Sycomore - rich and refined and worthy

Photo: perfumeniche

Some fragrances, while full bottle worthy with the first sniff, are somehow worthy of more than just slapping down the plastic and taking it home. Some fragrances deserve to be valued because the pleasure of owning them is worth waiting for.

Sycomore, the EDT version, was like that for me. Created by Jacques Polge and Christopher Sheldrake and launched by Chanel in 2008 as part of their Les Exclusifs de Chanel, Sycomore is a five-star stunner. In his book Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, Luca Turin says, “If putting this on does not make you shiver with pleasure, see a doctor.”

I knew I would buy a bottle the first time I smelled it on my skin, but I wanted to assign it a meaningful value. I wanted to make it a prize or a reward so that when I finally bought it, it would mark something personal to me – losing the last, or first, ten pounds, mastering dancer’s pose, perfecting macarons. I wanted wearing it to be meaningful and linked to an achievement or memory.

From this point on, it’s all about the anticipation. When will I reach my goal? Maybe next month, this week, or today, but I’m OK with waiting because waiting, like wet wool, can be comfortably painful. Finally, the day comes when Sycomore is mine, to smell, wear, and have whenever I want. The wait was so worthwhile.  

Sycomore opens with a nose-tickling freshness from aldehydes and camphourous juniper berries. A gentle hint of rose adds floralcy and richness. Suddenly, there’s a note of mouth-puckering grapefruit, which at first seems out of place, but is really a facet of the vetiver that lies at the heart of Sycomore. As it blooms on skin, the vetiver shows off all its aspects – rooty, smoky, woody, anisic, balsamic – which is why it often smells differently every time you wear it. Did you catch a whiff of the rooty phase, balsamic phase or the smoky phase? Cypress is at the heart, too, giving it a piney, spicy freshness, making Sycomore dark green and pungent. A woody base of creamy sandalwood softens it and refines it without diminishing any of the effects of the other notes.

Sycomore is a gorgeous vetiver fragrance with a rich, refined drydown.

And while I waited to buy it, you may want to be impulsive and try it. 

Check out Sycomore in our Shop.