Have you ever experienced a perfume change seasons, evolving from a fresh spring morning to a sweltering summer day? Well, try out Weil de Weil, and you’ll know what I mean.
It’s a gorgeous sunny day here in Berkeley, and it’s making me long for consistently warm weather. Although I have many other oriental, floriental and heavy chypre perfumes I’m going to talk about at some point, there’s a desire to slough them off like so many sweaters and coats.
I’m breaking out the bracing green* Weil de Weil for some California dreaming. Like a grapefruit sorbet at the end of a heavy meal (with sage or some dusky herb to complexify it), Weil is cutting through the richness of my recent olfactory diet and clearing my palate.
This is a truly stunning perfume! You know how gross perfumes are referred to as “scrubbers,” as in, “I can’t scrub this thing off fast enough!”? I propose a new category — the Huffer — as in “I can’t stop huffing this stuff!” I’m at a café and getting strange looks as I maniacally sniff my wrists. (Smelling yourself in public is never really acceptable, is it?)
Released the same year as the green chypre masterpiece Chanel No. 19, Weil, I would argue, should get as much attention as No. 19. It starts off with a wonderfully bitter green accord — galbanum, leafy green notes, and facets from neroli and narcissus. Just as these tart, minor key notes sing out, Weil subtly evolves into something softer and dreamier, thanks to a plump gardenia note and a powdery — and almost rotten-sweet — hyacinth note.
By the time you reach Weil’s drydown, and don’t think it could get anymore beautiful, you’re already drowning in it, a goner like a bug in the Venus Flytrap’s narcotic and deadly nectar. (Yes, I'm drowning in my own purple prose — always a sign I love what I'm sniffin'!)
I love bright green perfumes that evolve into leather chypres. That’s really what happens to Weil if you give it some time. Its animalic and woody base notes (I didn’t include civet but I’ve seen it mentioned) turn the perfume’s spring time coolness into a hot, languid summer. The combination of the almost too-strong hyacinth and leafy green note (coriander?) mixed with musk, amber, sandalwood and leather creates a momentary note of perspiration (of the non-stinky teenage variety given off in Paco Rabanne's Calandre.)
I am truly blown away by Weil’s beauty. It manages to evoke the transformation of spring to summer, of freshness to ripeness, of innocence to the first stirring of erotic desire. Or, more accurately, it deconstructs those oppositions and suggests that spring already contains the last days of summer; that innocence always contains experience; and that every beginning has the seeds of its ending.
If Weil de Weil were a movie, it would be Peter Weir’s 1975 masterpiece, Picnic at Hanging Rock, a haunting film about a group of Victorian schoolgirls who go on a hike that changes them forever.
* Haarmann & Reimer's Duftatlas lists Weil de Weil as a green fragrance, akin to Jacomo's Silences (check out the Duftatlas image there). What this doesn't take into account is Weil's leather-chypre drydown, which Silences doesn't have...
This sounds wonderful! And I have a vintage sample somewhere I think. I can't wait to try it now.
Posted by: kjanicki | February 11, 2011 at 04:22 PM
Yeah, check it out KJ. It's a real...Huffer. :-)
Posted by: Perfumaniac | February 11, 2011 at 04:38 PM
Wonderful review, thanks. I'm ashamed to say that I have never seen the film or read the book of Picnic at Hanging Rock,so I'd better check them out (and add the perfume to the list too!). I have actually been to Hanging Rock - quite spooky, as large rocks always are. The cry 'Miranda! Miranda!' resonates through Australian film history. I enjoyed the trailer, and spotted a few familiar Australian actors, including Jacki Weaver, I think, who is up for an Oscar at the moment.
Posted by: Anne | February 11, 2011 at 05:30 PM
Enjoy them all, Anne! I haven't read the book or been to Hanging Rock. (After watching the film, I'm not sure I want to go on a hike or have a picnic there!)
Posted by: Perfumaniac | February 11, 2011 at 05:46 PM
(Funny, there's a Hanging Rock not far from where I grew up, but it's not in Australia...)
I adore Silences and No. 19, but "leather chypre" - a la Bandit - still skeers me. I'll leave the Weil de Weil for you and just go spritz some Silences.
Posted by: mals86 | February 12, 2011 at 10:41 PM
All Weil deserves the attention that Chanel gets.
I adore Weil de Weil, and even in its attenuated EDC form, Antilope tells me stories. I have one other Weil on my shelf, from 1978, Mollie Parnis. It is simply my favorite fragrance of all time. People - men, wome - would follow me around and ask me what I was wearing. The last 1/4 inch of that deepy orangy elixir in the bottom of the elegant circle-within-a-square bottle has turned nearly beyond recognition, but I still open it up for a quick smell.
Posted by: julie | February 23, 2011 at 09:07 PM
Julie, you've gotten me totally intrigued by Mollie Parnis. Never heard of it! And I would love to hear what the stories are that Antilope tells you, even in attenuated eau de cologne form. I'm waiting...;-)
Posted by: Perfumaniac | February 24, 2011 at 05:04 AM
Hello, again. Since I last posted I got a decant of Vol de Nuit, and the resemblance to Weil de Weil is striking, especially the top notes. From there, VdN does a soft landing on that coumarin/vanillin Guerliande cushion, where WdW stays more bracing, finishing in leather and white flowers to my nose.
Antilope. You wrote about it better than I ever could. I will add this: some fragrances are described as "sharp" - Antilope to me is "round" - There's no bite to it, yet it is never cloying or boring. Something about it takes me back to my growing-up years, it is womanly, both alluring and comforting. The violet note gives it a facet of old-fashioned, but these aren't the dessicated violets of L'Heure Bleue, a fragrance I adore for its meditative stillness. Antilope's violets are still in the ground and sun-kissed, and there you have another facet of Antilope, it is of the outdoors without being sporty. Round yet with facets. Hmmmm.
Posted by: julie | April 04, 2011 at 01:59 AM
So glad you like Weil de Weil, julie. I have the vintage Vol de Nuit, and don't recall the top notes being similar, but I'll check it out again. I love: "VdN does a soft landing on that coumarin/vanillin Guerliande cushion..."(It is a cushion!)
And Antilope really is wonderful. Even as you were describing it I could remember the scent of hay, chamomile, a touch of mint, a subtle berry without the sweetness. It's definitely round! Thanks for stopping by!
Posted by: Perfumaniac | April 04, 2011 at 11:39 AM
Hello, again. As it happened I put on a sample of Chanel 19 this morning, and thought WdW immediately, so of course I had to revisit your posts on both. Amazing, both born in 1971. bittergracenotes sums up WdW in a sentence, here the link,
http://bittergracenotes.blogspot.com/2009/06/one-sentence-perfume-review-weil-de.html
but I'll spare you the suspense: "It's the smell of a swamp in Paradise."
19 disappears on my skin. I'm passing around my Weils on basenotes and expect WdW will get a lot of love.
Posted by: julie | August 01, 2012 at 11:32 AM
A swamp in Paradise is great, Julie! Weil de Weil is green, green, green. Sounds like paradise to me!
Posted by: Perfumaniac | August 01, 2012 at 10:14 PM
I count myself lucky to have stumbled upon a 7.5 ml mini of this late last week. It came yesterday and oh! This perfume is stunning! The opening absolutely floored me! The only other perfume that has such a beautiful opening for me is Le Parfum de Therese, which also has tangerine in the top notes. I haven't really been able to figure out this perfume yet, the opening has my head spinning, but I love the green and the subtle woodiness of it.
Posted by: Carrie | May 30, 2013 at 01:56 AM