Elegant Fig: Fig Tree by Sonoma Scent Studio

Apparently I am having a moment of rediscovering fig scents. First there was Ninfeo Mio by Annick Goutal and now I have had the pleasure of the smelling Fig Tree by Sonoma Scent Studio.

Fig Tree is one of the most airy elegant figs I have ever come across. Part of me wants to describe it as a fig flower because this fig is supported by an incandescent musk that illuminates the fig in such a way that the first image that pops into my head is a big giant creamy magnolia blossom. Yet, this scent doesn't smell like magnolia it creates that perfect idea of a creamy giant blossom though.

You are probably thinking at this point that Fig Tree is coconut accented as happens in so many figs, it isn't, it has a creamy quality but at no point do I think of tropics. Rather at times I am reminded just a little bit of the classic peach lactonic chypres such as Femme by Rochas, Champagne by Yves Saint Laurent, or Mitsouko by Guerlain. Yet, Fig Tree is far more wearable than any of those have ever been on me. The support of earthy patchouli and cedar creates a firmly grounded fig, but the use of musk with just the slightest hint of vanilla is used to smooth out any rough edges in this fig.

I am reminded of the gentle sun filled Autumns that happen here in Northern California, they still retain quite a bit of summer but there is an earthy change in them that I can smell in Fig Tree. It's when the oak leaves begin to fall and they crunch beneath your feet and the leaves of the grapevines begin to yellow and redden but the days are still so warm.

What I want to try and convey is that Fig Tree is one of the most sophisticated fig scents I have ever tried. It is so well rounded and polished, I don't want to use the word glamorous to describe it but worldly and intellectual come to mind with this scent. This is a scent that perfectly sits in between autumnal and summery, which is precisely when figs are the best here.

Try Fig Tree if you like Philosykos by Diptyque, Ninfeo Mio by Annick Goutal, or Vol 870 YUL-CDG by Monsillage.


First image from Sonoma Scent Studio
Second image from Life Inspired
Third image from Pierre Mornet

Bizarro Fresh: Womanity by Thierry Mugler

I finally get Womanity it just took me 6 years and finally trying it in the middle of a heat spell. Although every time I wear it, I think this will always be my first thought "This is fucking weird."

I want to take a trip down memory lane with this one. The first time I tried Womanity was a total "GET IT OFF!" moment in 2010, fast forward to January 2016 and I buy a random sample of it, it is not "GET IT OFF!" bad but still not doing much for me but there is a glimmer of something interesting. And now lets get to last week, Versus by Versace suddenly awoke a bizarre desire for fruity in me, which frankly you really cannot find in my personal perfume collection. So I rummaged through my samples and found Womanity. I then finally gained clarity on this fragrance, enough clarity that I finally bought a little bottle of it.

The clarity I finally got is that Womanity needs heat. In cold weather the vibrant fruit note gets drowned out by the salty animalic note it makes for something akin to smelling slightly pickled. In the heat though the fruit of Womanity gets to shine. Which is where it gets a little weird for me. Womanity touts a fig note and yet my nose does not read it as fig, instead the first thing that pops into my head when I put it on is salted strawberries and, I mean heavily doused in salt, what follows is the enhancement of the pungency of the fruit note with spicy floral fruit note of pineapple guava (I am actually surprised the scent of this fruit has not been mined by perfumery).

The beginning fruit stage is then followed by the addition of something fresh, green, and spicy. Katie Puckrik compares it to green bell pepper, to my nose it is more akin to bruised coriander leaf and chopped pine needles. Either way this is the stage where the pinkness of the scent starts to take on a salty woodsy aspect. Eventually the fruits give up center stage in Womanity and what happens in the dry down is a glowing musky creamy woodsy thing that somehow retains the neon-ness of the opening fruits yet does not smell inherently fruity.

This is my favorite stage because it smells like the best rendition of Northern California coastline at certain part of the day, its right as the fog is rolling in on sunny afternoon, you can smell the sea, and coastal scrub brush heated by the sun, intermingling. There is one type scrub brush that at the right time of day has a spicy fruity scent, I still don't know what it is, but over the years I have known it well from all my visits and hikes near the beach. I find this scent in Womanity. Womanity is also like that scrub brush in that it needs the heat to be understood properly.

Thierry Mugler discontinued Womanity, you can still find it at online discounters, but this is considered his big flop, it is also the only fragrance of his to this date that has caught my fancy. The thing is I am pretty sure released now it might have done better with the prevalence of niche now being found at the fragrance counter. Still this is a weird one, it is definitely a part of the solar family of fragrances. It is one of those ground breakers that tried incorporating savory for the first time, which is now that salty aspect that is now found in many scents currently. I would also like to mention that the tenacity on this scent is amazing and it smells great on clothes.

Try if you like MikMoi's Ao or Jo Malone's Wood Sage & Sea Salt.

First imageThe Scent of Self
Second image Miho Hirano
Third image Travel & Leisure

A Summer Garden: Ninfeo Mio by Annick Goutal

Last year I was bemoaning the lack of fig and then I found a very true to form fig in Lucy B's Apothecary Royal Green Fig and Vanilla . Somehow in my years I had never gotten around to sniffing Annick Goutal's Ninfeo Mio, I regret it, because Goutal released one of the most interesting fig scents I have ever smelled.

Ninfeo Mio is the scent of a summer garden for me. All the ad-copy will suggest watery spring garden in Rome but for me Ninfeo Mio is an early summer garden with the last remnants of spring holding on. Ninfeo Mio starts with a buzzing candied citrus note combined with the friendliest galbanum note you have ever met. I can't help but think of bees buzzing around in a grove of citrus trees with blossoms and ripe fruit at once. There is a sweetness in the scent that suggests the imagery of candied citrus or lemon peel in honey and yet not an ounce of this is cloying because Isabelle Doyen is keeping it all in check with an easygoing galbanum. The green herbacious note of galbanum is the perfect balance note to the buzzing sweetness of the citron and lemon. It also plays the chauffeur to the next stage of the scent.

Fig is frequently paired with galbanum, galbanum playing well with fig's green notes, yet sometimes they can be an overly harsh pairing on me. Not in Ninfeo Mio, the fig of Ninfeo Mio is all creamy goodness, this is the afternoon of the garden. The buzzing of the bees is gone because everyone is taking a nap in the heat, the citrus keeps going combined with the figs and galbanum, the effect is a milky green quality. It reminds me of the color of celadon.

The third stage of Ninfeo Mio is perhaps the one that catches everyone off guard the most. I like to think of it as the early evening stage. Everyone is awaking from their naps there is a tinge of clean sweat, you can smell the evergreen trees giving off the their resinous scent with the coming of a cooling evening. The animalic note of sweat is utterly there but instead of being off-putting Doyen is genius because it is balanced with resinous note of mastic and creamy fig. One thing I noticed about this clean sweat note is that it is far more pronounced if you spray the perfume but if you dab Ninfeo Mio on it is relatively mild.

Finally Ninfeo Mio settles into creamy resinous combination of fig and mastic there are still hints of citrus but the overall effect is milky green. The effect of Ninfeo Mio feels like going through a full day in a garden on the first warm day of summer, the green is still there, in fact it is peaked at its most lush levels but dry summer heat is edging in.

Try Ninfeo Mio if you like Miller Harris's Figue Amere, Coriandre by Jean Couturier, Lo Mejor di Mi by Mario Tomas, or Le Temps d'une Fete by Nicolai.

First Image from Basenotes.net
Second Image from Frances Benjamin Johnston
Third Image from Hellen Van Meene
Fourth Image from Tom Killion

Fig Season: A History of Fig in My Wardrobe

The two major perfumes of my high school years that would have a major impact on my fragrance choice's are the original Lolita Lempicka and Demeter's Fig Leaf. Oh there are few others that I remember fondly but those are the two scents that really have influenced my taste and frankly seemed to hint at my adult tastes.

 I still have my original bottle of Lolita Lempicka and come Autumn spritz it happily although these days it becomes an almost a nostalgic practice as I watch the bottle get lower and lower.

As for Demeter's Fig Leaf well I have then had a very long affair with the fig note. As a teenager it made me feel different and unique because no other girl or adult woman wore perfumes that smelled like fig, I would still say that scent of fig has kept its bohemian roots even though it can be found more easily in perfume and home scents these days it is still a note that remains unique.

As a teenager I used up my bottle quickly of Demeter's Fig Leaf, which is easy considering it has no longevity.

I then followed that perfume with Fresh's aqueous Apricot Fig scent, a rather green and 90s hinting fig scent with the use of Calone. I wasn't completely in love with it but still it filled my fig needs.

This was followed by my first indie/niche fig scent and one that I will admit I thought utterly sexy but now admit it is kind of garish, Dream by Fresh Scents by Terri, which really is more like the scent of a fig newton. Which is not a bad scent if you smell them but could easily become overbearing.

At this point I was in my early twenties and having my first major relationship and being the perfume lover of course I was going to get him a perfume to wear. The scent was Marc Jacobs for men, one hell of a delicious creamy spicy fig scent for men, don't know how it is now, but in the early 2000s it was divine. I still think of that purchase fondly considering all the men's scents I sniffed at the time and then smelling that one.

At this point I had a decant of  L'Artisan's Premier Figuier and found it far too green on myself and running into my first of many times where galbanum took over. Call it an arch-nemesis sort of relationship, I eventually swapped the decant. I was then gifted by my boyfriend of then with Victoria Secret's Mood: Ripe, a rather fun vanilla citrus fig scent, nothing innovative but it was fig that I could wear and enjoy, unfortunately the damn thing came with a bulb atomizer and quickly evaporated from the bottle.

This was then followed by Body Time's uber green Green Fig oil which frankly suffered the galbanum problem, I eventually used it up as a bedding spray.

In all of this I had quite a few fig scented candles.

For awhile after this I was using a decant of Miller Harris's Figue Amere, a delightfully bitter woody amaro fig scent. That evokes the Mediterranean coast.

After this came the long slump of not a whole lot of fig. I think I had been rather burned by all the galbanum forward fig perfumes. I eventually though ended up with a bizarrely large batch of samples of Diptyque's Philosykos. That creamy delicious black fig scent. As far as the two classic pillar scents of figs go you know which one is for me. Grand irony these scents were both created by Olivia Giacobetti.

And recently I have been on the fig hunt again. Which began with the acquirement of Olivina's Hand and Body Wash in Fig and their Body Cream in Fig, which is a rather loverly fig scent that clearly takes its heritage from Philosykos. That was followed by South of France's Mediterranean Fig bar soap, a yummy tart take on fig.  I tried Pacifica's Mediterranean Fig which was far too green and harsh on me (although, I have found many of their older perfumes have become this way due to reformulation). I then had high hopes for Atelier Cologne's Figuier Ardent and found it not to work, it was too similar to Marc Jacobs for Men and uses cumin-y cedar base that while works great on others ends up smelling sweaty on me. I then purchased a regret, I Profumi di Firenze Vaniglia e Fichi, an excellent fig opening but then a pure lemon butter cake dry down on me that is far too sweet.  I finally took my cues from another another fig lover Victoria from Eaumg.net and because it was on uber-sale bought a roll-on of Lucy B's Royal Green Fig and Vanilla Wood perfume oil. Oh, this is a green one but thankfully enough smooth vanilla and coconut to keep it in check. Not in the least bit layered but that is okay because this is probably the best fig you can get on the market that won't cost you an arm and a leg.

If you really want to celibrate fig I recommend you make yourself a fig shake.

Fig Shake Recipe:
4-5 figs
ice
milk, at least 1/2 a cup depends on thick you like your shakes.
a splash of vanilla if you like
maybe a date if you have any around.
-Put it all in a blender and blend and get ready for a divine summer drink.

First image is from Eccentricteatime
Second image is from Fragrantica.com
Third image is from Beauty.com

Figue Fruitee, pure fig jam.

The first perfume I ever bought myself was Demeter's Fig at Sephora, I was I think 15 at the time. It was quite transformative fragrance moment for me because up to that moment I had never encountered a fig based perfume but from then on I was hooked on the scent of fig. Over the years my fragrance wardrobe has usually at least contained one fig fragrance, currently though I am without.

Au Pay de la Fleur d'Orangers Figue Fruitee is the first time I have encountered what I would call a fig jam fragrance. I am used to the cool dry coconut ones with lots of cedar but Figue Fruitee goes in another direction it is all about lush ripe figs, sure there are supporting notes but through and through this is about fig. Figue Fruitee is mainly supported by a fruity green rhubarb accord, the snappy bright quality of rhubarb blending perfectly with the fig notes to create a quality of sweet tart. Those notes are then mildly supported by walnut that gives a rather spicy accent that makes me think of cinnamon and then finally the grounding of cedar and musk, they are very background because really this is all about fig. Figue Fruitee is a simple scent which is devoted to lovingly showing of fig for a fig lover sometimes that is all you need. The use of a green rhubarb note makes it very jammy and tart and interesting enough for a fig lover to definitely keep on sniffing it.

Try if you like: Diptyque Philosykos, Pacifica Tuscan Fig, Burberry Brit Red, Commes des Garcons Rhubarb.

image above provided by http://colorfulcuties.tumblr.com/
Disclosure: samples provided to me by the company but all opinions are mine.

SOTD: Philosykos

What is the answer to fragance boredom in a recession? Go get your box of samples out! Today I am visiting Diptyque's Philosykos, now I feel rather stupid that in my obsession a few years ago with fig, I didn't bother to try Philosykos; which is kind've blasphemous as far as fig scent lovers go. This september I received a sample of it with my Ambre Russe sample, not being in the mood for a fig scent I didn't bother to try it, but did stick it in a box for future sampling. Well I am kicking myself because is quite frankly this is the perfect black mission fig scent: green, sweet, creamy all at the same time.

And now for some humor that rather ties into the erotic symbol of the fig leaf or as Jemaine likes to call them his "sugarlumps" and no I wouldn't play this at work:


image provided by artnet.com
image: Good Afternoon by Alex Katz 2007
video uploaded by McTezTube

SOTD: Figue Amere

Today I am trying on something that I didn't really consider much of because I tried it on in the middle of Winter, Miller Harris's Figue Amere. Right now I am quite enjoying it, this may be the greenest fig scent I have ever smelled, I am picking up hints of angelica. When I tried it on in Winter all I got was an incredibly dry scent full of cedar, but now it is wonderfully green with sap. And I was right there is angelica in this beauty. I am going to have to give this one more testing. Bizarrely lush in a very dry way.

image provided by http://www.filmkultura.hu/2005/articles/reviews/index.hu.html

image: Kardhal, Mexico (1998) by Flor Garduno

SOTD: Chanel 22

Well I found this image ages ago and I have been waiting for the moment when I would want to wear Chanel 22 to go with it. Although, now that I think of it, this would also be perfect with the scent of figs. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend; me not so much, work and papers. Still I have very pretty pretty perfume.
Quote of the Day: shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good. -- Seneca

image provided by artnet.com

Angel by Liu Jin 2005