Les Exclusifs de Chanel Sycomore

Heaven. I had quite the sh*t-show of a morning yesterday, meeting a snooty director with no interest in my work. I walked back home under the trees in the sunshine, popped into a perfume department and went straight for the Chanel Exclusifs desk because I know I can rely on something that will be beautifully crafted, even if not my style at times, and free of those nasty ambreine and synthetic woody ambers or whatever. I'm not familiar with Sycamore. I might have sprayed it a while back but it got lost on an armful of scents. At first it speaks of 'posh lady'. Quite classic, trad' Chanel as opposed to mainstream, then it begins to waft up in complex tendrils of woodiness. It actually reminded me of rhubarb at first. Later I realised the tart astringency was coming from a certain type of vetiver. You know how you can have smoky ones, deep, dark ones, clean, green and so on? This is the same vetiver you'll find in Chanel's La Pausa. It's inky, astringent and refined. Pair that with the scent of a sun-warmed forest floor, and you can see why this felt like a healing balm after an aggravating and disappointing morning. It reminds me of the scent of a fresh green pine cone - sweet, resinous and slightly menthol-like. I now understand what Tanya Sanchez meant when describing the desire to breathe this in like fresh air. It truly is delightful, and as soon as I feel flush, I'm buying a full bottle. Beautiful.

I loved it on the tester, and I love it on my clothes, but on my skin it just smells like stale cinnamon. It is nonlinear, luckily, and projects more of the woody notes in the drydown. It definitely has a musty quality to it that I don’t love. The opening is uncharacteristically harsh for Polge senior. Not blind buy safe. *EDIT: holy cow. It softened, smoothed out, and is now incredible. I don’t know about on skin, but my coat smells incredible

There is an unavoidable BO note that ruins this scent for me. I got it on a tester strip at the Chanel store so it does not have to do with skin chemistry

By far my favorite vetiver scent. To be honest I dont even like vetiver. This is the exceptIon. Is it worth The money? . I’m torn. But read all of the Chanel exclusive reviews….i bet they’re similar in complaints for the cost. But I’ll tell you one thing. It does NOT smell like Encre noir 🤮(thankfully)

It smells good! It is kot as earthy as people say. I get mor a woody, nutty, semi vanilla, then vetiver. But the performance is terrible, 3 hours on skin with no projection. Longer on clothes, but then again so soft you have to stick your nose in the sweater.

Jacques Polge's Sycomore is an attempt to respond, with contemporary architectural precision, to the name and atmospheric trace Ernest Beaux left behind in 1930. With the 2016 transition to Eau de Parfum concentration, however, this crystalline EDT has essentially vanished from circulation. On contact with skin, what rises is a silver-needle sharpness of cypress and juniper. Beneath it, the vetiver root begins to pulse—quietly, but with steady authority. The smell of a root freshly pulled from the earth and cut open, where green sap, damp soil, and faint smoke meet. This is not the concept of vetiver. What appears here is raw matter, presented with a quiet clarity, before any conceptual sublimation. The grounds for such direct presentation lie in the intersection of two aesthetics that have always coexisted within Chanel. One is the abstractionist tradition of Beaux and early Polge—the aldehydic halo of N°5, the sandalwood plane of Bois des Îles. These operations strip materials of their concrete character and elevate them into idea. The other is the lineage of Henri Robert (1954–1978): the directness of galbanum and lily of the valley in Cristalle (1974), the lucid classical chypre of Pour Monsieur (1955). Here materials speak as themselves, with dignity. Sycomore EDT is a dialectical synthesis of these opposed traditions. It inherits Beaux's material list (vetiver, violet, tobacco, aldehydes) while departing from his abstractionist method, and it connects to Robert's commitment to materials as themselves while introducing an architectural rigor that Robert's own works never possessed—a triple operation: departure from Beaux, connection to Robert, transcendence of both. The way vetiver stands upright in the opening—not veiled in mist but supported by structural scaffolding (cypress, juniper)—is the concrete embodiment of this third way. The 1930 formula is poorly attested, and our characterization of "the Beaux method" depends on Chanel's limited internal disclosures; I flag this as speculation. What enables this synthesis is the solution to a problem intrinsic to vetiver as raw material. Vetiver oil contains components of widely differing volatility—light terpenes and trace citrus-like compounds on one side, the khusimol backbone and α/β-vetivone side chains on the other—and the "audible" molecules change with time. Once the light volatiles disperse, a vetiver-soliflore left to itself collapses to its heavy residues alone; the perfume mutates into something else. Most vetiver-centric perfumes fall into "magnificent top, impoverished drydown" or its inverse precisely for this reason. In Sycomore EDT, each volatility tier is engineered to anticipate or inherit a different facet of vetiver. The coniferous sharpness of the top anticipates vetiver's anisic coolness; the heart presents the khusimol skeleton and α/β-vetivone side chains of vetiver proper; the synthetic sandalwood base—given the period and price point, plausibly a Polysantol- or Javanol-type blend—inherits the dry woody residue from khusimol. One hour in, two hours in, the wearer continues to hear variations on the same theme. Edmond Roudnitska (1905–1996, perfumer of many Dior compositions) theorized perfumery as forme olfactive—olfactory form—and took as his ideal a composition that preserves its theme along the time axis. Sycomore EDT is one of the more successful contemporary realizations of that ideal. And this linearity is a state of physical chemistry achievable only at EDT concentration. At EDP concentration, diffusion in solvent slows, the tiers superimpose along the time axis, and the linear architecture collapses into an undifferentiated "luxurious forest." Masterpiece status, in this case, depends on a specific concentration range. Complementing this temporal control is an inversion of the aldehyde function. In Chanel's tradition, aldehydes have served as veil: a sheath that covers the rawness of floral material and abstracts it. In Sycomore, the aldehyde functions as blade. Natural vetiver oil carries—depending on extraction conditions—a faint glandular suggestion: thin wool, the oil of human skin (this is thought to derive from trace sulfur compounds, though their presence in the specific lot used in Sycomore cannot be confirmed without disclosed formula). In Encre Noire (Lalique, Lorson) this haze is covered by Iso E Super; in Vétiver Extraordinaire (Malle, Ropion) it is swaddled in cashmeran and a woody-musk envelope. In Sycomore, it is simply gone—not covered, but surgically excised from the outset. The vetiver outline is preserved entirely intact while the human warmth and the animalic facet alone are selectively removed. A tool once deployed in the service of abstraction is here turned to purification. The most elegant of revolts. Parallel to this purification runs another operation: smoke as constructive inscription. One of Sycomore's central impressions is "dry smoke"—yet if the vetiver used is indeed Haitian (a claim by The Perfume Shrine and other secondary sources), the raw material itself is markedly less smoky than Javanese vetiver. The smoke at Sycomore's center has not been extracted from vetiver. It has been read into vetiver—by cypress terpenes, juniper pinenes, and very likely a trace guaiacol-class adjunct. A property the material did not possess is brought into being by structure. Technically, this is trompe-l'œil; critically, it is the sister theorem to the aldehyde inversion. Subtraction is not mere deletion—it is also the carving of contours the material never had. What appears beyond the pared warmth and the incised smoke is the absence of olfactory-experiential narrative. Not the absence of narrative. Chanel does provide Sycomore with a mythology—Auvergne’s volcanic landscapes, Mademoiselle Chanel’s childhood memories, autumn woods suspended outside of time. Yet this narrative remains largely external to the perfume itself. The fragrance is described mainly through texture and atmosphere: deep, smoky, earthy, warm. It does not dramatize its story from within. Compare this with other vetiver-centered compositions. Encre Noire constructs its ink fantasy internally: the name, the inkwell bottle derived from René Lalique's 1913 Biches design, and the fragrance materials themselves collaborate to perform "inkiness" as an olfactory effect. Vétiver Extraordinaire characterizes vetiver from within the accord itself—cold, metallic, mineral, almost pebble-like. Vétiver Tonka frames its warmth and softness directly through the texture of the perfume, while the Hermessence line as a whole is articulated olfactorily as "haiku-like" compositions. Timbuktu is perhaps the clearest example: the references to Wusulan ritual, Malian smoke ceremonies, cypriol, incense, and dryness are not decorative framing devices surrounding the work, but are structurally embedded into the perfume's sensory logic. In each of these cases, narrative is enacted through the vetiver itself rather than merely attached to it externally. Sycomore operates differently. The fragrance does not intrinsically encode Auvergne in the way Encre Noire encodes ink or Timbuktu encodes ritual smoke. Three hours into wear, what remains is less a place than a material presence: vetiver itself, suspended within the dry structural scaffolding already described. Forest, ash, and campfire imagery certainly arise in criticism and wearer testimony, but this does not contradict the point. If anything, it clarifies it. Because the fragrance only weakly scripts its own experiential narrative, it leaves unusually large interpretive space for projection. The wearer's imagination is permitted to move freely, while Chanel's official mythology hovers above the composition rather than being fully metabolized into it. The operation is structurally analogous to the work of Constantin Brâncuși. Brâncuși's Bird series and Endless Column preserve the recognizability of their objects while stripping away representational speci

This smells a hell of a lot like Citadelle by Raw Spirit, except that Citadelle can be saved by sitting a little bit of it on a windowsill for a few days in the hot sun. Sycomore sucks and smells like urinal cleaner.

Reviewing the $315/15ml extrait from 1ml decant. Good but not great in terms of all considerations. Straight smoky woody Vetiver opening to close. A bit of Gin and juniper mixed in. Good but not great projection. 6-8 hour length. Very good but not distinctive enough. Go for it if you have the means as value is relative to what you have to spend, but I personally could not justify adding this one to the growing Vetiver collection even with its GOAT status.

The opening is a fresh coniferous accord. Smoky tobacco and java vetiver, cypress and juniper bites right away. As it dries down, the vetiver, tobacco and cypress seem to coalesce, giving a very cool smoked vetiver vibe. I dint get much of the pink pepper though there is a spicy note in the dry down, but i dont sense any floral from the pink pepper. I do not get any powdery violet and only a subtle sandalwood smell after a few hours. Its very much a linear spicy smoky vetiver, and that is not bad at all! The vetiver is smoky where as Guerlain Vetiver is soapy green and Nishane Sultan Vetiver is more nutty green. I feel the three really encapsulate all the facets of Vetiver and its variants (Bourbon, Javanese, Hatian). If you are a massive Vetiver fan, owning all three would not feel redundant. Of the three, Sycomore's vetiver is masked slightly by the spicy accords and not as "loud" as in Guerlain or Nishane Sultan Vetiver. Its prominent, but not in your face like Nishane or central focus like Guerlain. It reminds me of a more vetiver centered, tobacco/spice muted Feuilles de Tabac by Miller Harris. Its a very aromatic "cool" smoky vetiver. I find this would be a wonderful fall and spring perfume. Absolute gem for the fall. I feel its a bit too dry and smoky for summer. Winter I feel works well as well if your into a cool vibe in the coldest months. Ita strong but not overwhelming. I feel the spice makes it lean very masculine and men into perfume will definitely ask what it is. Women will enjoy this on their man for sure. Its nice, its classy.

this is a punchy, thick heavy version of encre noire i like the earthy pulp citrusy vetiver on this scent, however i wouldnt buy a full bottle. i find encre noire more fresh , versatile plus 10 times cheaper than this

Sycomore is a beautiful, vetiver-forward offering from Chanel’s Les Exclusifs collection. I received a sample and, even before trying the rest of the line, I knew this would be a serious contender for a signature scent. After wearing it, I visited the Chanel fragrance boutique near my home and purchased a bottle without hesitation. The note breakdown on Fragrantica feels accurate, but rather than focusing on individual notes, I’d rather describe how this fragrance makes me feel. Sycomore evokes the image of an ancient library — a quiet place where knowledge has been gathered and preserved over centuries. It feels thoughtful, composed, and inward-facing. This is something I would choose to wear in moments where I need to exercise authority or demonstrate expertise, but never in an aggressive way. With just one spray, it stays with me throughout the day. Not loudly, but consistently — almost like a steady companion at my side. There’s a sense of reassurance to it, as if it’s offering subtle support rather than demanding attention. Although I’m still early in my fragrance journey, Sycomore already feels like an essential piece in my collection. For me, it’s firmly S-tier. I genuinely dread the day this bottle runs empty — not only because it’s expensive, but because it has quickly become something I associate with calm confidence and inner resolve.

Beautiful Beautiful. .but Anyone else notice how similar it is to La Pausa? I thought I'd picked up the wrong sample but it definitely says Sycomore . . .

what is there to say. this is exquisite, and someone with the best cuff links and tweed jacket must be wearing it somewhere. There is a fennel note I pick up on, but it fades. It’s just so itself.

It's really reminiscent of ELDO’s Fat Electrician, Hermes’ Vetiver Tonka, and Prada’s Infusion de Vetiver. Since I already have the frags I have mentioned, I’ll just skip this for now. Lovely scent though.

Time for my favorite game, a format comparison. On my left arm is a new Sycomore EdP and on my right is the original Les Exclusifs EdT release. I can keep this very simple: these are very nearly two different perfumes. The EdT is one of the driest and woodiest vetivers I’ve ever smelled. The similarities to Encre Noir are significant. In true Les Exclusifs EdT style, it’s full of air and space. The very woody vetiver stretches from the top to the base of the perfume, and in the final skin scent it pairs beautifully with sandalwood and purple violets. The EdP uses the same woody vetiver but seems to use less of it. It’s decidedly floral, heavily leaning on the aldehydes and violet flower note in the top and heart. The final skin scent is very similar to the EdT but softer, more floral, a bit sweeter and wetter. The EdT is a very strident, stately, and stiff character to the EdP’s very pleasant, relaxed and easy beauty. These two formats aren’t the same perfume; think of them as siblings with very different personalities. But, just like a parent, I love them both.

Surprised no one has said this, but this reminds me so much of Fat Electrican by ELdO but toned down on the gritty electrical and rubber gaskets component. Beautiful, woody and vetiver.

Directly from the exclusive niche collection of the Maison Chanel: Sycomore by Chanel evokes an enchanting walk in the woods, a sinuous and impervious entry with warm woody and chypre notes, cypress, juniper and sandalwood welcome intoxicants and open the horizon towards lively aromatic notes and a present and very pleasant tobacco wrapped in aldehyde hints and fresh violets. Woody and aromatic sillage. Appreciable durability.

A sensitive lumberjack might wear this. The kind of bearded rugged exterior who unwinds from the labors of the day by watching Lifetime Originals. Flannel shirts, yes, but only designer brands and made of alpaca hair. Theres something at once manly and soft about this. It starts off quite masculine and seems that it will go full bore. But no. Snuggly softness emerges to counter the smoke and wood. Very interesting and well made- not sure who it’s for, though. I’ll stick with my Encre Noir lineup for 1/10 the price and perhaps more visceral satisfaction. Glad I sampled this one though.

I sampled 4 of the exclusif line, and I was sure Le Lion would be my favourite. Well, I love to be positively impressed. Sycomore is my favourite of the ones I sampled (le lion, coromandel, comete and sycomore). Everything is so well put together, that I can't stop sniffing my wrist. It opens very green, sharp, straight a way forest, also a bit of gin tonic like. Then it gets darker, but in a cozy way. Like you are in a cottage in the woods, it is late winter, almost spring, it is raining outside, and you are wearing a light sweater. There is a bit of sweetness to it. Not much, but enough to make it addicting. For sure getting a full bottle!!

I smelled this by accident when trying other fragrances in a Chanel boutique. I tried it on and instantly knew it would be my go to scent. There are fantastic reviews here that describe it in many better ways than I could, the reason I love it, is because it’s unique, it’s dark, smoky, earthy and one that you can’t forget once you have come across it. For me it reminds me of an autumnal walk, when you smell the musks and smoky essence that are released when you tread through the damp leaves and smell the open fires people have roaring. I love collecting fragrances and have tried so many but this is the one for me.

Sycomore opens up initially with a moderate sillage and on application the instant feeling is of vetiver mixed in with something warm and sweet. I would say there might be a drop of vanilla in there. Some ten minutes later when the perfume has warmed up on your skin there is vetiver with a gentle sandalwood and a green accord in the background along with a hint of tobacco and perhaps a hint of violet. It feels like a vastly superior version of Encre Noire and Encre Noire Extreme. They are the closest perfumes I can think of to this. This is brighter and lighter and greener. After another half an hour goes by you realise that Sycomore seems best described as an autumnal perfume or at least one for the cooler weather. It becomes clear that it's a linear perfume but very well balanced. Two hours in and the sillage is intimate. Five hours in and it's faint and fading away. I think it's genuinely unisex. I think men and women can wear it without any element of surprise. You have the vetiver as the dominant note throughout and a certain smokiness that starts as tobacco but gains an incense sort of vibe about it. There's a sort of dry autumn day about it - the crisp wood and leaves on the earth, a touch of the remains of a bonfire from the previous night. But it is much more elegant than Encre Noire and Encre Noire Extreme - there's none of that honking cashmeran which spoils those perfumes. No, this avoids that trap and has a richness with some generally spicy background and the aldehydes do enough to lift the perfume out of the heaviness trap which the other two fall into. Now, that price tag. Hmm, that's a bit of a bar for me. I'd have to run out of autumnal perfumes before I bought a bottle of this as a result. If it wasn't in the exclusifs line but was one of their standard perfumes with the price tag to match then I'd have it again. But it isn't so I won't. Shame, because it is a lovely perfume.

A very nice, sophisticated scent. I'm not one to gender-label because we can all wear what we want. But it does have that classic male perfume profile, only softer. It opens with a very green and nutty vetiver paired with the expected Chanel aldehyde DNA. The aldehydes do a nice job of tapping into the vetiver's powdery side and what, in my opinion, saves this scent from being a dated masculine cliche. The whole structure acts more like a puffy white cloud allowing the main note to breathe. Honestly, I really don't get anything else other than this gentle aldehyde + vetiver combo. Inoffensive. But that's also what makes it a little, well, offensive.

Originally upon smelling this, I thought I smelled sunflower. The tobacco brings a wash of golden, curled leaves (and petals) covering the ground. The sweet nuances remind me of arizona green tea with ginseng. I want to wear this all the time. When I wear Sycomore, a bubble of early morning autumn sunlight and mist travels with me for hours. That’s how the light gets in. 5/5

My favorite Chanel perfume of all time. Earthy, dark, warm, woody, and a tinge of spice to add some flair. As expected from the Chanel DNA, the airiness of this perfume is what makes it stand out from other vetiver centric perfumes I have tried. Imagine being embraced by the earth itself, on the cooling floor of a deciduous forest. It's fall, the leaves are turning brown. You find solace in solitude that only nature can provide. This perfume pulls on my heartstrings for reasons I can't pinpoint. As an introvert, this perfume speaks to me. As weird as it sounds, it is my escape from the chaos of city life, in a bottle. A few sprays in a quiet room and I'm instantly transported to a haven, a refuge from all the noise and all the attention demanding aspects of my day. It brings me peace for a short blissful moment. I love everything about this scent except for it's ridiculous price. And yet once again I fear I may still purchase a bottle one day. This is Chanel through and through, and I love it for that. A masterpiece for the story it tells, in the way only perfumes can tell.

my favorite of the exclusive line next to coromandel. Its been said so many times but yes it can be compared to encre noire but dont get it twisted. They're both telling a different story. I don't wanna take away from the magic they both posses by saying that one is better than the other. neither lack in quality, althou what you are getting in sycamore what encre noire doesnt is the iconic use of chanel aldhydes. like the best way i can describe is that encre noire is like a dense, dark difficult to see in forest. and sycamore is like that exact same forest but with light shining thru the tree branches. the one is looking up and the other is looking down. however sycamore has a few more tricks up it's sleeve. it has a slight velvety / tabacco giving a smooth classy quality in the dry down. The opening is a lot brighter n fresher with pink pepper and the junipers adds a lot more green fresh aromatic tones in a way that makes the forest ''more visible'' as mentioned above. sycamore is elven while encre noire is vamperic i gave encre noire extreme a theme song so i will also give sycomore one from the same anime Berserk (1997): Susumu Hirasawa - Earth beautiful, both are beautiful creations wood elf/10

Think of encre noir, but with the addition of peppery notes

White tree bark mixed with a slight masculine soapiness gives the impression of a birch tree. I sense an unsweetened vanilla extract-like element that compliments the vetiver’s rooty tendencies in a subtle way. It could be benzoin. This is still dry which lends a lot of maturity to the composition. Slight pencil shaving quality but done well. The dry down smells a bit similar to jubilation xxv despite the fact the notes are nothing alike. Maybe the sandalwood is giving me that vibe. Update: gets better the more I wear it. A classy vetiver fragrance that's almost too perfect for the office.

Very basic vetiver-forward woody/aromatic perfume. Absurd price for what's in the formula...

I hate to say it but this smells like cardboard to me

It is said that David Bowie was fond of this fragrance and I can certainly imagine the Thin White Duke dousing himself in sandalwood and tobacco to great effect. It's a laundry light version of Tam Dao to me - soft, woody and intimate but with minimal throw. Layers beautifully if that's your thing (it's definitely mine), just be sure to choose something similarly drenched in aldehydes for a unique experience. I wear this with New Look by Dior and the combination is stunningly good. It also ups the wear time of each fragrance and I'm here for it.