Voyage d'Hermès
Hermès (2010)

I wanted to like this so much. It brings to mind a kitchen, where someone's baking cardamom rolls in a lemon Pledge-cleaned kitchen, > but accidentally dumped the whole container of ground cardamom in. This association bring something yeasty and doughy to the scent which is quite unpleasant to smell on yourself. It's a pass for me. The bottle is beautiful though.

This has to be one of my favorite fragrances in terms of scent profile in the whole world, but one of my least favorite in terms of performance, as others have pointed out. It's an absolutely addicting blend of citrus, tea, wood, and musk with a beautifully rendered cardamom note. It's clean, airy, billowy, and out-of-the-shower fresh, but there's also a little bit of dirtiness or earthiness undergirding the whole thing that adds a sexy edge. It's genderless, ageless (in my opinion, though one might argue that it better suits someone 20+), and just phenomenal in every way EXCEPT for performance. It's pretty much an instant skin scent for me, with a longevity of maybe 2-3 hours, practically EDC in terms of strength. Now, I must add that I do live in a subtropical, bordering on tropical, climate with extremely hot and humid weather, and I have perfume eating skin. Even so, I've applied Voyage d'Hermes in an air conditioned environment without going outside and gotten the same outcome. Wearing this on my daily walk to work resulted in total annihilation, with not even a trace of the fragrance remaining after fifteen minutes. I've plowed through my 35ml (very cool) bottle of Voyage within a matter of months. This reflects both my love for the fragrance (and I do truly love the smell) and its utter lack of performance. For that reason, despite the fact that I adore the smell, I will either be purchasing the Parfum once my bottle is finished, or looking elsewhere.

6/10

Voyage d'Hermès (2010) is a fascinating reinvention of the Victorian barbershop accord of dry woods, citrus, and bracing pepper, but with a few key note swaps to make it modern and unisex. Jean-Claude Ellena may have taken inspiration from Pierre Bourdon, who has done something rather similar with French Lover by Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle (2007), except minus the galbanum and heavier elements. Released in an interesting swivel refillable bottle, Voyage d'Hermès lends itself well as a freshening scent for a vacation or extended traveling abroad, and has the usual short-lived nature of the kind of barbershop scents it seems to take after, not to mention possessing Jean-Claude Ellena's patent "transparency" in the way it gleams but barely registers much presence on skin outside the wispy top notes and recurring base accord. Fleeting eau de colognes are fine if they're labelled as such, but here it seems this passes for an eau de toilette, which is part of my beef with the stuff.

We see juniper and angelica join a dry lemon, with the former replacing pepper and lime of olden varieties, but delivering that same dry bracing opening, but with a touch more floral character. This is honestly the best part of Voyage d'Hermès, and lasts the longest. Once all of an hour passes, we go into a rather reference-grade cedar smell, which isn't quite "hamster cage" level, but very evident. The final phase gives us some pink pepper, Australian sandalwood, and the expectant dry white musk filler. Thankfully, this is devoid of any norlimbanol or ambroxan abuse shenanigans, but if you know anything about Jean-Claude Ellena, you'll know that sort of bludgeoning sillage isn't his style. After four hours this is all but a memory on skin, albeit a pleasant memory, I'd call this a casual all-season scent as well, so wear it anytime, anywhere you please, outside maybe formal occasions. I'm also not sure how you would refill the supposed refillable bottle, as the only thing I see sold at the Hermès counters most places is the bottle and stand together, so there's that to consider as well.

I like the concept of this, but I'm not entirely sure of the execution. Angelica is nice to see as a head note in a fragrance, and it's also nice to see something properly dry and bracing coming out at designer counters again after an onslaught of belt-sander-to-the-nose synthetic woods and syrupy sweet shampoo accords bass-boosted by ambroxan standing in for actual perfume, but Voyage d'Hermès is just too week. This is Jean-Claude Ellena being so "painfully himself" with the lightness and transparency that I almost feel like he's trying to indulge some "artist's folly" a la Salvador Dali or Andy Warhol, where he's so far up the arse of his own sensibilities that he's forgotten he's making something meant for consumption or evaluation by others. In any case, there is also a Voyage d'Hermès Eau de Parfum (2012) that was released two years later, but denies us the "original but stronger" we might otherwise be looking for, going in a completely different direction by adding amber and moving away from citrus. Nice scent, middling performance, and a neutral rating from me.

In a nut shell this is a more gentle version of Frederik Malle French lover. Angelica cedar white musk and fairly linear. I love the later but it can dare I say it appear as rather austere on cold dry days. H V on the other hand is slightly more wearable and can serve as a year round signature scent. Longevity is average, in fact its not much worse than the EDP. Its half the price of FL as well. Full bottle worthy! Fresh and masculine. As unisex as ladies wearing large Rolexes. Only if you can pull it off!


Fragrance: 8/10
Longevity: 6.75/10
Projection: 7/10

Composition 5 by Wassily Kandinsky

To my nose this is a much less concentrated version of Fendi Theorema Uomo. Almost the exact same zesty opening with a nice musky dry down. The difference is longevity. Voyage d' Hermes an hour... Theorema several hours. For a layering scent this would be nice in the spring and summer. Disappointed to say the least...

Upon Further review.... I would say it's closer to Mugler Cologne than say Fendi Theorema. I do like it but the longevity is disappointing... but maybe that's the point... short lived enjoyment lol.