Reviews of Un Jardin en Méditerranée (2003)
by Hermès

I hoped so much for this fraganse, so I was very sad to find out that it is not made for my skin, when I finally, on a travel, got the possibility to try it. It is obvious quallity, but don´t come out nice at all on me. There came even an obvious smoke-note after some minutes, who settled down after fifteen minutes.

Now my hope stands to Un Jardin sür le Nile, it smelled divine from the bottle, but it will take a long time until I get the possibility to try it on my skin...

UJdM gets a neutral thumb from me, as I can smell it is a quallity-fraganse. I envy all of you who wears it well!

When this fragrance first came out, I bought it and enjoyed it for a while. Within one month, the 90% full bottle was already in my bottom drawer with the rest of the scents I no longer wished to wear. The opening floral accord is pleasant and synthetic. This particular synthetic note is one that I find more interesting than annoying at first, but it hangs on and on with little amelioration. The longer it’s there, the more annoying it becomes because of an unpleasant greenish note in it. As for the rest of the fragrance: I don’t see Un Jardin en Méditerranée as either “garden” or “Mediterranean” — I lose any citrus notes within a few minutes, and the artificial floral notes overwhelm. To my nose there really is not much more to the fragrance than those inferior floral renditions. This is one of those fragrances that give me that plastic taste in my mouth when I am exposed to it for longer than a half hour. It dries down into a fig / wood base that is uninspiring and has rather poor longevity.

This scent leaves the bottle all aromatic green, with fresh grassy notes wrapped up in rosemary and lavender, all elevated by a healthy dose of aldehydes. The opening accord immediately brings to mind a dry and rocky Mediterranean landscape, with the blue-green sea daubing the horizon in the distance. Remarkably absent are any of the sweet citrus notes that so many “Mediterranean” fragrances lean on so heavily. Instead, Un Jardin en Mediterranee reveals a soft, pulpy fig and woods accord that completes its Mediterranean landscape. Comparison with Olivia Giacobetti’s Philosykos is inevitable, and the Hermes is a drier, sparer, and more aromatic scent. Giacobetti emphasizes the milky aspect of the fig and the sap in its branches, while Jean Claude Ellena presents the bark and sun-drenched leaves of the fig tree.

Un Jardin en Mediterranee is linear once it establishes it’s fig, woods, and aromatic accord. As with many such light, airy scents it wears close to the skin, and I imagine you’d have to apply a lot of it to build up much sillage or projection.

I received this from a friend at work and I really don't know what to say about it. It's neither bad nor good. I don't know what to say about it, mostly because I don't know what to think about it. It's just a pleasent smell, without anything special to it though. It starts as fresh and it smells similar to a fir forest, only that it's stronger and overwhelming. The freshness fades away briefly though, the smell turning into a scent that reminds me of sitting under the Christmass tree when I was a child. If you want to stand out, this fragrance isn't for you because besides the lasting power, which is really good, there's nothing impressive about it. I think it smells better in cold environments than in warm ones, so I'd say it's a winter fragrance.

Well, I just can't make up my mind about this one. On the one hand, it smells pretty. Pleasant enough, and unlikely to offend. But if I think about it too much, I start to notice elements that remind me of a cheap womens' perfume from the likes of Escada. Then I snap out of it and stop thinking about it too much, and it smells modern, weightless, stark, and transparent (as we've come to expect from Ellena) again. You can easily convince yourself either way on this one. Is that part of its genius, or is it an expensive unisex perfume that borders on the mundane? I'm not going to buy a bottle just to figure it out.

I really cannot wear this, a bit too feminine and makes me a bit nauseous.