Un Jardin Après La Mousson (2008)
by Hermès

I know I’m swimming against the tide here, but I’m losing patience with Jean-Claude Elléna’s minimalist dogma. Minimalism in art is refreshing when it first appears, but it wears thin very quickly. I think back to minimalist music: the first few pieces by Riley, Reich and Glass that I heard were seductive, novel, and hypnotic. But there’s only so much you can do with two chords and a chug-chug pulse, and before the 1980s were out it all sounded the same to me.

I’m reaching the same point with Elléna’s "Jardin" and Hermèssence scents for Hermès. While his colleague Bertrand Duchaufour has shown he can do depth, richness, and complexity with fragrances like Méchant Loup and Jubilation XXV, Emperor Elléna’s compositions become ever more slender, and I fear that he’s now getting very close to naked. Un Jardin Après la Mousson is a case in point.

This latest “Jardin” series entry starts out as a shockingly trite aquatic melon thing. In fact, the dominant top note smells exactly like nasty pink watermelon hard candy – you know, the kind that comes wrapped in watermelon pattern cellophane. An attempt at redemptive sophistication comes quickly in the form of a bitter-crisp pink peppercorn note. I thought pink peppercorn was interesting when it showed up a couple of years ago in the top notes of Amouage’s Reflection Man, but everybody’s doing it now, and it’s frankly beginning to get old. A few more minutes into its evolution Un Jardin Après la Mousson reveals a potent and aggressively synthetic sharp woody note. And in true recent Elléna fashion, that’s it.

I waited a few hours for something else to happen, but it didn’t. The accord that Un Jardin Après la Mousson scent arrives at would make a nice shower gel, but the thought of spending $60 on a bottle to smell like this makes me giggle. Un Jardin Après la Mousson is both simple and very loud; a combination of attributes which in humans I equate with idiocy. As a final insult, the synthetics at its core are extremely persistent, and I found the stuff very hard to wash off once I’d grown (very, very) tired of it.

Sometimes less really is just, well, less.

Hermes Un Jarden Apres la Mousson

Notes: Sweet Lime, Ginger, Green Notes, Coriander, Pepper, Cardamom seed, Aquatic Notes, Vetiver, Longose (from osmoz.com)

Un Jardin Apres la Mousson begins with a surprising juxtaposition of watery vegetables reminiscent of cucumber and lettuce, along with cantaloupe melon, green herbs, tomato stem and peppercorn. UJAlM is pleasant at first, and is quite a good balance of sweet, watery and green notes. All too soon, however, the balance goes out of whack, and the melon note, which is really not that appetizing on its own, soon starts to take over. Combined with the tomato stem accord, the effect is sticky, ozonic and bitter. All the worst traits of a poorly done aquatic come to the fore, while the tomato stem becomes as awkward as a giant boil on the middle of one's forehead. The herbal component is an attempt at a sort of "herbs de provence" cooking mixture, which in itself is really not bad. However, the aromatic herb accord really doesn't do much to salvage the kindred tomato stem. The drydown is soapy and slightly woody, with a lingering herb and tomato stem blend which gives a bitter, powdery effect. Once the melon is gone in this late stage, UJAlM becomes more tolerable, but is also a bit boring. This is one case where I am thankful for short longevity.

I don’t find much similarity between this one and the other two Un Jardin scents – en Mediterranee and Sur Le Nil. This one is fresh and light where the others were sweeter, fruitier, and denser. My first testing of Un jardin après la mousson gave me a synthetic aquatic accord but the syntheticness has diminished each time I tested it. Now I get a cucumber / melon hybrid opening that gradually morphs to pretty much a salty / vegetal honeydew note. The scent basically continues as a melony / salty / aquatic that is light and clear, has good sillage, and lasts. I’m not one who gets a lot of “sweet” from this scent but the drydown seems to be quite vegetal gourmandish with its cucumbery-melon accord and just that hint of salt in the background. I interpret it as aquatic because of the salt and because I have come to think of a prominent cucumber note as representative of an aquatic aroma.

I’m not crazy about this fragrance – it comes across to me as pleasant but not very original. I do like it the best of the Un Jardin series, but then I strongly dislike Un Jardin Sur Le Nil and I am totally bored by Un Jardin Mediterranee. This is not a garden to me (considering my reaction to the other two… probably a good thing) but even though it’s not a bad scent, I’m not interested… Potent sillage and tenacious longevity.

Everything about this is fairly amazing in its depiction of "tropical garden after the rain" -- I grew up with one, so I love it. But the melon just kills, KILLS it.

This review is under revision...

oh my god, i can not believe the negative comments about this perfection. I LOVE THE SMELL, its a perfect combination of fresh air smell, acuatic, fruity and spicy in the drydown.. The best jardins series...