By Michael

A few months ago while wandering around the city and smelling many, many fragrances I came across Hermès new home scents. I am not a candle or ambient scent aficionado by any means, but these wonderful fragrances have captured my heart (or is that nose?) and imagination.

The home fragrances are available as candles housed in handmade ceramic vessels, ceramic pebbles and scented paper origami horses – so cute!

The scents themselves have been created by Celine Ellena and the line was launched December 2014.

Fenêtre ouverte

Fenêtre ouverte (Open Window) smells airy and ozonic. It’s the smell of opening a window in spring after the temperature has dropped and rain has magnified the scent of some green shrubs down below. I get images of sheets of fragile water and notes evocative of stones and cold sand. It smells very fresh and coastal and fizzy and fuzzy and just wonderful. I wish it was a personal fragrance.

Temps de pluie

Temps de pluie (Wet Weather) is all about fizzy citrus and green notes. It’s the type of citrus smell you get from across the room when someone breaks a citrus rind – that unmistakable mixture of citrus oils dispersed through the air. There’s accompanying accents of green ferny notes and the softest of blonde woods. The green notes smell moist, crisp and just the tiniest bit sappy. Beautiful.

Des pas sur le neige

Des pas sur le neige (Footprints in the Snow) initially smells of fizzy, fuzzy and very slightly dirty musks. I’m second guessing myself because I smell a de-sweetened honey and it’s not what I would have expected in any Hermès scent. This is accompanied by some light lactonic notes and facet or two of vetiver. Aldehydes place a layer of abstraction over the scent. This would make one heck of a niche musk fragrance.

Champ libre

Champ Libre (Open Field) smells of peppery narcissus with touches of moss and jasmine. There’s also a “greenness” that seems to be a mixture of galbanum and crisp aldehydes. Unsurprisingly it brings to mind Nicolai’s Le Temps d’une Fête and some crisply aldehydic Chanels. In a more abstract sense it also brings to mind the smell of thick tall grass dry on the outside but still wet on the inside, being broken under foot with yellow flowers all around. This is by far the most complex smelling of the five and just like Fenêtre ouverte, I wish it was a personal fragrance. Wearing this under a thin, soft, crisp white shirt would be heavenly.

À cheval!

À cheval! (On Horseback!) strikes me as almost the Cuir d’Ange home fragrance. Supple leather driven by soft and buttery iris is accompanied by some surprisingly pungent bandage and iodine notes. Together these create the smell of fine new leather accessories. As a lover of leather fragrances all I can say is please, please, PLEASE release a personal fragrance of this!

These five Hermès home fragrances have not only shown me that ambient perfumery can be every bit as beautiful and complex as a personal scent, they’ve also shown me that Celine Ellena is a perfumer that should not have been under my radar. It’s time to go and sniff some of her Different Company creations while I eagerly await more creations for Hermès.

Have you tried any of these home fragrances? Do you have other candle loves or favourites by Celine Ellena? Tell me more in the comments.