Weil De Weil

Weil de Weil is the greenest, the leafiest, the most purely cool-and-refreshing, of the great green chypres of the 60s/70s (Madame Rochas, Y, Futur, Givenchy III, L de Loewe, Chanel No. 19, etc.) And thus, my favorite. Weil de Weil is unfussy elegance; aldehydic enough to smell sleek but not enough to be intimidating. Goes on with an icy blast of galbanum, fresh enough to feel pleasant even in the hottest summer. Did I mention it’s green? The real magic of Weil de Weil, though, is its tremendously plush, creamy texture, and its lush (but still cool-toned) heart of hyacinth and narcissus. It’s a crisp green floral with a soft landing. Iris isn’t listed in the notes but I’m confident that’s where the pure-white creaminess comes from. I actually feel more iris in Weil de Weil than in Chanel No. 19. Weil de Weil is an aloof beauty; her manners are always gracious in an abstracted way, but she is too busy to notice you.

This opens with one of the two most glorious and joyous openings I've ever smelled from a perfume, the other being the opening of Le Parfum de Therese (I have a thing for tangerine). The green notes, tangerine and neroli have my hand plastered to my nose for about 10 minutes straight. This fades into a lovely woody floral with honeysuckle and narcissus. The drydown on my skin starts with a lot of civet. I would have liked a little less civet in this, or maybe none at all. Once some of the civet is out of the way this is a very lovely woody chypre. The longevity is excellent, I applied some at 6:00 last night, took a shower this morning, did a lot of cleaning and had my hands in hot soapy water off and on for a few hours and could still smell musk on my hand after all that. This review is for a mini with the triangular shape and black cap. I do believe I need a full bottle of this one. :)

A favorite. Yes, it is really green. It seems like a daytime version of Vol de Nuit to me. I owned the vintage splash back when it wasn't vintage; current iteration is still good. Edited to add that I agree with Carla, there is a distinct civet note. I also catch leather in the drydown. Weil is the most underrated house—or was. The name is now owned by the French firm Aroli, how true they've hewn to the originals I can't tell you.

Dirty! Long lasting! Sexy! Easily mixed with some stupid florientals just a drop of it to make the little bottles last longer. Much nicer than Vent Vert it is a winter heavy weight knock off. The dirty note is not patchouli, but narcissus which is surpirsing?!

This perfume is green all over the place!! It is a very grassy and thick green. Mossy and woody too! It is a true classic, a real must haves for the green queens here! I think it is like a high end Vent Vert. A shame it is so hard to get!

Animalic chypre rather low on sillage, but with a projection made to last. Herbal, bitter and dry with a solid base of animalic funk. Highly recommendable for anyone who wants to smell what a true old school chypre has to offer.

I keep it next to my vtg No. 19 perfume, in case you are into vintage scents you do not need an explanation. In case you are not, here it is: green Galbanum heavenly.

WdW is typical chypre of its time when women's perfumes were green, herbal and sometimes downright bitter. Think Aliage and Emprise, which are from the same time frame: all very green with woody, herby and bitter notes. Sometimes difficult to wear because of their rather masculine notes, there's still lots to like about them and WdW in particular. Green and woody with a beautiful dry down, the fragrance has modest sillage and decent longevity. I have the vintage which has aged well. WdW can be had for relatively little cost, it's not particularly rare. In a time when fruitcholies rule and candy note frags are best sellers a vintage chypre like WdW may appear hopelessly outdated, and Weil does market far more modern frags now. I think WdW shouldn't be counted out. It's an antidote to the hypergirly scents, devoid of pink ribbons and yas, fierce queen slogans. It's a quality unisex perfume, well blended and sophisticated. Definitely worth a try!

A few other green perfumes: Shocking You, Jacomo's Silences, Vent Vert, Chanel #19, Lancetti (the original one for women, I have it and it's divine), Murasaki, Ivoire, Deneuve, Calvin Klein (the original first one he did), Alliage, Alada, Amorena, Babore, Espiegle, Inoui, Janine D. (by 4711), Graffiti by Capucci, the original Jil Sander for Women (one of my faves), Mademoiselle Ricci, Loewe, Pheromone, Private Collection, Panache by Nerval, Jacomo's Silences, Sport Scent for Women by Jovan, Ravissa, Style by Avon, Variations by Carven, Vert et Blanc by Carven (this might have been the same as Variations), but the only one I know that is easily available now is Goutal's Heure Exquise.

I loved Weil de Weil when I was in high school, at first it smelled very green, kind of sharp, and I wanted it to stay smelling that way but it faded. So fifty years later I found a sample, it smelled green at first just how I remembered. Then a smoky wood emerged, interesting. But the longer it lingers the less I like it it. Maybe it's just old and has lost the magic, or maybe it's my nose, I don't know yet. I'm going to give it another in a few days, but I think I'll stick to my fav DIORISSIMO by Dior.

Testing a deluxe miniature of the Parfum de Toilette, most likely from the 70s or the very early 80s: Sometimes a perfume is so successful at what it does that it causes a negative Pavlovian reaction. Weil de Weil's bouquet of florals is so good, especially the true-to-life hyacinth note, that my eyes start to water and I feel a phantom sneeze coming on. In a previous life, I was a florist in Scandinavia, and this brings me back to the Easter rush, when the shop is stuffed to the brim with lilies, lily of the valley, narcissus, and hyacinths in full bloom for an entire week (it's only missing the tulips). There was no escape from the pollen or scent until we sold the last bouquet to some harried husband on his way home from work. If I try to pull back and assess what this perfume feels like, it feels like visiting that aunt who keeps a Martha Stewart-impeccable home, everything in its right place, with one of the beautiful bouquets mentioned earlier on the dining room table. She wears matching sets and pearls, and yes, that dining room table has a decorative runner, tea lights, and artfully deployed bric-a-brac appropriate to the season. This is a beautifully blended perfume... for someone who isn't me. If you want to smell like an elegant flower shop, it might be the perfume for you.

Too much pine n civet for my taste n can't compare this to my precious ARMANI ARMANI which is why I purchased it. This one does not perform well on my olive skin n learned that Civet is something I need to stay clear of!! Sad. SO I swapped it away... UPDATE: I did find my replacement in LEONARD de LEONARD n oh it is so much like my ARMANI... But now that I have it, I feel it is just for nostalgic purpose, that was my past, nice to remember but onward to newer things!!

Weil de Weil is a green floral chypre. In 1971 when it released it might have been called typical. Unlike today, there was an abundance of green floral & green chypre fragrances. From the perspective of 2013, this school of green florals having died on the vine, Weil de Weil could be considered quintessential, a classic. Weil de Weil is a wonderful day to day fragrance, and tells us much about the sensibility of the perfumery of its time. Like Ivoire de Balmain, which came later, it has the sensibility of old-school department stores in that it was easily accessible, simple to buy, simple to wear. It's from an era when even drugstore fragrances had an expectation of quality. Weil de Weil comes from an interesting school of fragrance history. The people who made, sold and wore these perfumes had no idea that the big 80s were coming their way. They were the logical extensions of the pointed floral chypre fragrances of the late 50s and early 60s. But they also came after the start of mainstream experience of the youth cultural revolution of the 60s. From the perspective of stylistic convention, the early-mid 1960s might as well have been the late 1950s. But these green girls survived their time without flipping their wigs: Chanel 19, Weil de Weil, YSL Rive Gauche, Paco Rabanne Metal. They took a fairly mannered genre and taught it to loosen up. If the chypres of the 40s & 50s reflected the fashion of their time (think of the influence of Dior’s New Look and Miss Dior) this era put the chypres in bell-bottoms and sandals. The age of aquarius chypre ranged from the prettiness of Estée Lauder Private Collection to the aggressiveness of Clinique Aromatics Elixir. These new-mainstream Guérilleres debuted after the summer of love, heads clear, eyes open and looking squarely at the Viet Nam War and the protest against it. It's easy to frame the conventional awareness of the time as regressive, à la Trish Nixon, but this was also an expansive, revolutionary time for the civil rights of everyday women. Weil de Weil is one of the green florals that captures the combination of exploration and acceleration of the early 1970s. ********* I appreciate niche perfumery, and I tolerate the exclusive lines of many designer perfumers but I regret the need for both. The categorical distinction between high and low in perfumery is one of the less desirable outcomes of the notion of the perfumer as artist-director-entrepreneur. I miss the days not only of great perfumes coming from department stores and the like, but the expectation that these venues would produce quality perfume. I miss the accessibility, the lack of exclusivity, the sense of common purpose, that these everyday, empowering green fragrances gave us. from scent hurdle.com

Vintage Weil De Weil is a gleaming fragrance with a viridescent radiance like no other floral green that I have encountered. The prominent opening note of the fresh non-soapy galbanum with it's grassy green, pine-resin like quality seems to be an ideal scent to wear in this age of the "going green" phenomenon. I would, per se, coin it as environmentally friendly. The top notes tangle together nicely with the tangerine and neroli notes then joined by a slight undertone of hyacinth keeping the greenness at bay . Step into the heart and a medley of colorful fragrant flowers arise, with lily of the valley as the headliner and a gimpse of rose peeking through. This in turn adds to the frabjous aroma to this unparalleled creation. Base notes consisting of pure golden sandalwood topped with an overlay of light musk, lemongrass vetiver and finally the oakmoss, keep the greenery of the scent ongoing from top to bottom. Of course, it's no surprise Weil added civet (notorious for their usage of this note in their compositions) to complete this scent to sublimity. If you can locate this vintage classic from 1971, I highly recommend this fragrance. The WOW factor of green is huge. It's like go big or go home! Wearing this uncommon and unique perfume will have your friends green with envy.

Oh my, Weil is so FRESH and GREEN! I bought this vintage 118ml splash PdT a year ago (found it with other beautiful, long gone rarities from a little old perfumeshop in Greece). At first I thought it to be even too green, but after a while I learned to respect and then love this honest, little by little changing treasure. It starts, as many have said, really crisp and brisk and never looses that quality, but wait, have some patience! Now she begins to unveil other aspects of herself (Weil unveils, so to speak...). Musk gives her faint sweetness and civet some interesting notes, sandalwood and vetiver offer solidity and oakmoss rounds everything. To me, Weil de Weil is never boring or monotonous. Something is happening there all the time, and that time lasts and lasts!

I remember this one so well. I sure didn't know what a chypre was or anything about oak moss or civet. In fact those are things that, when reading about them, I assume I would not like at all. I purchased this circa 1973 at the fragrance counter at Carson Pirie Scott Chicago where I used to shop on lunch breaks. (I worked about two blocks away in what was then One First National Plaza--where the Chagall Mosaic is.) I remember Weil de Weil as smelling very green, although I had no perfume vocabulary at the time. It really was quite fresh and fun, if that makes sense at all. I think of it with a great deal of nostalgia, because I wore it during my formative 20s, as a small town girl knocked out by the bright lights of the big city.

I just got a .33 oz EDP of vintage W de W. I have been wearing it for an hour, and I must say it's lovely. It has dried down to a soft woody accord, the part I love most about these green chypre florals. Oh my, do I love vetiver and oakmoss! I have 10 ml each of these in essential oil form, old bottles, and I treasure them. Weil de Weil's sharp beginning is like taking the first bite of a hot Thai dish...a lovely shock to the senses, and then the warm glow spreads and mellows. The floral heart is there, but does not cloy. It is clean and soapy; a high-end soap, very elegant. So, too, is the base accord, and that makes me happy! I must try to score some more of this.

Galbanum heaven. Seriously. This lesser-known of the classic greenie vintages has it all, the bitter, the herbal, the yellow florals, including sunny, somewhat animalic narcissus and a mimosa note that I can get away with (I love the smell of mimosa, but seldom can find a fragrance that highlights it that doesn't come off as too "pretty" on my skin). Fresh, dewy petals and stamens rich with pollen, a sunny glade is conjured up in the heart. It's the civet and vetiver in its base, however, that really sets Weil de Weil apart from other green chypres, extending its green and yellow floral sensibilities all the way into its dry down. A real hidden jewel.

I had the immense good fortune to receive a vintage bottle of this celestially verdant fragrance from a very generous perfume kindred spirit! Time may have softened or altered the pungency of this rhapsody of Springtime notes but Weil de Weil is still incredibly beautiful. Clearly, this is NOT for the praline and cotton candy set but for those who appreciate the sophistication of a truly green Chypre fragrance that sings of everything hopeful, a harbinger of warmer days and the sweet fragrance of Mother Earth’s earliest flowers. Truly a green jewel in the crown of vintage perfumery!

Sour greens, and bitter vetiver. Mildly bitter vetiver, with mimosa, oakmoss, green leaves dew, neroli, & galibanum. I'm not sure if i'm detecting any civet, but it's musk & a grand mix of lily of the valley. It's fair to be specific & kind of greener than my taste as it turns kind of soapy green.