My reviews of Dior Homme and Terre d'Hermes

Yesterday I picked up Dior Homme and Terre d'Hermes. Â*I hadn't smelled them before yesterday. Â*I was pleasantly surprised to find that both of them smelled EXACTLY like I had anticipated them smelling, thanks to all the reviews on here.

First, the Terre d'Hermes. Â*Well, I actually was hoping that it would smell a bit like dishwashing soap, because I like that smell. Â*When I was a kid, I really hated doing dishes, and would try to get out of it...but one of the things I found was- when I'd be standing there over the hot soapy water, I'd start daydreaming really intensely. Â*I would just get lost in daydreams about outer space or inventing things as I washed dishes. Â*After a while, I didn't hate it so much. Â*Sometimes I'll catch a whiff of a certain kind of liquid dish soap and it takes me back to that. Â*So I'm glad that Terre d'Hermes has that note. Â*It IS a little persistent, the whole grapefruit thing, but not bad. Â*As the gunflint note comes out, it gets interesting. Â*This scent changes alot, I mean ALOT in the drydown. Â*Then later the vetiver and dirt notes take over. Â*I still don't know what to think about those middle innings... The scent feels like it's missing something, because it is. Â*Intentionally free of any kind of musk notes, this scent is hard to review. Â*Because of this reason, I cannot give it a complete review. Â*I will have to wear it alot and live in it to see how it behaves over time. Â*It's hard to say I "love" it because I think to love a scent is to love the musk notes in it as though one is accepting the ideosyncracies of a brand new lover. Â*And Terre d'Hermes is missing this... so I can't say much for now. Â*It's interesting though.

Dior Homme on the other hand, I want to kiss it all over... God, I think it's GREAT! Â*I had read alot of reviews where people said that Dior Homme was just kind of decent, but lacking that SOMETHING...I disagree. Â*I was blown away at first sniff. Â*It smells just how it was described- iris, cocoa, lavender. Â*A bit feminine for sure, maybe that's why I want to have sex with my arm... but still, it's totally a scent that a man can have total confidence in wearing. Â*Someone said it smells like a lipstick and a "makeup kit"- I kind of agree. Â*When I was a kid, I remember rummaging through Â*the bathroom drawers and my mom's makeup drawer having such an unforgettable smell. Â*All the little off-pink Mary Kay compacts and tubes... that powdery/greasy smell. Â*I liked that smell though. Â*Yeah, there is a little of that "girly, done-up" smell to Dior Homme, much the same way that Rive Gauche Pour Homme has that " manly, gussied-up" guy smell. Â*It makes the scent interesting. Â*Gives it character. Â*A glimmer of the "fourth-wall", a little breaking of convention. Theatrics. Â*Anyway, I definitely think Dior Homme is one of the best recent releases. Â*What took me so long to discover this one?!

It's gonna take me awhile to figure out Terre d'Hermes. Â*It's going to be hard to resist the temptation to wear Dior Homme everyday!!!

PS: Is it just me, or does the cap/sprayer thingie on Terre d'Hermes look like a shotgun shell. The little circle in the middle looks like the firing pin spot (whatever it's called). Maybe it has something to do with the gunpowder smell...

Well, I can't take credit for that- somebody else pointed it out previously. I can't recall who, but they were right. Except I think they didn't like that smell, whereas I do!

Hey, you need to post a review on the John Varvatos!

Hey, you need to post a review on the John Varvatos! Â*
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Oh I will...I just need to figure out when I'm gonna wear it.

I think I'm gonna try that new Valentino tomorrow.

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I found some of the paper testing strips from Nordstroms. One was the Valentino, one was Lanvin Arpege Pour Homme, and the last was that light blue Façonnable that the Caribbean (?) guy recommended as his favorite. Well, on paper, both the Valentino and Arpege have gone really sour. Not bad scents at first, but over time the drydown gets bad. Especially the Arpege. The Façonnable still smelled really good.

If you test the Valentino out, let us know how you find the drydown to be over the course of a full day.

OK, back to the Terre d'Hermes. I'm starting to get the "visuals"

Man, this scent is making me think of the work of a certain writer/actor/director. A certain "auteur"... the late Coleman Francis. I'm thinking for some reason of such films as "Red Zone Cuba" and "Skydivers". These films are in a way, terrible B-movies. They were made fun of in episodes of Mystery Science 3000... They were bad, yet compelling.

Even though these films were by all accounts "bad", man there is just something about the starkness of these black and white films that just resonates with me. First of all they take place in the early 60's and most of the scenes are shot outdoors with the hapless "stars" jumping out of airplanes, driving around in rusty pickup trucks, hiding in drainpipes, assaulting sandy beaches, climbing up rocky crags, crawling through the dirt, digging for pitchblende... Even in the worst of movies, there is just a glimpse of a simpler better time than that of today's overstuffed blockbuster films. I don't know if the world of Red Zone Cuba ever existed, but man, I'd trade all the modern conveniences to sleep under the stars and pine trees in the America that Coleman Francis portrays. Yes, I want to live in a 1963 B-Movie.

Anyway, I smell Terre d'Hermes...and I feel like I've lived Red Zone Cuba. I've crawled under barbed wire fences, I've stormed the beaches of Cuba (or was it Arizona), I've climbed the mineral cliffs with a stiff breeze blowing through me. I've ducked hot lead. I've had my face buried under the hood of a rusted out F-150 that I later sold for 35 bucks. I've been a patron at Cliff Weisemeyer's for some frogs legs. I've gone looking for pitchblende on Chasteen's property... OK, I'm getting carried away and poking fun at the movie.

OK. This review is very much "out there". But if you've SEEN Red Zone Cuba... it might make some sense. Aside from the fleeting orange of the citrus notes, I find Terre d'Hermes to be a very stark no nonsense black and white b-movie of a scent. But a manly one at that. The outdoors. Open roads. Hills. Mountains. Rocks. Cedar forests. It does something very unique. it captures the outdoors, and it does it WITHOUT being green! It's the outdoors as seen in black and white. It manages to evoke rolling hills of grass...but not green grass. Black and white grass! A grey sky, with grey clouds, a sawtoothed black horizon that stretches far and relaxed...

I'm sure Jean Claude Ellena has never seen Red Zone Cuba or Skydivers. Because if he had intended to build a scent on either of these two movies, then coffee would be one of the major notes. I digress. Anyway, regardless of what our auteurs Mr. Ellena and Mr. Francis intended to create, to me, what they captured is a kind of beauty in quiet breezy blacks, whites, greys, slates, charcoals. But with that orange note like the sun on a cloudy cold day, as your collar flaps against your neck in the open range.

To another person, Terre d' Hermes will leave a totally different impression. But to me, I think it's ... OK, I'm getting to be full of sh*t now.

Anyway this review was kind of a joke, but kind of serious.

Anyway Terre d'Hermes DOES remind me of the film "Red Zone Cuba"

Thanks. I was hoping this review wasn't TOO out there...