Jardin de Kerylos 16
by Parfumerie Generale

Delightful. Fresh sap-filled woodshavings and green leaves, followed by fig that isn't lost in milky sweetness or mashed into a gloopy pudding. If only it lasted more than 3 hours. Not much sillage, one for secretly rubbing your nose against your own delicious skin and smiling when no ones looking.

31st October, 2011.

The first thing that I immediatley noticed while smelling Jardins de Kerylos is the outstanding quality of this composition. Guillame's interpretation of the fig anhances its leafy green aspect to the point of becaming almost bitter. This "dangerous direction" is cleverly balanced by a subtle floral accord (most detectable in the drydown) that makes this composotion reaching an incrediblly sophisticated and refined perfection.

Jardins de Kerylos is far from beeing a semplicistic fragrance and together with Heeley's Figuer, Diptyque's Philosykos and L'Artisan's Premier Figuer settles among the best fig interpretations around. Good.

9th May, 2011.

Because it emphasizes the bright and fruity, rather than the milky aspect of fig, Jardins de Kérylos could be my favorite fig scent to date. As beautiful as Philosykos and Primier Figuier are, their milky olfactory texture wears very flat on me. Not so the more juicy and tart fig of Jardins de Kérylos. Whereas Olivia Giacobetti’s well-regarded fig scents lean towards coconut and powdery woods, Pierre Guillaume’s uses floral accents to balance the potentially cloying character of its star accord.

Jardins de Kérylos wears close to the skin, and holds closely to its crisp, refreshing course until its quietly musky drydown sets in. My chief complaint is that the scent is very short-lived, and lasts only three hours on my skin at best. Even so, Jardins de Kérylos merits praise for its distinctive approach, and while it lasts I still enjoy it more than the other fig fragrances I know.

11th December, 2009. (Last Edited: 14th January, 2010.)

This is a lovely green fig scent: fruity in a crisp, acidic way. The sycamore wood note is dry and sappy. These sheer, translucent notes create a light green impression, rather than a dark or mossy green one. This is intentionally a minimalist scent: I find fig and grassy notes, with a hint of wood and also a mineral aspect like rocks in the sun. The simplicity and vitality of it is a joy.

30th March, 2009.

One of the finest figs I've come across. JdK has a very VERY green fig accord which teters on the smell of a freshly-picked peach, fuzz warmed in the sun. While this may suggest a foody resonance, it is not gourmand in any way. There is just the faintest glimmer of something animalic as it quickly begins its descent from the lofty and fruited heights.

As Vibert says, it doesn't last; but I am of a mind on scents such as this-- so beautiful, so evanescent; catching a fleeting glimpse of a satyr dancing in the sun dappled wood, the image remains etched in the mind as something beautiful, remembered. As I sit at the desk in the shortened days of November, this scent conjures a golden sunlight, and vistas through the trees of a warm oceanic coast. I'll tell you what: anything bottled that can do this is aces in my opinion.

10th November, 2008.