Sycomore

3 Reviews

1. 

   mellowEagle3

   Reply

   I was excited to try Chanel’s Les Exclusifs Sycomore for quite a while, having heard so many good things about it. I do like vetiver, and Sycomore is said to be an homage to that note. On first sniff, I’m getting a pepper note and also something I can’t quite identify, but that smells very like what most perfumers believe passes for a tea note. Have you ever put your nose into a bottle of vitamin C? Yes, it smells like ascorbic acid. I don’t know why perfumers think tea should smell like ascorbic acid, but that’s almost always how it comes across to me. Anyway, after the pepper and tea-wannabe note fades (and it takes a while, these are some long lasting top notes), I get a very earthy vetiver. This is not a clean, crisp green, but rather chockablock full o’ dirt. It is also slightly smokey. And it lasts a loooooong time. I dabbed this in the morning and it lasted all day. All in all, I am not a fan of Sycomore. I do like the earthiness of the vetiver once it dries down some, but quite frankly I really hate that ascorbic acid thing. Black tea fragrances have just never worked for me because of it, even though I love drinking tea of all kinds. I don’t think that Sycomore is even supposed to have tea in it! Oh well, I saved myself $$$ and a trip to a Chanel boutique.

2. 

   cautiousSnail4

   Reply

   I got one of my biggest compliments ever, in public, from a total stranger, while wearing Chanel Sycomore.

   Let me begin by saying I don’t like or wear Green perfumes. At all. Except for Sycomore — this is Green at its best. I don’t like green foliage-y perfumes, I don’t like vetiver, I don’t like chypres. But Sycomore is made so well, that I do wear it once in awhile — not often — just occasionally, in the Fall. Therefore, I feel my 2oz bottle will last me forever and I’ll never need to repurchase.

   I have tried — and still own — bottles of Chanel #19 EDT (which I can’t stand, ugh!!, this is perfume??), EL Azurée original, EL Aliage, EL Private Collection. I don’t like these — I just don’t do Green. Yet I keep them in my closet *just in case* my tastes change or the mood strikes.

   I wore Sycomore when I took my cat to the vet in November or December of last year — because I thought it fit the occasion. I figured people who work in veterinary offices were nature-lovers who would probably appreciate something natural and outdoorsy — so I wore a small spritz of Sycomore.

   After the appointment, when I was standing at the front desk waiting to pay, a vet tech ran out of the room I’d been in — she’d been cleaning up — and she said she LOVED my perfume and asked what it was. I told her Chanel Sycomore, and she said “Well, you smell just LOVELY!”

   It’s green & leafy & foresty & vetiver — yet with some campfire smoke too. When you feel like hiking or camping or visiting Gatlinburg in the Great Smoky mountains — wear Chanel Sycomore — it just fits.

3. 

   sincereMuesli9

   Reply

   Green androgyny.

   I voted yes on repurchase, but there’s a single note in this that gives me pause and knocks this down to a four: juniper.

   Love the smokey wood. Love the vetiver. If you love a wallop of smoke, green, wood, and vetiver, this one’s for you. The smoke is really earthy, sometimes dry, sometimes a little wet in the first five minutes, but always present under that megadose of vetiver.

   But then there’s that single note that just rings too loud for me, because I really don’t care for juniper. And it’s not a kind of clean, subtle juniper that one finds in a good gin, it’s all pungent and sloppy to my nose. Dries down eventually to more of a citrus, but I am not a citrus fan, either.

   I prefer Bandit over this for a wallop of bad girl, trouser wearing, cigar smoking femme chic …. however, the smokey wood in this is quite seductive, and will keep drawing me back.