Weil de Weil
Weil (1971)

This genre (chypre) suitable for adventurous ladies who love long walks at mountains and deep pine forests, horse riding, climbing, archery or sharpshooting, and still being sexy and feminine! I have trouble imagining how young girls into their modern, electronic, PC, and too often synthetic life, can use such perfumes. Weil de Weil is old fashioned, but if Joan Collins shoulderpads can be back in fashion, so can it!

The opening is a brisk galbanum & hyacinth. There are hints of citrus and a slightly malted fruitiness that tries but never succeeds in deposing tart as the chief mood. This green persists throughout the heart and is without doubt the main accord, a definite floral notes (mimosa & ylang ylang) becomes apparent and then yields somewhat to vetiver. There is a distant spiciness and a definite element of powder, but these seem medicinal, belonging far more to the locker room than the beauty parlour.

The nostalgia Weil de Weil evokes involves no person. Instead I am overcome with sensations of the large country house with the tree out front, a brook dancing through the forest floor, the sound of the wind high in the pines. That is playful and a little bit dirty. Almost like being a woman who can be quite serious, but underneath the eye glasses and the hair bun. She's a bit of a tiger once she lets her hair down and puts on a bit of red lipstick. Yet she's always classy, sensual but not provocative in a way thats inappropriate. Totally it's a great perfume. But it has it's role.

Yup. Weil de Weil perfume opens as a classic 1970s green galbanum bomb. The rest is a pretty floral, with a very good spicy coriander and Weil's trademark musk at the base. I quite like Weil de Weil perfume, but I really really like the edt much better. It takes a grassy vetiver, orris, and floral accord out of the heart and lets it stand alone.This could easily be worn by men as a cologne. It's very simple, yet still quite chic and interesting. I'd want to know more about the man who wears this.

Galbanum heaven. Seriously.

This lesser-known of the classic greenie vintages has it all, the bitter, the herbal, the yellow florals, including sunny, somewhat animalic narcissus and a mimosa note that I can get away with (I love the smell of mimosa, but seldom can find a fragrance that highlights it that doesn't come off as too "pretty" on my skin). Fresh, dewy petals and stamens rich with pollen, a sunny glade is conjured up in the heart.

It's the civet and vetiver in its base, however, that really sets Weil de Weil apart from other green chypres, extending its green and yellow floral sensibilities all the way into its dry down. A real hidden jewel.

Weil de Weil has been discontinued, and there are two reasons for that. One of them is bad luck, the other bad design.

It was released in 1971, a year when three outstanding perfumes appeared on the stands: No19, Rive Gauche and Aromatics Elixir. Any scent would be challenged by world class competition like that but the Weil had a big disadvantage, it’s a Givenchy III clone, and a rough and ready one at that.

Little wonder then that it didn't survive on the market. I wouldn’t say it deserved to go, but was there any reason to buy a copy poor of G-III when there were better new things to be had?

Wow. I have to say that this is one of the more surprising scents I've ever smelled. This thing shifts incredibly! There is a very green moment right at the start and then suddenly the strangest animalic scent rears its little furry head. It's a very odd combination of old tobacco, a bit of genuine skin-sweat, and something akin to the leathery notes found in vintage Cabochard. For one mothball-y and gasoline-laden minute, I am appalled, but then this weeks' old ashtray softens and become something rather seductive and unusual. I am both intrigued and slightly puzzled, as other reviews hadn't quite mentioned this almost Onda-like aspect. Is this vetiver or coriander combined with the narcissus? I don't understand it, but I really kind of love it and think this is just my kind of thing! Odd, but very highly intriguing.

Thumbs up for the vintage edp of Weil de Weil, a sharp, bracing, floral smell, good to start the day. I've stayed at a hotel that uses a similar smell for the soap and shampoo, and I like it.

Vintage:
Galbanum is done right here. The first hour is a perfect combination of green and floral. This hour is one of the best representation of spring
After a few hours though it veers off-script and becomes soapy.

An excellent green floral - bright and fresh.

Barbara Herman found the opening bitter, but I do not. After the first burst of freshness, the base notes give it a spicy support with the help of a generous burst of coriander.

Too bad this is discontinued, as it is one of the better green florals I have experienced.
Look for it on Ebay, where it is quite affordable.

Top notes: Galbanum, Gardenia, Hyacinth, Neroli
Heart notes: Rose, Orris, Jasmine, Narcissus, Ylang
Base notes: Sandalwood, Cedarwood, Oakmoss, Musk, Amber, Coriander

Weil de Weil is a green floral chypre. In 1971 when it released it might have been called typical. Unlike today, there was an abundance of green floral and green chypre fragrances. From the perspective of 2013, this school of green florals having died on the vine, Weil de Weil could be considered quintessential, a classic.

Weil de Weil is a wonderful day to day fragrance, and tells us much about the sensibility of the perfumery of its time. Like Ivoire de Balmain, which came later, it has the sensibility of old-school department stores in that it was easily accessible, simple to buy, simple to wear. It's from an era when even drugstore fragrances had an expectation of quality.

Weil de Weil comes from an interesting school of fragrance history. The people who made, sold and wore these perfumes had no idea that the big 80s were coming their way. They were the logical extensions of the pointed floral chypre fragrances of the late 50s and early 60s. But they also came after the start of mainstream experience of the youth cultural revolution of the 60s. From the perspective of stylistic convention, the early-mid 1960s might as well have been the late 1950s. But these green girls survived their time without flipping their wigs: Chanel 19, Weil de Weil, YSL Rive Gauche, Paco Rabanne Metal. They took a fairly mannered genre and taught it to loosen up.

If the chypres of the 40s and 50s reflected the fashion of their time (think of the influence of Dior's New Look and Miss Dior) this era put the chypres in bell-bottoms and sandals. The age of aquarius chypre ranged from the prettiness of Estée Lauder Private Collection to the aggressiveness of Clinique Aromatics Elixir. These new-mainstream Guérilleres debuted after the summer of love, heads clear, eyes open and looking squarely at the Viet Nam War and the protest against it. It's easy to frame the conventional awareness of the time as regressive, à la Trish Nixon, but this was also an expansive, revolutionary time for the civil rights of everyday women. Weil de Weil is one of the green florals that captures the combination of exploration and acceleration of the early 1970s.

I appreciate niche perfumery, and I tolerate the exclusive lines of many designer perfumers but I regret the need for both. The categorical distinction between high and low in perfumery is one of the less desirable outcomes of the notion of the perfumer as artist-director-entrepreneur. I miss the days not only of great perfumes coming from department stores and the like, but the expectation that these venues would produce quality perfume.

I miss the accessibility, the lack of exclusivity, the sense of common purpose, that these everyday, empowering green fragrances gave us.

Weil de Weil
This is primarily a vetiver fragrance for me, and a fascinating one at that. It is a wild meadow with spring flowers of hyacinth or daffodil. Don't look for a floral, though. The overall aroma is that of a woven basket. There must be oakmoss in this because, for me, that ingredient consistently comes across as buttered popcorn. A faint note of celery firmly guides Weil de Weil into the category of grassy fragrances. Maybe this review is not one of the most poetic commendations I've ever written, but I can say that I recommend it as a carefree, untamed, pleasant and unique aroma.

I wore this in college ...and it drove the boys nuts!! (In a good way). Very green

This is the scent of the first days of summer. It is all green with touches of bright flowers peaking through, and a lovely depth lacking in most 'green' scents on the market. Truly a timeless scent. Such a great tragedy it is out of production, a true loss to the fragrance world.