is very bold and strong yet so gracious and beautiful. The opening is loud and stunning, I imagine this opening smells like the entrance of one of those jazz clubs from the 50's, with lots of ladies and gentlemans leaving their fur coats at the coat check, while the doors open and close and the champagne and booze is all in the air but the wood from the place is so warm that exudes that spicy note up there too. then you get the tobacco and honey, is so well balanced and mix that you feel like you are reading a book and eating cookies close to the fire with your lovely grandpa who is smoking his tobacco pipe, when it settles you get a more bitter tobacco but once in a while the champagne comes and goes with the sweet of the pineapple. I really like how this fragrance dries, is very leathery very ambery and with a back of vanilla that I really like, I can see a man or woman wearing this to a very elegant date night or just to a romantic dinner. Sample it first, tobacco scents tends to be a hit or miss so I suggest u to try it first!

I've now tried this three times and had three totally different impressions. Take one: Spritzed on a tester at a store, thought it was a pleasant, light tobacco. It didn't make a huge impression, but I liked it enough to order a sample. Take two: Sprayed directly on my wrist, it was an unpleasantly sour leather/tobacco. I didn't get any sweet notes, and was pretty disappointed. Take three: Sprayed on my neck/shirt. Suddenly, it's beautiful! That sourness from before has become a light fruity tartness, I get the touch of honey, and the tobacco is warm without being overpowering. I did wear a soft, mild vanilla perfume on this same shirt recently so it may be offering some lingering sweetness, but this third try is very exciting! I'll have to try it again on fresh, clean clothes to see how it goes. Will update when I do!

Got a sample in the mail today and it's just so weird. Doesn't have the whole aesthetic of the brand at all and is smelling somewhat dusty. Can't associate it with anything specific but it's just in the middle of fruity-woody-leathery categories. I get tons of sparkly tobacco and fruity patchouli on the skin. Update: Ok, after wearing down my sample I finally got it. It's still very different from the rest, very abstract scent. My favorites are poets of berlin and mango skin. These two are literally edible. Chicago high is more about the atmosphere. It's all about the entering old entertainment building. A theater, cabaret or something like that. Where people used to party and walls have absorbed that smell of cigars and old wooden floor is always well polished. It's growing on me. Winter-fall. Sillage is very good.

A very unique scent, walking around the local department store, sampling probably 10-15 scents that day, I was immediately struck by this one, not necessarily because of it being my favorite of the bunch, but rather by how different it smelled comparatively to everything else. After getting a sample of it I can't say I am particularly interested in wearing or owning it but that intensity of the opening remains astounding, essentially a mix of an effervescent boozy note together with heaps of candied pineapple leading into a honeyed sweet tobacco accord. Unfortunately it quickly turns into a woody ambery oriental base with little character, and it wear overall quite sticky and sweet, but nonetheless if you are looking for unique this is definitely an option.

I had been really excited to try this so getting my hands on a sample was nice. I get a lot of tobacco, amber, honey and there's also a boozy note. No idea if this can be labeled as champagne but yeah, it does smell like some good alcohol, a stronger kind of it perhaps. This comes off as a very cozy scent to me, despite the chic roaring twenties inspo behind it. Longevity is good while sillage appears to be moderate to strong. It seems to share a similar vibe with Ambre Russe which I miss a lot - it has this boozy amber which simply makes me melt. Should make a good winter/fall scent. I can see it being equally appealling on everyone regardless of their gender.

The opening is a booze-rush. You feel like you're blind drunk first thing in the morning. The edge soon wears off though and gives way to the most thickly sweet blend of tobacco you've ever smoked with your alcohol. Eventually it turns eerily similar to Tobacco Vanille by TF, only sweeter, and without the same longevity or sillage. Lasts a good six hours on me, projects well and borders on cloying during the final stretch. I don't hate CH and while wearing it I can absolutely imagine time-travelling to a prohibition-era watering hole in Chicago. But there are fragrances on the market that pull off the seductive-smoky act with much more success.

Living near Chicago I wanted to try this, and I did at Merz. It stars of boozy fresh honey tobacco, and settles down to a sweet honeyed leather with hints of a smokey pineapple tobacco in the far back. I do want this and feel like you can pull it off most of the year. I would give this a 8.5/10 with out a full wearing. It does remind me of something but I cant put my finger on it because only a small aspect of it, the tobacco and honey, but it smell unique on its own at the same time. It does not however smell like Chicago. That being said, It is gourmand to me and as a lover of this type of scent, again, ill get it eventually.

A boozy honeyed leather bringing in mind good and mad times previous generations had. Unisex leaning masculine. But also very fitting for a lady in tuxedo. It paints a perfect picture of busy Gangster Era cocktail bar in Chicago filled with cigar smoke and melancholic sounds of blues. Great name for a scent that takes you so convincingly back in time. For me, the initial blast is more of a smokey whiskey rather than champagne. Furthermore, its almost exactly like a well blended and iced Old Fashioned. An interesting and eccentric offering from this house.

It starts with some freshness and booze from the champagne but it seems like hiding a crazy monster under it and this is exactly what happened After hours and hours from application it just went beast mode on my clothes I started smelling it from far away across the room it was a shocking event but guess what it’s almost very different from the opening and the mid it became very challenging and animalistic The dry down was a monster that is hard to wear And yes I definitely smelled dry fruits in the scent which wasn’t mentioned mainly plums