I made a cheeky little Space NK purchase just before Christmas; the Philosykos eau de toilette from Diptyque. This makes it  – by far – my most-repurchased luxury beauty item. I can’t think of any other product I race through so quickly and so religiously keep “in stock”.
I thought that my love of Philosykos pre-dated this blog, but in actual fact I’ve just done some detective work (took all of fifteen seconds) and realised that I discovered the scent when I was invited to the Mayfair store around five years ago. I’ve worn it regularly ever since.
Philosykos is a fig scent: there’s no escaping that. It’s not “hint of fig” or “lightened by the freshness of fig leaf” or “emboldened by the fruitiness of fig”: it’s pure and unadulterated fig. There’s fig around every olfactory corner – fig leaf and, er, fig in the top notes and echoed in the green middle notes and then fig tree (I’m assuming this means the bark") in the base notes. Now obviously other notes have been added, but they are there to draw out the beauty of the fig, to enhance it, not to mess about with it and be all funky-cool.
If you love a fresh, green perfume, but one that has a slightly masculine, woody edge, then this is for you. It’s clean but earthy, simple but somehow endlessly interesting: it’s high-end Parisian lifestyle shops and it’s chic women who waft about m...