Hermes Eau d'Hermes: Thoughts on Revisiting a Classic

Choosing an Hermès fragrance is, to me, an embarrasement of riches. The brand is among my very favorites for several reasons; most important of all is that their axiom of effortless luxury is very simpatico to my own aesthetic values. I love so many of their fragrant canon...In the end if put into the position to choose, I have to distill the exercise into a search for clarity. In that field, two clear contestants came head and shoulders above: Terre d'Hermès and the original Eau d'Hermès. After all the latter is advertised as being "l'eau de la terre d'Hermès depuis 1951" (i.e. Hermes's essence since 1951)

They're both unexacting on the wearer, feeling like lucid impressionistic creations that manage to be abstract without coming across as maudlin, nor conspicuous. In the ensuing bras de fer the progenitor rose triumphant in those stakes, even though the child, Terre, is stellar on its own merits. Eau d'Hermès for the ride then!

This old creation from 1951 was a composition by the legendary perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, and since such a huge part of the Hermès modern legacy has been composed by Roudnitska's magnificent pupil, master perfumer Jean Claude Ellena, it was long due to pay respects to the fountain that brought forth such scented marvels. Additionally, Ellena has overseen the perfectly decent modern reformulation of the vintage composition with his customary attention to detail; a feat in today's world of watered-down reformulations that leave new perfumephiliacs in a query as to what we, rather more seasoned aficionados, see in the monuments of the past.

Eau d'Hermès is predominantly a fresh and the same time sensuous scent for both sexes, with emphasis on both qualities. Nowadays these might seem mutually exclusive, but they definitely are not by default; it's culturally imposed to view them so. The inspiration couldn't have been more Hermès if it tried: the soft insides of a luxurious leather handbag where a spicy citrus mingles with the odor of fine leather. The important addition of cardamom, a "cold" spice which pairs exceptionally well with both leather and citruses, and which gives a cool feeling of freshness alongside the spiciness, is pre-empting several of Ellena's spicy arpeggios, inclusive or exclusive of Hermès fragrances.

At the time of writing, Eau d'Hermes has ONLY 4 PEOPLE naming it as a signature scent on a popular database of millions of viewers, which I think must be a record for a scent from a major fragrance house. It's high time more people talked about Eau d'Hermès and tried it on for good measure. I hope my update accomplishes that and ensures a continued production of this silent strong type of a scent.

Related reading on PerfumeShrine:

Edmond Roudnitska, the creator of perfume masterpieces, a tribute
Interviews and tributes to fragrance industry creators

Perfumer's Base: Animalis by Synarome

Largely unknown and thought of as coinnoisseur stuff, perfumers bases are simply ready-made "chords" of complimentary ingredients which create a unison effect for use when composing perfumes. It both aids with time constraints and it saves the trouble of having to reinvent a desired but tried& tested effect all over again, so the perfumer can concentrate on achieving something beyond the been there, done that. Legendary female perfumer Germaine Cellier, for reasons pertaining to both syllogisms, opted to compose with lots of perfumers' bases, resulting in a contemporary difficulty to replicate her formulae, as many of the ingredients for those bases or the bases themselves are now defunct or substituted. Nevertheless, some bases, such as the famous Mousse de Saxe base for Caron, the succulent peach base Persicol and the naughty Animalis by Synarome, have created their own history and have survived.

Perfume molecule producing company Synarome was founded in 1926 by Hubert Fraysse (of the prolific and renowned Fraysse clan) who created the famous speciality Ambrarome Absolu (a densely animalic chord reminiscent of natural ambergris). Nactis acquired Synarome in 2006, creating Nactis Synarome, who continue to provide fragrance compound specialties.

Synarome's most infamous classic "perfumer's base" though is Animalis, from which the term "animalic fragrances" has sprung; a feral, thick ambery yellow liquid, mostly insoluble in water but easily soluble in alcohol, with prominent civet and castoreum (both traditionally animal-derived products),  a cluster of musks and with costus root, a plant essence that has an uncanny resemblence to a mix of unwashed human hair, goat smell and dirty socks. The presence of phenolic-smelling, para cresol molecules also indicates a tannery tar & barnyard "stink". And yet he effect of the finished accord is envelopingly fur-like, powdery musky, warm, powerful, rich, decadent and yes, very animalic-smelling.

To get a feel for the classic accord, Animalis is featured in vintage Piguet's Visa, in all its "dirty" glory, created by Jean Carles (the man responsible for the skank-fest that is the classic Tabu, "un parfum de puta", a whore's brew). I also believe that Weil's Zibeline (a characteristic "parfum fourrure") features some of it in its core. Other vintages featuring lots of it is the rare Soft Youth Dew, one of two declinations of the classic Lauder Youth Dew in the 1970s (the other declination, the Intense Youth Dew was actually marketed later as... Cinnabar!, as per Octavian) and the less rare Mais Oui by Bourjois. It's also part of the mysterious urinous & musky allure of Kouros by Yves Saint Laurent (which indeed features a healthy dose of costus under phenyl acetate paracresol). But as much as it was favored during the classic era of perfumery, the traditional Animalis base fell out of favor in the middle of the 1980s.

Perfumery restrictions, which have axed the use of costus and eradicated the use of real animal ingredients, required a recalibration of the actual formula of Animalis, now allowed to be featured in up to 4% of the compound for perfume making. The base's stability has allowed it to not only be used in fine fragrance but also can be featured in shampoo, deodorant and creams. Modern Animalis perfume base includes 10-undecanal, linalool, alpha-pinene, β-Caryophyllene, limonene, heaps of cedrol and cedrene alpha. Mysteriously enough the final result ends up smelling animalic (smelling the fragrances containing it confirms this). The modern Animalis, animalic-smelling but without animal-derived ingredients, is featured in Vierge et Toreros by Etat Libre d'Orange and possibly the masculine Twill Rose by Parfums de Rosine.

For accuracy's sake, Synarome currently has not one but two distinct Animalis bases in their arsenal (the breakdown of ingredients above pertains to the first one): Animalis 1745-03 (which is Tonkin musk smelling, which is to say very warm, musky with a leathery nuance) and Animalis 5853 with woody & sensuous notes. The latest version of the former is Animalis 1745-03 TEC.
International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) offers a similar competitive product, called Cherval, but that one is less cedary and even more powerful. 

It's interesting to note that Animalis has not only been used in oriental perfumes, as would be expected them being the quintessential sensuous, langoruous fragrances evoking sexy thoughts, but also in citrus fragrances to exalt their fresh notes by way of contrast.

photo by Willy Ronis 1970 Nu au tricot raye