Diptyque
Diptyque
18.5k votes
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A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Black pepper cracks open the fig leaf accord immediately, releasing that distinctive green milk—bitter, vegetal, almost aggressively natural. There's no fruit here yet, just crushed stems and latex sap with a sharp aromatic quality that prickles the nose. The overall effect is bracingly verdant, like standing beneath the tree's canopy as branches snap overhead.
The lactonic qualities bloom as the pepper recedes, bringing that peculiar coconut-like creaminess that lives in fig wood alongside the persistent green. The earthiness deepens—dried bark, warm stone, a hint of that milky sweetness that suggests fruit without ever becoming overtly figgy. Cedar begins weaving through, adding a pencil-shaving dryness that tempers the creamier elements.
What remains is understated and woody, the green notes now a memory hovering around cedar and fig wood. The milkiness has faded to a soft, skin-like warmth with just a trace of that initial vegetal bitterness. It's subtle to the point of being nearly imperceptible, more textural than olfactory—like running your hand along sun-warmed tree bark.
Philosykos is Olivia Giacobetti's green meditation, capturing the entirety of a fig tree rather than merely its fruit. This is fig leaf crushed between your fingers—milky sap bleeding onto skin, that sharp vegetal bitterness cutting through humid Mediterranean air. The opening bristles with chlorophyll and black pepper, a dose of spice that amplifies the tree's natural astringency before the lactonic softness creeps in. That coconut note isn't tropical; it's the curious creaminess that lives inside fresh fig wood when you snap a branch, sweet and woody at once. There's an earthy quality here, almost dirty, like sun-baked bark and the dusty limestone underneath the tree's canopy.
What makes this so compelling is its refusal to be pretty. Whilst other fig fragrances lean into jammy sweetness or aquatic freshness, Giacobetti commits fully to the tree's more austere character—the slightly bitter latex, the dry woodiness of cedar anchoring those milky-green accords. It's an intimate scent, sitting close to skin, more suggestion than announcement. The sort of thing worn by someone who gardens in linen, who appreciates natural wine and books with broken spines. It works in high summer heat when that green sharpness feels like relief, but equally on cool spring mornings when you want something alive without being loud. Not for those seeking compliments or projection, but for those who know the pleasure of a scent that feels like it's part of your skin rather than sitting atop it.
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