Virgilio (1990)
by Diptyque

Oh Virgilio, how I spurned you originally! 'Provençal Golden Shower' went my thinking – another entry for the catalogue of revised opinions known as 'A Portrait of the Perfumista as a Young Man'. And now you have been cruelly discontinued!

A diverse herbal bouquet, Virgilio is an audacious blend of mint, basil, rosemary, parsley, tarragon, and thyme, in (approximate) order of decreasing proportions. It is potently urinous at first but quickly becomes a mildly salty, vivid green delight that frolics on the citrus-herbal threshold and is, despite first sniff, eminently wearable. This was a cure for perfume mundanity.

22nd March, 2011.

Yikes! The opening is not just herbal green, it is astringent, soapy and a little minty. There is also a freshly earthy indolic quality about it that is suggestive of white florals and I'm rather surprised this aspect was not picked up in more reviews. Thankfully the somewhat abrasive demeanour settles down after 15 minutes to project a clean floral with mildly sweet, herbal-soapy vibes. Nothing spectacular but not bad at all.

29th September, 2010.

I wore it wrong before - I wore it in cooler days: it was still nice but the scent wasn't heated up enough. This time i tried it in warmer days and it worked beautifully with my skin chemistry. It's like... a deep green cloud enveloping, moving with you, and at times I catch a snifff of this wonderful aroma.

It doesn't smell necessarily 'clean' or 'fresh'. Rather it is quite a thick herbal mix, very soothing. I adore green and basil and thyme and whatnot.... so i'm happy with Virgilio.

28th September, 2010.

Complex herbal and green, with a strong basil presence. And there is a certain elegance here and it vaguely reminds me of Givenchy Gentleman. I enjoy it very much, but wouldn’t see myself wearing enough to justify owning a bottle.

10th July, 2010.

Apparently this has been discontinued. Virgilio reminds me of Zirh Corduroy; in fact they smell extremely alike in their openings. I did the test with one on each arm prior to concluding this. Virgilio surpasses Corduroy in terms of longevity, but it is a skin scent for the most part. It projects about 2 inches off the skin when it's opening/beginning of middle. It stays much closer through most of the middle and the dry down, but has about average sillage.

What I actually get from Virgilio is like a greenish and very herbal concoction with some cinnamon.. maybe clove as well; it develops more into a light powdery vanilla. It doesn't project very well and doesn't have that same unique structure that Tam Dao and Philosykos have. It seems kind of expired, both smell and feeling wise. It's not by any means a bad smell though.

Is it worth it? Well.. considering this is now discontinued (going by what the Diptyque rep told me, as well as other sources) if you do find it, you may be springing for more than the usual prices, maybe even more than retail. To me.. Corduroy surpasses this, and is like a 20th of the price. However there are noticeable differences -- they may seem/feel like clones.. but my philosophy as it pertains to the world of fragrances is that "no two fragrances are identical". Virgilio is a less vibrant version of Corduroy but ONLY in the first 20 minutes or so are they really reminiscent of each other. Overall Virgilio being an EDT/cologne with the same alcohol concentration of any other EDT isn't even close to being worth 150-200 bucks.

17th May, 2010.

Virgilio is not GREEN to me, it's the scrubby, lower-case gray-green of wild herbs baking in the August sun. It's also bracing, cool (the mint) and refreshingly adamantly un-sweet.

No one has mentioned oregano but I get that herb, very diffused and almost abstracted, more than basil. This is a masterful and austere blend, capturing the kind of natural wild living Mediterranean resinous herbal incense that rises from the hillsides of Crete (and the Southern California coastal ranges) in late summer afternoons as the ocean breeze (the subtle saline underpinnings of Virgilio) kick in.

Also reminiscent of the wafting top note as someone walks by at a distance wearing the long lost Max Factor masterpiece Geminesse.

Bring it back, Maxie, all is forgiven.

3rd May, 2010.