Twenty years after Jean-Claude Ellena gave us the first entry in the Hermes garden collection – the figgy-woody Un Jardin En Mediterranee – the brand adds a seventh scent to the range: Un Jardin A Cythere, composed by Christine Nagel. Here’s a link to my recent YouTube review of it: Hermes Un Jardin A Cythere review.
Sadly, I’m not sure this one matches the limpid naturalness of the collection’s finest compositions. To give it its due, its key idea – an evocation of sun-dried grasses beneath pistachio and olive trees – does just about come through. But it’s decidedly muted and lacks the sharp-focussed clarity that ought to be this particular range’s distinguishing feature. The details blur into each other, the central effect fades too quickly and we feel not that we’ve been taken to Kythira but merely presented with a photograph of it. A hazy image instead of a lived experience.
Persolaise
[Hermes Un Jardin A Cythere review based on a sample provided by the brand in 2023.]
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I have a few of these Un Jardin. I was going through my boxes and saw them. I remember liking them.
Thank you for the review Persolaise.
Thanks very much for reading.
You have never probably visited Greece. It is exactly as it is described. There is no humidity in this Garden, yet it is a Garden full of olive and pistachio trees, full of smells that provoke your senses and the breeze of the sea comes to meet them in your Garden.
I’ve been to Athens, but that was quite some time ago.
I’m pleased you enjoy the perfume.
I like this perfume.
We travel to Kythera this July last time was 3 yrs ago.
The island smells of camomile,Basil, Oregano.
A very comforting smell of Camomile, honey,dry grasses and sea air as you step onto the island.
This is very helpful to know — thank you.