Hermès has launched Muguet Porcelaine, the 13th fragrance in the unisex Hermessence range. The last in the series were 2013’s Épice Marine and 2014’s Cuir d’Ange…
5 perfumes: iris fragrances for spring
Spring is still tentative where I live — we’ve had a few lovely days here and there, but plenty of days where there’s still a decent chill in the air. If you’re like me, you’ll do your best to pretend it’s sunny and 70 degrees even when it’s not, so it’s time to put away your darker, richer iris perfumes and reach for lighter, happier variations on the theme. Below are my five favorites for spring, and if you missed them, do see my list of iris picks for summer, iris picks for fall and iris picks for winter. Next up: a year of vetiver.
Do add your own picks in the comments…
Hermes Equipage Geranium ~ fragrance review
I’ve probably said it before, and as I approach my 500th article for Now Smell This, I’ll probably forget and say it again: if I had to limit myself to one perfume house for my fragrance ‘needs,’ Hermès would win. No other brand, including Guerlain, Chanel, L’Artisan Parfumeur, Frédéric Malle…or Serge Lutens!…gets so much of my business. Hermès, under perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, has done a great job with flankers, too: Bel Ami Vétiver and Rose Amazone come to mind (Jean-Claude…where’s my Eau d’Hermès Mimosa? I’ve asked that you create this SEVERAL TIMES!) Ellena is responsible for Equipage Géranium, a new take on 1970’s Equipage (a Guy Robert creation).
Back in the day, I was an Equipage fanatic, and right now I possess a vintage bottle of the perfume…
We saw all these little perfume bottles
I don’t think I had worn any fragrance at all for quite a while at that point. I’d occasionally swing back to Chanel No. 19, and then nothing. But then one day I was in Paris with Tonne [Goodman] after an Hermès appointment, and on our way out through the store we saw all these little perfume bottles. One was yellow, one was green, and one was pink. I took the pink one, and it was rose—a very clean, very pure rose. When I do wear perfume, I splash it all over—that’s why it can’t be too strong.
— Grace Coddington talks about discovering Hermès Rose Ikebana. Read more at Grace Coddington, The Fragrance! The Legendary Vogue Editor on Her New Perfume—And Her Favorite Scent Memories at Vogue, where you'll also find a picture of the cat (!) bottle for her upcoming perfume for Comme des Garçons.
Hermes Eau de Rhubarbe Ecarlate & Eau de Neroli Dore ~ fragrance review
Eau de Rhubarbe Écarlate and Eau de Néroli Doré are the latest additions to ‘Les Colognes’ at Hermès. It is not my favorite collection — I own a lot of Hermès fragrances, but only one from this series, Eau de Pamplemousse Rose (I do also keep a small bottle of the older Eau d’Orange Verte, which was repackaged into this series in 2009). But still, I’m always glad to see something new from the brand that takes most of my perfume dollars, and I was especially curious since the rhubarb is the first fragrance for Hermès signed by perfumer Christine Nagel, who joined Jean-Claude Ellena as house perfumer in 2013.
Eau de Rhubarbe Écarlate is, as I said above, the Christine Nagel scent, and the description, “the crisp and tangy freshness of rhubarb softened with white musks”, is pretty accurate…