In 2004 Ralf Schweiger and Nathalie Feisthauer created a burst of citrus, spice and wood meant to resemble ambergris. They succeeded, Eau des Merveilles is one of my favorite fragrances from Hermes. In 2005 Hr, Schweiger and the, then, new in-house perfumer for Hermes, Jean-Claude Ellena would team up to create Parfum des Merveilles. This was a subtler deeper rendition of the original but still very similar. In 2006 M. Ellena would once more look to Eau des Merveilles, as inspiration, and create a second flanker in Elixir des Merveilles. This was a much more concentrated version of the original and in that intensity it lost much of the sparkle I found so enchanting in the first place. Now in 2010 M. Ellena is once again headed back to the Merveilles well and has created a third flanker called Eau Claire des Merveilles. This time around the only similarity in the notes used comes at the end, as in all of the Merveilles flankers, it is about a woody/ambery finish. Unlike the other three versions this trip is totally different in arriving at that finish.

 

The main difference is the use of what M. Ellena describes, in the press materials, as a powdery note. On my skin it comes off feeling more like a milk accord. Right there that should take some perfumistas aback. Very few fragrances have attempted a milk accord. Really only three examples come immediately to mind. The blood and milk accord in Etat Libre D’Orange Secretions Magnifique. The one in Issey Miyake Feu D’Issey and in Penhaligon’s Amaranthine; in these two it is used in such an interesting way it makes both of these fragrances stand out. It also makes both of these fragrances “love ‘em or hate ‘em” fragrances as well. In Eau Claire des Merveilles it is this milk accord that carries through the early development and it is so different from the opening of the other Merveilles flankers that it isn’t until much later that the fragrant genetics become apparent.

 

The opening of Eau Claire des Merveilles is that soft milk accord which is made up of strands of iris and vanilla mostly. Of the three milk accords I mentioned above it is closest in quality to the one found in Penhaligon’s Amaranthine. Where the two fragrances go from there is anything but similar. Amaranthine heads into a dark animalic space. Eau Claire des Merveilles, like the bubbles on the bottle, chooses to float skyward and in the heart a light floral accord matched with an even lighter ozonic accord brings to mind a summer sky just after a thunderstorm has passed. The base, is where the similarity between all of the Merveilles flankers exists in the combination of light woods and amber to call up the ambergris that Hr. Schweiger and Mme. Feisthauer aspired to in the first Merveilles fragrance. In this recent incarnation it is kept lighter than in any of the previous three interpretations but it is recognizably the same.

 

Eau Claire des Merveilles has slightly below average longevity and average sillage.

 

By the time one gets to the third flanker of a beloved fragrance, much like the third sequel of a beloved movie franchise, the ideas are usually in short supply. In Eau Claire des Merveilles M. Ellena shows that even in Merveilles part quatre there is still some innovation possible.

 

Disclosure: This review was based on a preview sample provided by Hermes.

 

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor