Reviews of Hermèssence Osmanthe Yunnan (2005)
by Hermès

After several tries, I finally get it. This is a bright citrus, barely there, osmanthus tea with a milky drydown. It really is pretty in a "skinny runway model" sort of way. I detect no florals & no smoke, however, and I can just barely make out the notes after an hour. I give this 4 stars for originality and 2 stars for longevity, so I guess that I give this one a thumbs up but only 3 stars.

Osmanthe Yunnan is one of those "just right" fragrances that seem to press all the right buttons without doing anything particularly exceptional. Though not shocking, dried apricot (I say dried because that's the image I receive when wearing this) as a fragrance note is pretty different and I can't imagine this being immediately desirable to the masses. There's something muted, very "alto voiced" about Osmanthe Yunnan that a) brings it into unisex territory and b) gives it an edge of sophistication and a grown up sense of balance.

When I experienced this for the first time, I was instantly reminded of the unlikely smell of carving out the inside of a pumpkin on Halloween. Something about the way the citrus, used to add just a hint of juicy brightness, interacts with the apricot and floral elements painted this picture in my mind. I am not able to detect any milky notes in this as many others are and that is only to say that if one were looking for a milky impression in this I'm not sure how pronounced it is. While Osmanthe Yunnan, on me, has never changed very much in its evolution on my skin, I become more aware of the tea note which teeters between dried tea leaves and gently sweet hay as the fragrance develops, and this element of the fragrance is really satisfying and pleasantly different. Overall Osmanthe Yunnan is an unlikely citrus/apricot floral fragrance pitched about two octaves lower than the fruity florals we've been accustomed to, with a easy, relaxed vibe perfect for a breezy summer day.

A bright apricot and milky tea accord with a slight effervescent texture to it. A bit too much tea and radiant florals for my liking.

I think this is one of the most beautiful and subtle scents available today.
It has a lovely floral note that is much softer than usual feminine scents but without being too 'powdery'. It has a wet feeling to it but is nothing like the usual male 'ocean' scents.
I find the whole thing incredibly refreshing without being too sharp and if it weren't so expensive, I'd wear it all the time. Stays close to the skin and has only average longevity but this is really a sophisticated scent for the wearer, not something you would wear to a club to attract the opposite sex, by the time they get close enough to be entranced by it, your work is already done...

Tea, and sweet citrus, and dried fruits, and...
Hey! Where did it go?

Have you ever loved and yearned after someone. Someone who liked you well enough, who talked to you and spent brief moments of time with you; but someone who seemed to be as happy leaving you as they were to see you.

I have tried and tried Osmanthe Yunnan; indeed I have tried everything which I know to make this beauty linger with me; it has been like trying to trap sunlight.

I despair of a lasting relationship but I can't seem to stop trying.

Lovely, ephemeral, beauty.

The crystal clear peachy-floral topnotes of Osmanthe Yunan are simply beautiful. Their luminous quality brings to mind Menard's exquisite but hard-to-find L'Eau de Ryokuei, and the resemblance is maintained for quite some time after application. Osmanthe Yunan is the slightly sweeter scent, and is less suggestive of bright water, though neither of the two can be called "aquatic" in the usual (calone soaked) sense.

Osmanthe Yunan eventually diverges to follow a path lined by soft, fruity white flowers, with a powdery olfactory texture and vanillic highlights in the far background. Like many of the Jean-Claude Ellena scents I've tried, Osmanthe Yunan works primarily as a skin scent, with very little sillage or projection. It has the trademark Ellena transparency, but not the austerity of his "masculine" compositions like Declaration or Terre d'Hermes. For a fruity floral scent to avoid the grating, cheap candy artificiality that plagues most of this tribe is quite an accomplishment. On the other hand, Ellena has softened the fruity floral accord so much in his quest for sophistication that the end result is oddly shapeless.

If you want spring blossoms reflected in a crystalline pool, seek out the more sharply focused L'Eau de Ryokuei. If it's the soft textured peaches and apricots you're after, I think you may be better served by more substantial scents, like Mitsouko and Chinatown, that set their lactonic fruit against a characterful chypre structure.

To me, it smells like hay in the spring. It's fairly floral with a little citrus and a hint of wood, and it's definitely my favorite of the Hermès scents. I haven't found anything else that smells so much like hay. It's a perfect smell for Hermès, young, classy, and complex. Somehow it manages to be fresh and warm.

Think hammocks and expensive country houses.

Osmanthe Yunnan is quite citrusy, and being the lightest and freshest of all the Hermessences – it is the most approachable, and probably another one of the most popular scents in this line. I have searched high and low for the osmanthus note in this one, and was happy to finally find it after stripping away the many sheer veils of citrus and tea, and it was subtly floral, with just a hint of apricot and with a barely-there creaminess. It is a subtle, well done scent – but whatever amount of osmanthus there is in Osmanthe Yunnan – it is very under-satisfying.

This is not to say that I dislike Osmanthe Yunnan, however, I do find it disappointing. It’s quite surprising how a floral with such a definite character (osmanthus absolute is one of the richest and most compelling floral absolutes I ever smelled – apricoty, leathery and absolutely divine) can easily be buried in other notes – especially when they are all so fleeting, light and transparent in nature. What I get from Osmanthe Yunnan is a reminiscence of other wonderfully refreshing, citrusy-watery creation by Ellena – namely Bvlgari Eau Parfumee Au The Vert, and Un Jardin sur le Nil.

Notes: Yunan Tea, Orange, Freesia, Osmanthus, Apricot, Leather.