Terre d'Hermès

While fragrance reviews aren't exactly something one expects to find on a sort of Gothic Aristocratish blog, my life has been so dull that really it's the only thing I can talk about.  So here we go, Terre d'Hermès.

Landscape with Tobais and the Angel, Salvator Rosa, 1660-73.  National Gallery, London.

Previously, I mostly wore Jean-Paul Gaultier's Le Mâle, which I rather liked, but felt it was a bit strong, and quite frankly, a bit too distinctive.  And somehow too futuristic.  So when I lost it in the Great East Japan Earthquake, I wasn't entirely upset.


So Terre d'Hermès.  It comes in a fairly normal, square, clear bottle (which is wonderful, especially after Le Mâle's awkward nude sailor torso, even though it came in its own tin can to cover it up when guests were imminent).  When first sprayed, Terre smells like pine trees.  And moss.  Sexy moss.  A bed of moss with something beautiful in it.  So beautiful, that it makes the smell of moss powerfully attractive.  And then it smells like dirt in the best of ways possible.  So, in short, you smell like an elf.  Or, if you prefer the undead of a forest.  But sexy ones.

Primavera, Sandro Boticelli, 1482. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Granted, I've worn this once and my nose is nowhere near as accurate as those on people who do this for a living.  Other reviews I've read list out a lot of other things that I've probably smelled at some point, but basically never cared enough about to remember.  Or they're things that I'm sure I've never smelled at all.  Like flint.  Or vetiver.  (A quick Google search informs me that vetiver is a kind of grass from India.  I'm beyond certain that I've never smelled the real item, and unless the more professional bloggers go on expeditions smelling things, I sincerely doubt that they know what it smells like either.) 

Landschaft mit Wasserfall, Alexander Thiele.  163-1650, The Hermitage, St. Petersburgh.

In the off chance that you actually know what the dew-laden pines of the Pyrenees smell like, and would prefer a more professional review, go look one up.  But I strongly recommend this scent. While the lovely people at Hermès probably didn't imagine it being worn by those of a decidedly alternative fashion sense, it definitely seems like a versatile fragrance that can match with many different styling decisions.