Philosykos 1996 Eau de Toilette

Philosykos (Eau de Toilette) by Diptyque
Bottle Design Servaire&Co
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7.9 / 10 824 Ratings
A popular perfume by Diptyque for women and men, released in 1996. The scent is green-fresh. It is being marketed by Manzanita Capital.
Pronunciation
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Main accords

Green
Fresh
Fruity
Woody
Creamy

Fragrance Notes

FigFig Fig leafFig leaf Fig woodFig wood Black pepperBlack pepper

Perfumer

Ratings
Scent
7.9824 Ratings
Longevity
6.4649 Ratings
Sillage
6.1641 Ratings
Bottle
7.9616 Ratings
Value for money
6.7296 Ratings
Submitted by DirkDS, last update on 23.04.2024.

Reviews

23 in-depth fragrance descriptions
7
Bottle
5
Sillage
5
Longevity
9
Scent
SchatzSucher

107 Reviews
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SchatzSucher
SchatzSucher
Top Review 47  
Pledging of cowardice
Until recently I knew only a few or no fragrances from Diptyque.
In the meantime, some of the fragrances from this house have come to my nose and Philosykos is one of the fragrances I have grown particularly fond of over the years.

Diptyque does not usually produce loud buzzers, all the fragrances I know so far are reserved, unagitated and extremely pleasant to wear.

The fig itself, which is the main theme here, is one of the fruits that I appreciate very much but rarely buy. Neither in the dried nor in the fresh state, although it is a great delicacy.
A few years ago, a customer gave me a jar of homemade fig jam as a gift, made from figs from the garden of the holiday home in Ibiza. I confess, I have never again been able to enjoy such an excellent jam. No other fig jam I have ever bought has ever tasted this delicacy.

The scent of figs was also rarely in my face. Not that I deliberately ignored the subject My first fig smell was some years ago then Dune pour Homme, which one wanted to make palatable to me at the Dior conditions in the Alsterhaus. I found it very pleasant, but I was not convinced to buy it.
Fico di Amalfi from Acqua di Parma also beautiful but not a real candidate for purchase.
Then a sample of Fico d'India from Tuttotondo came into my hands, also very beautiful, but probably a bit sweet in the long run.
Also Noble Fig from Ferrari, who couldn't entice me to buy it.
Now a sample of Philosykos EdT landed with me and I thought, you can't call it bad.
On the contrary, it's really beautiful. The sample was used up and I made my thoughts about the fragrance.

At Philosykos I smell a lot of fresh green at first, I combine it with freshly cut grass, still dewy. Then the fig gets involved. It is not yet fully ripe, not yet in full sweetness, still green, even if already aromatic.
In addition, the fig is still on the branch, because it smells pleasantly woody. And some leaves are also still hanging on the branch. The green impression is still there.
Later, I can still see a hint of coconut. Not strong, just as a background so that the scent doesn't seem too linear. Goes very well with it.
I don't perceive any pepper. Fortunately, I must say here. I'm afraid pepper would have been a nuisance here. I have noticed pepper in some scents rather unpleasantly Especially in connection with flowers, it often bothers me.

The whole combination looks very natural and authentic. Nothing comes across as artificial or unround. Due to the restraint Philosykos is a very good everyday fragrance if you want to scent yourself pleasantly and unobtrusively. A little warmth is good for the fragrance, so I prefer to place it in the spring and summer time. In winter the scent could rather go down.
What one could perhaps blame the fragrance for is its somewhat "cowardly" appearance. The durability is not so outstanding, has rather a good cologne level and the scent quickly becomes skin-tight. Lovers of sweeping fragrances will not get their money's worth here.
But for me, this is just the way it is. The smell should not be louder
Philosykos is for me the epitome of an unperfumed perfume. It is a fragrance that gets by without exuberant synthetics, without loud floral accords, without artificial freshness and without squeaky sweetness. The fragrance works for itself as it is. And it does that very well.
And he does not become annoying or pushy at any stage. I had to correct the initial rating of 8 upwards.

I don't know if I would have actually bought it. But now a sample package was accompanied by a still almost full bottle and I'm really happy about this unexpected surprise.
My huge thanks therefore go to Stanze, that was a real bull's eye!
And in keeping with the name of the fragrance, I have also become a fig friend.
34 Comments
6
Bottle
7
Sillage
6
Longevity
9
Scent
FvSpee

249 Reviews
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FvSpee
FvSpee
Top Review 27  
Philosykos or How I became a fig friend
I've liked figs for 20 years - for eating. Both the dried fruit and the beautiful fleshy fresh fruit. I remember my first fresh fig, I picked it from a wild fig tree in Croatia in the 90s, as a culinary awakening experience.

So although I have a positive basic attitude towards figs, my olfactory path to becoming a fig friend was rocky (though always upwards). Not counting any short tests of other fragrances that I hadn't memorized, it all started with "Premier Figuier" by "L'Artisan Parfumeur", a fragrance I had the highest expectations of, which were terribly disappointed. I found the scent gruesome and smelled almost only cheap coconut milk lemonade from the Asian snack bar. Then I tried "Feige" from the house of "Harry Lehmann", which I greatly appreciated, and was again very disappointed. Somehow too soft, musty, sweetish. I liked "Fico di Amalfi" from "Acqua di Parma" much better, and "Jardins de Kérylos" from "Parfumerie Générale" really good. But Diptyque has now shot down the fig with this product here, with the fig friend.

The fragrance has been described here many times, perhaps most beautifully and aptly from my point of view by Gaukeleya, and whether I can add anything substantial to it, I do not know.

Especially at the beginning, "Philosykos" spreads enormously cheerful, almost sparkling green notes (Frau von Spee in the blind test immediately associated "grass"), but in the end, for me it is a light blue, light, very free, wide scent. The fig fruit and its Mediterranean environment is wonderfully captured olfactorically - the coconut note, which disturbed me so terribly in "Premier Figuier" and which is also contained here according to the fragrance pyramid, is hardly noticeable to me, at most as a fine rounding off. If the fig is the focus of a fragrance, then a certain fruity sweetness can hardly be missing, but this one doesn't come across as mushy, but discreet and with an almost noble dryness, as if a touch of icing sugar is blowing through the sunny air.

Looking at the critical reviews here, the main criticisms seem to be that the fragrance is a bit one-dimensional and underdeveloped, and that it's too feminine for a unisex scent. I cannot agree with the first point for two reasons: Firstly, I don't find "Philosykos" to be at all unrefined and linear, and secondly I don't have any problems with soliflores, whose scent is as straight as a motorway in Italy - as long as it's beautiful. As for the second point of criticism, yes, I too find the fragrance rather (!) feminine, but not in such a way that a man could not use it with pleasure. Philoyskos is really not "unmanly"! And anyway: a real guy, or an average man in a masculine or classic men's wardrobe, with a fruity or flowery scent is perhaps especially interesting!
The shelf life is about 6 hours for me, very close to the skin maybe 9, and the sillage is restrained after the starting phase, but not annoyingly low. In itself quite a friend of long shelf life, I find it exactly fitting in this case. If necessary, you can add more at 14 o'clock, then the fragrance lasts the whole day
I was wondering if the fact that every time I tested a fig scent I found it better than the one I had tried before might simply indicate that I am getting used to fig as a scent. It may be that there is something to it, but nevertheless I believe that "Philosykos" is an unusually well-done scent. Its obvious commercial success speaks for itself: Although "Diptyque" isn't exactly mainstream right now (as I discovered the label, I described it in episode 4 of the Berliner Duftspazieränge, which I blogged about here a few days ago), it has 169 owners here at Parfumo and is listed on many wish and watch lists, and it was the starting point for several flankers at the manufacturer, from Philosykos EdP to the solid perfume to the special edition and, and, and, and...

My personal conclusion: 9 points (because who knows, maybe the upward path will continue and I will discover a still more beautiful fig scent, I need room to move up) and wish list.
9 Comments
10
Bottle
5
Sillage
7
Longevity
10
Scent
Tragician

1 Review
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Tragician
Tragician
Very helpful Review 16  
Of blue nights and old sandstone walls
I became aware of Diptyque through another scent - I was looking for a vanilla I could make friends with after a while and tested Eau Duelle - and stood in a well-known time-honoured department store in front of the marble counter with the beautiful oval bottles lined up. Eau Duelle was tasted and I was still not a glowing vanilla fan. And because I am curious, I took another bottle in my hand and sprayed some of it on a test strip.

Actually I don't believe in love at first sight and normally I have to get a little warm with scents. But what I smelled here was special. It is said that the olfactory sense is most strongly connected with memory, and that's exactly what Philosykos does with me: he evokes memories. I breathed in and I remembered: Rome in the summer a few years ago, the burning sun, a park on a hill high above the breathless city, where I lay reading and looking up at the sky. To roaming around in the dark blue nights, through ancient streets still warm from the relentless sunshine, to the warm walls of sandstone that seemed to glow under my hand. To getting lost in the foreign land and the very own silent adventures that result from it. It was all there, before my eyes, in the middle of the grey December.

In the radiant Rome of my memory, there is no fig to be found (at least not consciously); perhaps it is rather the lush green, as if one were to tear a leaf from the tree and grind it between one's fingers in the afternoon heat, or the fig tree wood, which smells soft and warm, that evokes these associations.
For me, Philosykos is not a fragrance but a feeling, overburdened and at the same time somewhat melancholic, a memory. And even though its durability is a little weak and even though I have to ask people to whom I want to introduce my great love of fragrance to come very close with their nose, I love it.
5 Comments
10
Bottle
7
Sillage
8
Longevity
10
Scent
7BlackSeas

10 Reviews
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7BlackSeas
7BlackSeas
Very helpful Review 14  
Mediterranean moment of happiness
Somewhere in the Mediterranean along the coast. A garden with fig trees. Rocky, rugged coastal landscape. Fresh, tepid summer wind carried from the sea to the land.

Philosykos begins green-splashy. You can almost feel the leaves of the fig tree in your hands, when rubbing them together the green-aromatic scent escapes, mixed with the tart skin of the fig fruit.
While the tart green notes then fade further and further into the background, the focus in the heart note is on the fruit juice of the freshly cut fig. Later the fruit juice changes more and more to a creamy, delicate fig milk.

Fresh.
Soft.
Gentle.
Creamy.
One of a kind.
Enchanting.

Philosykos was a revelation for me. The first summer scent that stood out completely from everything that I had known about scents until then and completely enchanted me.

The durability is very reasonable for a summer scent (and, mind you, an EDT), I can perceive the scent for about 6 hours The Sillage is not room-filling - it doesn't have to be here at all, but the scent is still perceptible for the immediate surroundings over a longer period of time.
I find the design of the flacon to be exceptionally beautiful with a high recognition value.
5 Comments
5
Bottle
5
Sillage
6
Longevity
7.5
Scent
Aolani

17 Reviews
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Aolani
Aolani
Very helpful Review 14  
Beautiful fig leaf scent
The first spray beamed me under a fig tree into a garden at the Mediterranean Sea. It is early in the morning, through the green fig leaf roof a light breeze is blowing from the sea. The air is fresh and clear. The first flower buds open. They timidly show their faces to the young day. At the foot of the gnarled, twisted trunk lies a burst fig, from which a sweet scent emanates. A wasp circles around the fruit, a whirring, then silence. In my back I feel the smooth bark and look upwards - a green umbrella of five-lobed leaves protects me. The fig leaf - one hand. In my mind's eye Adam and Eve appear, painted by Dürer, the shame covered with foliage, Eve holding the apple in her hand. We're still in paradise. They were apple tree leaves and not fig leaves, where did the fig leaves come from, I still think, then I fall asleep. A siren in my ears - I wake up. It itches. A mosquito bite. I pick a fig leaf, drizzle the latex on the red spot. Sunlight flickers through the treetop and conjures up a green-golden roof. The trunk in my back smells woody-warm. I'm happy.
9 Comments
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Statements

15 short views on the fragrance
BamBamNYCBamBamNYC 1 year ago
10
Bottle
7
Sillage
4
Longevity
9
Scent
You snap off a branch from the fig tree. White milky sap oozes out. You step on fallen leaves.
0 Comments
GeorgeReidGeorgeReid 1 year ago
9
Bottle
5
Sillage
4
Longevity
9.5
Scent
Earthy without being too dirty or mineral-based. While longevity is questionable, this is a great warm-weather niche scent.
0 Comments
DopeweaselDopeweasel 2 years ago
5
Bottle
4
Sillage
7
Longevity
8.5
Scent
Fresh fig leaves that are floral and green. Light and unisex. Recommended for blind but. Loved it
0 Comments
ItchynoseItchynose 5 years ago
9
Bottle
5
Sillage
5
Longevity
8.5
Scent
Possibly the reference niche fig fragrance by which all others are measured. Slightly fresher and lighter than the woodier EdP version.
0 Comments
AcesulfamAcesulfam 9 months ago
5
Sillage
4
Longevity
7.5
Scent
It 100% achieves what it wants to be - a sweet, green (almost plant like), slightly woody fig scent. Nothing more, nothing less.
0 Comments
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