Scentzilla!

Hermès’ newest fragrance, Terre d’Hermès, is categorized for men, but I would like to dismiss that notion right off the bat. Like so many of the best fragrances, assigning gender seems a superflous gesture. Socially and culturally, the industry and conusmers feel compelled to segregate perfume enjoyment, but I find genderization a triviality assigned out of easy habit rather than a naturally arising fact. Terre d’Hermès works beautifully on the skin, period, be you male or female. Keeping strict guard over social rules of little consequence are for people who have some small corner inside that is fearful of the world and fearful of judgement.

In trying to describe it, a line from the Crowded House song “Nails in My Feet,” keeps popping into my head. “Your skin is like water on a burning beach.” Terre d’Hermès manges to be refreshing while giving nothing away but woody and sandy dryness, and yes, even smoke is intoned at the very bottom of it all.

Atlas cedar forms its centerpiece. The outdoorsy rush that atlas cedar feeds into the composition pulls my mind to Andy Tauer’s L’Air du Désert Marocain. However, where L’Air allusively takes me back into cherished memory, Terre suggests that now is the best and only moment. Yet there’s no frothy urgency to it - the calm suggestion is spoken in an even and clear voice.

This sort of relaxed strength speaks to me of a particular sort of dignity, the sort that for me is personalized by one of my favorite (and unequivocally one of the greatest) actors, William Powell. The type of roles he played could vary, but he never played his parts stupid, even if his character was a less than ideal person. The crisp clarity of his voice, the sharp timing, and a gameness for play with which he’d imbue his characters was, of course, most notably brought to life in the form of Nick Charles from The Thin Man series. Even when Nick Charles was drunk (Powell in real life rarely drank alcohol) Powell never let his character slip away from him into some cheesy caricature. The character was always himself, and had dignity as a person, even while silly and intoxicated. Watch his performance and then compare it to the “drunks” you generally see on TV and in movies from any time period. Mastering moments like that, when the temptation to devolve into a hot buttered mess is omnipresent, impresses me with his confidence as an actor.

Terre d’Hermès impressess me with Jean Claude Ellena’s mastery and confidence as a perfumer. It would be easy to decorate the scent with a little flourish of this, and wee dab of that, but he holds back. The scent is pared down to a smartly fashioned core, and that which is distracting and extraneous to the message does not get used. In short, go seek it out.

Notes include (via WWD as transcribed by Basenotes member cedriceccentric):

woody notes, including Atlas cedar, grapefruit, effervescent orange, gunflint, silex, pepper, baies roses, geranium leaves, patchouli, vetiver and balm of benzoin.

Note: A big THANK YOU to Patty, for being so thoughtful and sharing this scent with me!