L'Ombre des Merveilles
Hermès (2020)

Soft, sensual, and strangely hard to pin down. It has a muted color palette compared to the rest of the Merveilles line, yet there's a dancing, shimmering effect going on within the midnight blue-ness of it all. I'd hesitate to call this "chiaroscuro", as per the marketing materials - L'Ombre is hardly as dramatic as all that - but there are some interesting contrasts to enjoy. Flashes of green fruit give lift to a low hum of cool black tea and murky amber. I get glimmers of something sweet-herbal, like anise or basil, amid wisps of an abstract, almost deconstructed incense. And is that something pink-white and floral in the abyss, or do I imagine it? L'Ombre des Merveilles wears like the most diaphanous cashmere scarf you can imagine, with odd strands of colorful fibers peeking through a sea of gauzy taupe. Like others in the series, it seems best suited for casual wear and tasteful restraint, yet it stops short of being olfactory wallpaper. There's something oddly compelling and contemplative, even soothing, about it. (Maybe it's the tea.) I might need a travel sized bottle, to spontaneously paint my day with L'Ombre's blue zen.

I wasn't overly familiar with this line when going to sample L'Ombre des Merveilles (2020) in Nordstrom, but after taking wearable decants of the line home to test in my own time, I've discovered that this entry not only has zero DNA with the rest of the line, but perhaps the weakest performance of the bunch. In a rare move of cynicism from the brand, Hermès has given everything the modern mainstream fragrance user (that isn't a performance-obsessed dudebro) wants in a scent: brightness, freshness, cleanliness, and not smelling like anything they can negatively associate with something else. Imagine your typical "Karen" if you will, prattling off a laundry list of things she doesn't like and expecting the perfumer to work with whatever is left unnamed to make something for her, that is this fragrance. Abstract clean, brightness, warmth, transparency, and an undefinable "modernity" that really smells of nothing to me. Even smelling like water would be more definitive than smelling like this.

The opening of L'Ombre des Merveilles isn't so much an opening, as it is a thud of rounded clean. A flurry of laundry musks and a slight tea note greet the nose, and something that smells like the late dry down of a 90's perfume to say the least, but presented as the opening of this one. Seems we're not back to the old "upside-down note pyramid" of the original Eau des Merveilles (2004) however, as after this clean laundry attack subsides, we move into norlimbanol "incense" territory, a bit like Bleu de Chanel (2010) without the violet leaf, then a rounded semi-sweet slug of tonka in the base with the usual linalools and limonenes to polish the scent until it glows. This is utterly boring, and goes absolutely nowhere, but you'll smell "modern" for sure. Wear time is maybe six hours and performance is terrible. Either that, or I get anosmic to this stuff too fast. Wears unisex I guess, and best use for summer, like most of the line, but easily the worst to date. I just can't get over how much like nothing this smells, even more so than something from the Escentric Molecules line. Sigh.

I don't know what else to say about L'Ombre des Merveilles besides it really does feel like a perfume made for a neurotically dissatisfied person that makes it their life's mission to write corporate every time their coffee isn't perfect, or yell at the kids outside for playing because they have to turn up the rerun of their court drama they've already watched 15 times before. Real "my peas don't mix with my carrots" kind of perfume, and totally devoid of any worldly notes that might remind them of the time they had to eat a coworker's vanilla cookies, or someone spilled a bottle of lavender hand lotion in line next to them at Kohl's, or any perfume that might remind them of an ex they're still not over. Yeah, if you really don't love yourself, you might love L'Ombre des Merveilles, as it's the quietude of the void given fragrance form. Test and see for yourself, but this to me is the worst thing I've ever smelled from both Christine Nagel and Hermès. Thumbs down.