A Trick of Light: Jour d'Hermes by Hermes

How do you make a floral that does not scream floral? Well I would go talk to Jean Claude Ellena because he has just done that and that is where this fragrance makes the most sense as in why I really like it. To explain it better, I should mention that I am not the woman who gravitates towards fragrances called floral, there are floral notes I love, but scents marketed in the floral category are usually not my ouvre.

Jour d'Hermes is such a wonderful trick though, starting off with a stemmy green milky mango rhubarb green peach skin grapefruit note that catches you with its zippy tartness yet strangely creamy quality. The scent moves on to opal like floral middle where facets of flowers move in and out of focus much like an opal in sunlight as you tilt it to see all the colors. I get rose then jasmine followed by sweet pea. Then a warm musk comes out just lifting the flowers up enough that the scent blends to the skin, at this point the fragrance is somewhat hide and seek, at moments I get rose then a shift to ylang-ylang or tuberose, and then a shift to gardenia all the while it maintains a gauze of musk. Some days it is very earthy on me with vetiver quite obvious other days it becomes a rather balmy tropical gardenia scent with the tart musk to never let it stray to much.

This scent is a changer and never in the same direction in a row. It is fantasy floral and in my mind it is the scent of the lovely flower rununculus that has no scent but has incredibly layered petals.

The amazing image above is from No Wordz Photography.

What Smells Good?

So over the last few years as I have delved more and more into the world of smell specifically through fragrance and I have become to realize what I consider to smell "good" changes, at the beginning I was gourmand lover in the sense of only loving sweet candied bakery scents. Yet as time has passed I still remain a gourmand lover but I have gone beyond sweet to love neutral food scents specifically tea and rice. Although, I will admit of late I have come to love the varieties of scent found in rice from the lovely nutty basmati rice to the floral beauty of jasmine rice and simple perfume of store bought indistinct long grain white rice. A wonderful way to enjoy the scent of rice is the Thai dessert Sticky Rice with Mango, the chewy delicate grains of rice mixed with coconut milk and then served with slices of musky astringent sweet mango sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds or as I had it the other day toasted rice kernals, makes for a lovely sweet and slightly savory dish. If you love the scent as i do I highly recommend you get a bar of the Bath and Blooms Mango Rice soap bar http://www.bathandbloom.com/bath-shower/mango-rice-soap.html which sadly I cannot find a distributor for, I got mine originally at Pier 1 Imports.
And for some lovely music that combines sweet and savory in a way, with wonderful nature sounds and incredible symphonic qualities, Bjork's Isobel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQP4UE241_0