Reviews of Un Jardin en Méditerranée (2003)
by Hermès

Calm citrusy florals and figs with an impression of the sea. The fig gives off an illusion of booziness like in Paul Smith London and really green. I really like this and really it's just a nice scent to wear during the day.

OK, my admission, it's my dream fragrance. Mild florals, irascible white grapefruit that lasts for or 5 hours. Sillage is medium and longevity is medium but I ADORE the balance because I adore the earth, fruits and grapefruit that just stay around. Some folks expect a good fragrance to last 8-10 hours to be "truly good" but this one is simply a pleasure. It's some tantalizing essential oils and a half of a fresh white grapefruit sitting in a bottle on your shelf... it sparkles, it is enticing, only slightly sweet, and an absolute pleasure. So it goes, I love citrus. More than citrus, I love citrus that lasts a few hours with no mistake. If you like smoky, woody, earthy, mossy, completely dry, dark, brooding fragrances... this isn't it. If you like the spiked 'sport' or 'aqua' fragrances, florals and herbs, this isn't it. This is a Mediterranean gourmand, plain and simple! Take it or leave it! :)

boy this is an amazing creation.
i really love how it changes during wear. from somewhat indistinctable within minutes to a lovely floral scent.
i found the use of bergamot in sur le nil exaggerated but well, this 'juice' makes up for it.
il take it over sur le nil almost anytime (love them both tho).
the dry down is one of the best florals i have smelled IMO, lovely how the fig gradually overpowers the floral effect yet u can still smell both shortly before the end.
only negative point is the longevity, lasted only bout 3 hours on me.
still deserves the attribute amazing tho.

If this were a color, it'd be light breeze forest green. I kind a smell something smoky somehow. I live at tropical country so i think sun has taken so much from its original smell. This will be so much freshness with subtle floral at the first time. In a few minutes, on the hard sun exposed, it turns to dry leaves and humidity. The last hit is a little bit sweet and green ash. I love how the greenery evaporated trough my collar. Sweat and heat makes the smell even better. This is so great for summer or extremely hot season. superb!

adj effect:
Level 1: strange, curious, and confident.
Level 2: fresh, fun.
Level 3. sexy, feminine.

Well umm, is this for men too?

Additional fragrance notes (from sample brochure): mastic tree, red cedar
I like Un Jardin en Méditerranée. It is the first fig-oriented scent I’ve tried that I can endorse. This is a citrus/green leaf/light wood scent. It is light, translucent and very refreshing. It opens with a crisp citrus and green leaf note. Woods quickly appear. They stay close to the skin but are very well done. By that I mean they are ‘true’ to type, in particular the cedar smells very natural. The mastic tree note is a gum which has a leafy-resinous character. The fig elements start in a low-key way and get bigger (but never out of control). I think this is the ‘biggest’ of the three Hermès Jardin scents, the one with the largest presence. If you are a fan of fig scents, you’ll probably like this. I’m still neutral on them but I have to admit this one is pretty good.

A revelation for me. The first time I smelled it, it was like nothing else I had ever tried; flowers, grass, sea breeze, like the best of nature and oh so green!
One of the very few fragrances I'll put on at night when I'm alone as I love it so much.

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!

A lovely breath of fresh air, a fresh breeze through leaves and tree branches and bushes. If a babbling brook scene had a scent this could be it. It's transparent but present, beginning with a combination of twiggy fig and bright citrus, and after about an hour the fragrance dries down to, according to my nose, a very soft cedar, fresh and dry leaf combination.

Another beautifully natural composition for Hermes by Ellena.

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 bought Un Jardin en Méditerranée because I had already purchased Un Jardin sur le Nil and had fallen in love, so this was a blind buy. I was curious to experience another Hermes. This is probably the best untested purchase I’ve ever made. It was also the first scent in my wardrobe based on fig notes, and the heady warmth of the fig blended with cooler greens and umbers of wood and leaf reminds me of strolling through my summer garden and then heading into the shade of the forest with soft winds wafting the scent of flowers into sunlit breaks of the canopy above. I can see how this is described as unisex; I would love to smell this on a man, but I will be content with sniffing it on myself. It is a peaceful scent but not languid, comforting but not cloying, and the counterpoint between soft honeyed fig and sharper notes I can’t place, make it an interesting puzzle. Just when I think it says one thing, another elusive note appears. The orange blossom never dominates, it whispers softly, weaving in and out of the cedar and leaves. Strangely, though the name invokes the Mediterranean, this has no seashore notes at all for me. I live in the mountains, and this is very much a scented glade in the dell.

Reminds me of the island I grew up on. I smell sea grasses, beach roses, and hot sun on the sand. One sniff transports me to my childhood.

Another one of the better "fresh" girl's perfumes.

It's not mega-nasty flowery(which is always a turn off for me), just nice and soft and clean.

Both this and Un Jardin Sur Le Nil are two of my favorites.
Thumbs up.

After your experience with Un Jardin en Mediterranee nothing is ever gonna smell good enough. No need to try before you buy 'cause this one is definitely a must-have.

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 can well imagine a man wearing this. Not all men; judging from the reviews here, it seems to be a touch too sweet or light for some, but that might be down to skin chemistry as much as personal preference. I'd certainly like to smell this on a chap.

I absolutely love this perfume and am fascinated by it. I find it has an envigorating herbal opening and then opens up on the skin with a resinous green warmth that very much reminds me of plants in a hot, sunny and rocky garden. I don't know how JC Ellena does it.

I lusted after this fragrance for its fig note, as I've become a fig fiend this summer. But this fragrance brings the fig in as a character actor, not the ham that steals the show. I do find it sheer and therefore not as long-lasting as something ambery or oriental. But that's the nature of perfumery isn't it? And it means you can enjoy another spritz a few hours later and go back to the beginning of the garden. Lovely!

My flight home out of Charles de Gaulle airport was overbooked and I ended up having to kill about 6 hours in the terminal before catching the next one. Fortunately, the duty free shop had an unusually good selection of colognes, including everything made by Hermes, Givenchy, and Guerlain. Out of them all, I liked this the best. It's a little on the feminine side but it's distinctive and tropical and herbaceous and . . . just very nice. It's not overpowering but it lasts forever.

fresh,spicy,harsh,exotic-a very intense and powerful opening with to many impressions and too much of everything.The drydown becomes a nightmare-a long lasting spicy and dry scent.Makes you dizzy and rousy and nauseas.....To my opinion very feminine-badly balanced and not well composed!

The bergamot and orange blossom notes in this blend strongly remind me of Bulgari's Au the Verte. Starts out fresh. The drydown of Un Jardin en Mediterranee is somewhat dry. On the negative side it loses some of it's initial freshness ~ while on the positive, it remains rich with class and sophistication. I imagine either male or female will be able to wear this scent with no problems. Not personally a scent for me, but I do love it's composition and staying power. This Hermes is top notch!

This comes across as a clean, monotonic perfume to my nose, such as it is. Nevertheless, it's absolutely wonderful, but I've changed my mind on this one: it's not as interesting and complex a scent as I once thought. Could this mean I'm growing up, I wonder?

This really reminds me of the Burberry for women created in 1995. If anyone else thinks so, please let me know. I compared the composition of both and it is not the same, but to me they smell so alike!

*WOW* THis is completely beautiful. Having it on made me happy the whole day. At first it smells quite feminine, very sweet and syrupy, so that I was a little embarrassed walking around with it. However, let it settle and it's just heaven. Fig and Orange heaven.

I went swimming for about 2hrs after having sampled it, and there were still traces of it on me afterwards! Therefore I assume it has staying power.

This is my favourite green/fresh fragrance of all time.I have been to Egypt and I love the concept of "A Garden on the Nile". The marriage of green and fig (fresh and exotic)is so summery and sexy. I can imagine splashing this on whilst crusing along the River Nile on a sultry summer's night. And by the way, my brother's view is that it is definitely uni sex. This from a man who includes the ancient and very masculine "Bay Rum" in his fragrance repertoire.

This is my fav Hermes by far! It is so unique and fresh. I love that fig note in the center of mint. Overall, this fragrance is very green, fresh, and exciting!

Jardin (not Jardine), to me, is like being clubbed in the nostrils. Mind you, I don't mind the scent, but it's way overpowering. Applied in the slightest of mists it can be very nice, esp layered with Tuscany which has a similar brightness. I don't get feminine at all with this scent. I get woods and figs and some florals, but in extreme over-abundance. My 3.4 oz will last me 40 years I bet.

At first I thought it was overly feminine, but after a couple more wearings, I finally "saw" the balanced properties of this scent. I loved how the fig and orange blossom played off each other, giving a green floral feel. It gives off a fresh tonic air that is soothing and tranquil, the notes to in and out of focus as it develops. Reminds me so much of iced tea with an orange slice and mint. Close my eyes, and I'm on the island of Santorini, looking at a cliffside garden with an Azure colored sea and sky just beyond, and caring nothing more than the moment I'm living in right now.

excellent fragrance and unisex as my newphew and i bought one each..exotic and crisp, unique and beguiling. hard to find in the UK but everywhere in Paris - naturellement... I want this one to last all year round

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

This is a fantastically unique summer fragrance. It’s got a sour quality to it, but it’s also got a sweet fruity quality. This is a brilliantly crafted fragrance, that is exotic and balanced. This is the best fig based fragrance on earth. I love it.

What an amazing scent. It truly is a garden that changes as I walk through it. Citrus, herbs, floral, resins, and the bright sun; it's all there. I'm usually a rainy day kind of guy, but this could bring me out into the fresh air.

Lovely unisex fragrance with fresh figgy topnotes.
Significantly different from other fig based scents such as Philosykos and Premier Figuier, and more to the fizzy white musk side. Best suited for summer wear.

FANTASTIC SCENT! I hate fig but Hermes comes through again with their skill in the art of perfumery. So complex and well blended. Seems to take a different turn every hour or so. Highly recomended!

Un Jardin is the most fresh and original fragrance I have come across. Combinations of berry & green notes mixed with clean ocean air make this one totally unique. Hermes strives to be original and Un Jardin lifts the bar even higher. Fantastic for both men and women, the crisp and *natural* fragrance (not artifical or sweet)is perfect for both men and women. In my opinion, you can wear this one all year long, warmer months to freshen things up, and in colder months to lighten the mood. One of the best on the market period.

Liked it but thought the Mastic tree note was a little too armpit-like for me to fully enjoy it, but after actually wearing it I am really happy with this fragrance. Completely unfloral and quite woodsy, this is a great all-year scent, reminds me a little bit of Miracle l'Aquatonic. Perfumebay writes:Un Jardin en Mediterranee is an emotional journey, an olfactory progress, an impressionistic evocation of a garden beside the sea. It is a perfume of light and of shade where fig tree, mastic tree and red cedar blend with bergamot, orange blossom and white oleander.

Very harmonious perfume. Tender citruses, light spices, interesting vetiver. Average lasting power. Beautiful bottle design. It's sooooo nice but too superficial for me, I'd like something more masculine. So I wear Salvatore Ferragamo pour Homme.