L'Eau d'Hiver (2003)
by Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle

Reviewers criticising L'Eau d'Hiver are missing the achievement here.

This fragrance manages to be fresh but warm, formal but relaxed. It is a soft unisex fragrance, which I would describe as powdery (iris), floral (hawthorn, jasmine), and sweet (honey).

I don't wear it often but it is interesting, unique, and classy!

Very clever , it smells like an icy morning to me. It's light and fresh so great on hot days yet fun to smell on a cold day.

L'Eau d'Hiver smells terrific in tiny dabs applied to the back of your hand for sampling purposes. I was all prepared for a positive review but had to really test it. When applied for a days wearing, things change.

"Synthetic almond water" is the best way to describe this.

I am generally not a great friend of JC Ellena's style of perfumery and thus did not expect too much from L'Eau d'Hiver. I was not disappointed. The top is dominated by a boring florist / green-house violet note with the irritating insistence only synthetics have. This is followed by the much mentioned watery almond note, a little bitter, a little peppery, a little powdery sweet, but mainly continuing the cheap artificiality of the top. Any decent iris root that may be in here does not have a chance except to add a minor powdery accent (and we know he can do a great iris from TDC's Bois d'Iris, another incomplete creation which in that particular aspect is perfect, however). Rather than a winter landscape this conjures up images of a Yankee candle in homeopathic dilution. Yet again Ellena fails to prove his thesis that a minimalist/high synth approach can yield a similarly satisfactory result as a complex composition with a large percentage of naturals - in this case his model was Guerlain's Après L'Ondée. If this is the future of perfumery, I will gladly keep living in the past.

I finally got around to buying this fragrance on which I had my eyes for quite a while! This is a perfume that is so harmoniously blended that it's very difficult to put a finger on which notes are in it. I don´t consider this a typical ´French´ perfume either, although the house is French and Ellena was obviously born into a family of French perfumers.

Other than experiencing a clear and haylike opening, I'm left with describing the awesome experience that comes with this cute and to my nose very romantic scent. I say it's cute because it's nothing like an in your face sillage monster. Rather, it's a skin scent that I picture wearing sitting in front of a fireplace with my girl next to me drinking a glass of wine while it´s snowing outside. It´s an eau chaude in that the mere wearing of this perfume warms my heart, not because the scent itself smells ´warm´. I don´t think I know of any other fragrance that has this strong an effect on me and for that I thank Mr. Ellena from the bottom of my heart.

l'Eau d'Hiver--hmmm...paint...a mixture of artists' paint and the kind I have used to paint interior walls. So let me break it down a little. Some kind of aromatic wood scent, vanilla, some kind of bitter nut, maybe almond, pecan or walnut. There must also be something like linseed oil and a touch of turpentine. Ed'H is fairly dry and nutty, but some very faint sweetness and powder is developing as it dries.

Turin claimed this fragrance has an "almond water" quality. I can understand this interpretation--the nuttyness is definitely prominent, and it is amazing what other notes may be evoked by a simple almond. I read somewhere that some nuts contain cyanide. It is definitely of the poisonous family of cyanide chemicals, but in a very small amount. I wonder if that is what gives some nuts their astringent, bitter quality. This is the sensation I get when I smell Ed'H. I have just shelled an almond or a walnut, and the natural oils are newly released onto my hands and the meat of the nut. Then, when I taste it, it is sweet, bitter, dry and woody. That is what I smell in Ed'H.

This is a fascinating fragrance. I wonder if people really wear this as it seems more like a scent experience rather than a perfume. About an hour after application, it is very light, verging on a skin scent. It still smells nutty and dry with a hint of linseed oil, but it also has taken on a bit more of the powder I noticed earlier. I definitely want to smell this again, although I am disappointed by its longevity.