Un Jardin Sur le Nil – Hermès

Today, my husband and I took our four lovely children to Westfield shopping centre in West London. I don’t know what we were thinking of – it was absolutely packed with post-Christmas shoppers. Happily we bumped into some friends who we hadn’t seen in ages, so we binned off shopping and had a delicious Lebanese lunch.

One of the very few shops that we briefly went into was Beauty Base. It stocks masses of perfume, most of which you can try. The actual shop is better than the online store, which doesn’t seem to have such a wide range. Anyway, I managed to speedily snap up a few new perfumes as well as try a few things whilst we were there.

Un Jardin Sur le Nil has been on my list for some time as something I should try. Whenever there are conversations about muted/sophisticated/quiet perfumes, this one seems to be mentioned. Funnily, it wasn’t until quite recently that I realised that the Nil refers to ‘Nile’. For some time I had thought it meant ‘nil’ as in ‘nothing’ – assumed it was one of those philosophical perfume names like ‘L’Air du Temps’ (which I’m now bound to discover means something equally prosaic).

The first whiff of Un Jardin sur le Nil reminded me of how my skin smells naturally after swimming outside on a hot day. It smelt very fresh and natural, with a hint of garden spiciness, perhaps nutmeg and jasmine. It lacks any of the ‘perfuminess’ of many female fragrances.

Now, after several hours, the drydown is almost leathery. For me, this fragrance is sexy and decidedly masculine (although the Hermès website suggests that this fragrance is for men and women). The smell is intriguing as I can’t think of anything that it’s similar to. I’ll definitely revisit Un Jardin Sur le Nil, if only to be able to define it a bit more accurately.