Updates

Because I've been incredibly busy for the last week, I haven't had the time to post any new reviews. I will be back soon, though. I promise.

In the meantime, check out my updates to the entries on Hanae Mori HM for Men and Hermes Eau d'Orange Verte. I added my thoughts on HM's eau de parfum concentration, as well as Concentré d'Orange Verte, the eau de toilette reimagining of Hermes' classic eau de cologne.

See you soon!

Un Jardin Sur Le Nil Smells Like a Garden of Malevolent Sentient Flower Beasts!

After my quick Vetiver intermission of the other day, I’m ready to get back to Hermes, and it occurs to me that I didn’t mention before why I was so interested in smelling things from that particular house.

Back when I started this little experiment in scent, my friend Julie told me that her partner Dick was in love with Hermes Un Jardin Sur Le Nil. In fact, Julie wrote a wonderful blog entry last spring all about Dick’s experience with the perfume. I’ve only met Dick once, but he seemed to be a man after my own heart; he struck me as smart, compassionate, casual, earthy, and friendly. Plus he’s adorable, with a warm smile and kind eyes … I suppose I should stop there, before Julie gets the idea that I’m planning to switch teams and pounce on her man. The only reason I relate all of this is that, after reading about Dick’s ecstatic encounter with the fragrance, I thought, “If that’s how this great guy, who has never worn a drop of cologne in his life, reacts to Un Jardin Sur Le Nil, then I need to smell this stuff!”

While I was looking for a sample, I became intrigued with the descriptions of a few other Hermes scents, so I decided to just sample them all – or, all of the unisex and masculine scents, anyway. Good move. Two other Hermes scents – Terre d’Hermes and Eau d’Orange Verte – wound up becoming my two favorites (so far). But today, I’m blogging about Un Jardin Sur Le Nil.

When I first opened the sample vial, the Nil smelled very promising. It smelled like orange peels, and was very bright and cheerful. Sort of a lighter version of Eau d’Orange Verte. Once I put it on, though, the orange peels faded pretty quickly, to be replaced by flowers. It reminded me of stargazer lilies and other very strongly scented flowers. Lotus is listed among the notes for this fragrance, so I’m guessing that’s what the most insistent floral smell in there was. Immediately, I was glad I'd gone light on the application. Even after a few short minutes, that heavy floral smell seemed overbearing.

Un Jardin Sur Le Nil is most definitely a “garden,” a very large, deep one on a warm, wet June day. I’ve never been to northern Africa, so I can’t comment on the “Nil” part of the name. I did read that Ellena was trying to mimic the smell of green mangoes. I can’t comment on that resemblance either, but there was a definite impression of ripening fruit - of green bananas, specifically. Rather than carrying me along the Nile, this fragrance left me with an impression of the Amazon Rainforest, with massive, bright, bold flowers growing amid banana trees, where monkeys and parrots and toucans make their homes.

At the beginning, I liked smelling this fragrance well enough, but didn’t like smelling like it. Though I’ve been trying to avoid making judgments like “masculine” or “feminine,” I found it to be a very womanly smell, at least on me. I decided I would probably enjoy smelling it on an attractive woman on a warm summer evening. As the day wore on, though, the scent seemed to get stronger and stronger until, by lunchtime, I felt like I was being choked to death by malevolent sentient flower beasts. What started out in the morning as an attractive - if a touch too feminine for my tastes - perfume had become a total scrubber by noon.

When I shared my impression of Un Jardin Sur Le Nil with Julie, she was surprised. “On Dick, it’s a bracing citrus scent. Not feminine at all.” Lucky Dick … he got the bright tangy citrus, and I got stuck with the gaggy florals. Oh well. Ellena had me with Terre d’Hermes. I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

Image note: The Amazon Rainforest.

Eau d'Orange Verte, My New "Everyday Scent"

If Terre d’Hermes was love at first sniff, then Eau d’Orange Verte, the next Hermes sample I tried, was love at third or fourth sniff. This juice smells wonderful in the vial, but for its first few seconds on my skin it always bears a disconcerting resemblance to Lemon Pledge®. Happily, that impression passes quickly enough, as the bright, welcoming citrus notes at the top of this scent fill out and envelop me more completely.

After a short while, patchouli comes to the forefront, but avoids straying into dirty hippie territory. Instead, the patchouli is restrained by the crisp tangy citrus, mint, and cedar smells. The overall effect is as affable as it is elegant. Eau d’Orange Verte is uncluttered and self-possessed, with an inviting warmth of character and a sense of wit that never stoops to pretension.

I absolutely adore Eau d’Orange Verte. Where Terre d’Hermes is comfortable and rugged and woodsy, with a depth that feels almost meditative, Eau d’Orange Verte is pure sensual delight. It's the feel of sunlight on your skin on a breezy spring day.

My partner really likes Eau d’Orange Verte, too, both on me and for herself. Shortly after trying it for the first time, I managed to track down an inexpensive splash bottle on eBay. With a little looking, this fragrance can be found at dirt-cheap prices. Because of its affordability and casual, feel-good personality, this has become my "everyday scent." It's the thing I splash on when I don't feel like thinking about it. Though it's generally thought of as a "summer fragrance," I find it adds a little cheer to the sometimes oppressive drear of a Maine winter day.

Most of the complaints I’ve read about Eau d’Orange Verte go something like this: “It smells amazing, but fades too quickly, leaving me heartbroken.” I know this is a common complaint about eau de colognes in general, though I haven’t personally noticed this problem with Eau d’Orange Verte. I apply it before work in the morning and can usually still smell it long past lunchtime. This is also a scent that works well on fabric. I like to let a few drops soak into the collar of my shirt, which not only allows the fragrance to hang on all day, but also brings out the cedar notes more strongly. I haven’t yet tried Concentré d’Orange Verte, which is supposed to be a decent approximation of the original, but with better staying power.

UPDATE: I'm wearing Concentré d'Orange Verte right now and, while it does smell very nice, it's nothing like the original. The concentre is more of a green, linear scent that, even for its similarities to Eau d'Orange Verte, doesn't capture the latter's swirling, sparkling brightness. Yes, it does last longer, but the tradeoff isn't worth it, for me. Eau d'Orange Verte is inexpensive enough that it's no problem to buy a large bottle of the stuff and reapply liberally throughout the day. That said, if I don't compare Concentré to the cologne, it stands on its own as a very good fragrance. It's another triumph for Mr. Ellena, but Hermes should have named it something else. These are two very distinct fragrances.

Image note: Like the name of the cologne, this image is orange and green. I chose the tie dye as a tongue in cheek reference to the strong patchouli at the heart, though, as I said above, Eau d’Orange Verte doesn’t smell like a head shop.

Terre d'Hermes - So Good it Turns Me Stupid

What’s this, a third Smells Like Boi post in two days? Madness! Don’t get used to this frenetic pace. It’s just that, after all of those bitchy, negative reviews, I was itching to write about something I actually like. The next several posts will all be about various Hermes scents. I got samples of nine different unisex and masculine fragrances from Hermes, and have been trying each of them over a period of several weeks. As most of them smell very nice – even the ones that aren’t really my style – you can expect the atmosphere around here to be quite “posi” for the next few weeks.

The first sample I tried was Terre d’Hermes, and it smells fantastic! I think it may have been love at first sniff. My initial scent impression was a really rich, deep pine, that was not at all artificial like Pine Sol or a car air freshener. I could actually picture the needles and the bark. It smelled jut like the Pacific Northwest, and brought back a vivid sense memory of the time I visited Mt. Rainier with a couple of old friends who were living in Seattle.

“Earth” is an incredibly apt description; Terre d’Hermes smells like nature in all the best ways. I can even smell dirt and rocks and rain and fresh air, and maybe even a little bit of a far off wood fire. It makes me wonder how the hell Jean-Claude Ellena managed to bottle the smell of camping. Then it makes me wonder if Luca Turin could possibly have been smelling the same thing I was when he declared there was “no terre in sight” in his review for The Guide.

After a little while, the pine seems to fade, and I can smell other parts of the forest - ferns and moss and grass, deciduous trees and even a few spring flowers poking up through a carpet of fallen leaves in search of the sun. Before I can miss the pine, though, I find it’s still there, if I focus on it.

Terre d’Hermes is exactly what I was hoping it would be, and more: earthy, wholesome, and unpretentious. It’s a scent I would recommend to people who claim not to like perfume. It’s very rugged, but not at all hyper-masculine.

On a subsequent wearing, I noted all of the things I smelled before, but I also realized it smells strikingly similar to the Nippon Kodo Viva Pine incense I use during my daily zazen (Buddhist meditation) practice. I think its meditative association is a large part of the draw for me. I love incense-y smells.

I’m wearing Terre d’Hermes again today, and for the first time, I can smell the citrus notes people keep mentioning in their reviews. It’s been described as everything from grapefruit to navel orange peels. Whatever it is, it’s pleasant, as citrus notes generally are for me.

As much as I love this fragrance, I couldn’t wear it every day. Beyond the fact that it’s quite expensive – which is why I haven’t snatched up a bottle yet – it makes me stupid. Really! I’ve been wandering around in a haze of contentment all morning. I don’t think I could handle feeling this good all the time.

Image note: Isn’t this photo gorgeous? This is one of those popular nature photos that get put up on those “free wallpaper” sites. I think it was taken in Japan, but I’m not sure. Anyway, this is where wearing Terre d’Hermes takes me.