After decades of living in the US, I got used to decorating a Christmas Tree earlier in December (instead of the last couple of days of the month to celebrate New Year, as it was customary in my childhood). But since this year I needed some serious holiday cheering, I broke my record and decorated that tree a week ago! I love it, but since it’s an artificial tree (albeit very naturalistic), it doesn’t smell. Perfume to the rescue!
Saturday Question #143:
Do You Like Pine/Fir Note In Perfumes?
If yes, what are your favorites? Do you wear them only around winter holidays, or are they in a regular rotation?
A bonus question: Have you decorated a tree this year?
My Answer
I do not actively seek out perfumes with this note. But if I think about it, I generally enjoy pine/fir scent and have at least several favorite fragrances with these prominent notes.
- Annick Goutal Nuit Etoilee
- Ineke Idyllwild
- Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles
I wear Fille en Aiguilles only in December and January, and the other two fit my summer evening the same as the winter holiday season.
How about you?
Undina's Looking Glass 
I love a pine/fir note in perfume! Goutal’s Nuit Etoilee’ is probably my favorite perfume with this note. I also like Dusita’s Issara, which opens with a pine note, and Widian Black I that opens with cypress and cardamom notes.
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I have a sample of Issara, so I should revisit it.
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I hope you’re enjoying your early decorations & they are bringing you joy. I note Rusty sussed out the cord!
Immediately I thought, I don’t own many pine fragrances, too toilet cleaner. Then I though more & of course yes I have Fille en Aiguilles, very wintery as you say. DH has worn Quorum his whole adult life, to me it’s too enmeshed with DH for me to dissect it.
Then I came to to think on one of my top 10 happiness fragrances. I give you………Lush Karma!
Orange/pine/patchouli Hippie Heaven. Brings peace & joy every time I wear it. I also keep a Karma soap stash too, keeps moths away from cashmere, scents my bathroom & leaves skin smelling great.
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I don’t think I’ve ever smelled Karma: I try to stay away from all the stores that abuse my senses on approach. But I’ll give it a try if I come across a Lush store.
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Karma is a bit of an assault on the senses all on its own I admit. Maybe start with just a sniff of a bottle or read Sheila, The Alembicated Genie’s penultimate piece at https://thealembicatedgenie.com/2022/03/20/fantabulous-karma/
If you do want to try Lush online in the UK have small sizes & sometimes sample kits listed. For a dialled down version they did do a solid of Karma as well.
Good luck x
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I don’t have any pine or fir in my collection. I find that it all seems wonderful at first and then it becomes overbearing after a while. I know, that makes me sound like the Grinch!
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Oh, this is exactly what I wanted to say! Apart from the Grinch, it is not a figure I am very familiar with.
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Have you tried Bottega Veneta pour Homme? I think it has just the right amount of pine/fir.
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It’s been a while since I have smelled it. Maybe time for a revisit??!
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YES! I love pine. Nuit Etoilee and Fille en Aiguilles are firm favourites.
We keep saying we’ll put up the tree but then LIFE!!
Portia xx
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So, will you have a tree this year?
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Um…. Maybe..
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I can’t think of any. We didn’t used to do any holiday decorating except very simple things like dressing a wine bottle in a Santa suit, but my other half’s parents started getting us small Christmas trees made of ceramic or wood or glass (!), and we really enjoy those and bring them out to display on a table the day after Thanksgiving.
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I love such little traditions. It might be something that stays with you for years and brings joy without too much fuss about making it happen.
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While I especially enjoy this fragrance in the winter months, it certainly sees some love throughout the year. For me it’s Fille en aiguilles by Serge Lutens.
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I will try it again for the Australian Christmas in July and see how it feels in summer.
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I usually decorate for Christmas like a maniac. This year because of my daughter’s wedding that just happened, and the fact that we’re leaving for our annual Australia trip to visit family right after the New Year. So I have one decorated tree, one tree with lights only, and only one light up village on my mantle. This, for me, is minamalism! So do I like pine scents? Of course!
I must mention the best pine candle ever which I’m sure everyone already knows, but I love the fir note mixed with resins in Thymes Fir Candles.
I also love SL Fille en Aiguilles, and like you, Undina, it is only wearable for me right around Christmas. Last year I bought a Franck Boclet Fir on the cheap, and I find it enjoyable also. I find the scent of trees immensely calming, and around Christmas the fir stirs up all sorts of good feelings.
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Love your “minimalism”! :)))
I have Thymes Fir hand wash and hand lotion – they are lovely! I should probably try a candle also.
Let’s hope you’ll be able to get back home from your trip when planned :)
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Oh, and let me mention that last year I bought Molton Brown’s Fir and Patchouli scent, blind buy, because I love fir and I love Patchouli, and I thought it would be a win for me. I ended up reselling it because I was disappointed. I’m trying to remember why….either the Patchouli was strong with no fir, or vice versa. It escapes me which was the case. But it sounded like such a great combination!
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I love pine and fir notes. Fille en Aiguilles, CdG Zagorsk and Spell 125 are favorites, along with Nuit Étoilée edp. I’m going to explore Pineward perfumes this month which specialize in these woody notes, ordered a sample set.
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I also got some Pineward samples (I can’t remember why I decided to buy them… probably I read something good somewhere). The first attempt scared me: they are very intense. But I tried them in summer, so maybe this time they will feel more appropriate.
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My favorite tree perfume is DSH/American Perfumer Colorado. Perhaps more spruce, but definitely feels like you’re in the woods. I also enjoy SSS Forest Walk which is a more delicate version of the in the woods genre. And wasn’t the original Polo a pine scent? I used to love that. Has anyone smelled it recently?
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I don’t remember Polo.
Forest Walk was strange for me, as I remember: it brought up good memories, but those weren’t complimentary to the scent itself. If I still have a sample, I might revisit it.
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Yes, I do like pine and fir notes! Nuit Etoilée, Fille en Aiguilles — love ’em. Papillon’s Spell 125, which I recently sampled, has a beautiful “Siberian pine” note. I’ve also liked Maison Margiela’s When The Rain Stops, which has a light pine note.
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I should try Spell 125 again: I don’t remember anything about how it smelled!
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And yes, we have decorated a (real) tree again this year. We’ve changed the timing though. In past years, our church’s youth program sold trees and wreaths to help fund their programs, and since our three children took part in those for years, we always bought ours from the youth program. This meant we didn’t get our tree until about the first weekend in December. Now that all the kids have either moved out or gone to college, we learned last year that this means it won’t get decorated until very close to Christmas.
This year, the youth program wasn’t selling trees, so we got the tree over the weekend of Thanksgiving, when the kids were all home for the weekend. It is up, lit, and decorated! So that’s what we’ll do from now on. It’s very nice to sit in the living room with it. And there’s room to hang more ornaments, so the kids can do more decorating once they’re home for the holiday.
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I remember that it was so surprising for me to see people hauling trees the next day after Thanksgiving. But then with Christmas decorations/music/etc. appearing after the Labor Day, I grew to appreciate people’s restrain to wait until after Thanksgiving ;)
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I like the smell of real Christmas trees, but since my flat is small I never put one up. Also, it would not survive well; the trees usually need water every day and I tend to go away to visit family for a anything from three to 10 days. I don’t really know how people get their tree to survive until New Year if they put it up inside before the lasts Sunday in Advent or later?! Our tradition is to put it up on Dec. 23, given our main celebration starts on Dec. 24.
I don’t own any perfumes with fir/pine/cypress as a dominant note, not a big fan. but I did rather like the SL one, Fille en Aiguilles. The pine scent for me is for ever associated with the cleaning products (natural soaps) used for scrubbing wooden floors and rustic kitchen tables. Those products still exist, but they were everywhere in the 60s and 70s.
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One of the reasons why I enjoy our artificial tree is because it keeps well :) But I do miss the aroma of a real tree.
With water, a fresh tree might be fine for several weeks.
Here many people go to the tree farm and get a very fresh one (they cut it themselves). I don’t know for how long those trees at bazaars are stored after being cut. But looking at all those dozens of trees in the end of November, I wonder how well they’ll preserve either on the plot or in someone’s house.
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Beautiful Rusty <3
I like the smell of pine as long as it does not dominate the composition. It's very well blended in Goutal's Nuit Etoilee and FM Dans tes Bras. These perfumes I wear the whole year round. In Papillon's Spell 123 the pine is too overwhelming for me and in Cape Heartache by Imaginary Authors it is mixed with a strawberry note and I have the impression of chewing fir and strawberry literally in my mouth. It's a pass for me.
Oh, and your bonus question – I have a small appartment so I don't decorate a Christmas tree but I pull out my Christmas decorations for the first Advent and they will stay on display until the end of January. It's common here in Croatia.
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Al lat someone else who feels some fragrances in their mouth & jaw
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Neva, I love Dans Tes Bras, too! And that pine note is pretty perfect for it. Undina, I remember you did the scent test for NE and FEA years ago, and I remember who figured out the fragrances, blindfolded, so to speak :)
I love FEA, NE, Dans Tes Bras, and Goutal’s Orientalist fragrances-each one works perfectly for the cold of Christmas weather. First blizzard of the year yesterday-I’m on my way out to shovel. I got lucky-the wind blew in such a way my driveway is almost clear. I only have to do the front walk and what the plow left behind.
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And I put my real tree up the first weekend in Dec. I wanted one my height-about 5 ft 4 – got one that had to be cut cause it was scraping the ceiling. I love it!
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I don’t think I’ve ever had a tree higher than 6 ft. But we have friends whose tree usually is 7-8 feet high!
I also remember that side by side testing. Now when I know both perfumes well, they are less similar to my nose :)
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I forgot to add that I have a very small live tree, a little Norfolk pine in a pot sitting on a table. It’s really lovely, with just 5 ornaments on it. It’s too small for more.
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I will decorate this weekend a small branch for my bedroom – most likely, artificial, unless I come across something tiny and natural that I can decorate with my small ornaments.
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I do indeed, dear Undina. 4711 Acqua Colonia Intense Wakening Woods Of Scandinavia is particularly good.
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I don’t think I’ve ever smelled this one.
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Yes, I’ve decorated the weekend of Dec. 10. I put up a small 3-foot tabletop tree, a snowman garland on the mantle, my nativity on the buffet, and a Narnia and Christmas/winter fairy garden on the tea cart with a wreath by the door and a snowman welcome sign on the door. I paced myself, and that took three days. As for fave pine fragrance, hands down Guerlain Winter Delice. I only wear it at Christmas. I hoard my bottle. I love it so.
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Not generally – I find the pine note a bit “janitorial”, however I do kind of like Fille en Aiguilles at this time of year.
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