Hermann à Mes Côtés Me Paraissait une Ombre (2015)
by Etat Libre d'Orange

Clean and clear and peppery at first. A green, resembling stems or leaves follows. Something here seems vaguely aquatic. There is a coolness... Vague, light floral notes. This frag is very tame, on me. I find it dull, boring.

I get a little incense and a little wood later. Neither of which are strong. Ambroxan and patchouli seem to amp up later on... I get a little minty scent or an astringent accord hours later. Yawn.

(Le Capitaine) in The Wild Boys by Bertrand Mandico 2017

Hermann is an overpowering, synthetic aquatic that settles, but never enough. Calypsone reigns here—it could be a hypersensitivity, as I frequently am overwhelmed by this element of such fragrances, but the earthy patchouli and floral incense remain all but hidden under this cloying exterior. I wish I were getting the dirty soil, but the best I can extract is a slightly camphorous note that rises just above the surface. It's not compelling to me in the least—a hard pass. [3/10]

Hermann is a popular guy. Everyone seems to like him. He has lots of friends, he gets around. He’s super likeable. There’s something about his personality, though, that most people find hard to figure out, something oddly troubling or mysterious. Does he have a checkered past? Is there a monkey on his back? Is he keeping a secret? What is he hiding? There’s a depth to him that he tries to keep to himself, yet it seeps around the edges of his personality, sets you on edge sometimes.

One of the things I love about a lot of ELDO fragrances is how they play on dichotomy, how they harmonize opposites. Hermann A Mes Cotes Me Parrasait Un Ombre plays on easy likeabliity (black currant, calypsone, ambroxan), complexity (frankincense, patchouli), and perplexing mystery (geosmin, the smell of muddy beets, ozone, camphor). Somehow they all work together here for me. Over the hours of a day, the notes quiet down but shift around a bit. The ambroxan is always there, but the other accords keep peeking up and hiding away.

ELDO’s offerings are often like this: clean but dirty, pretty but muddy, fresh but musty. ELDO is always polarizing. People either love or despise their scents, and I love that about them, too. My husband had to ponder for quite sometime how he felt about Hermann. He finally decided that he really didn’t like him at all for one troubling note he couldn’t decipher. It also turns out that he detests beets, and can smell them from a distance and finds them revolting!

Hermann, however, is my friend... not despite his quirks and his complexities, but because of them.

A most versatile fragrance that can be worn for any occasion at any time of year... as long as you’re not looking for something easy. Challenging, a bit off-putting, but ultimately a good friend.

First impression - blurred petals under running water. Clearly, the flower in question is not entirely of this world. Peppery, stony mineral smells frame and sustain this first impression. A delicate creamy-lemony incense note pervades. Do I detect a hint of perfumed melon, Crenshaw perhaps? I find little rapport between the olfactory experience and the notes in the perfumer's manifest. There is a directness about the presentation that makes it smell contemporary. The composer avoided the musky veils and aldehydic fizz so often used to chaperone abstractions. No hologram, Hermann is rather a learned recreation of something--a magnolia?--once encountered, now reprised for the mind's eye. This is my favorite of the ELOs I've sampled.