The third installment of the line opened in 2012, Jour d’Hermès Absolu appeared in 2014 under the signature of Jean-Claude Ellena. The perfumer tightens the bouquet of the first Jour around three raw materials — gardenia, sambac jasmine, apricot blossom — and gives the base a footing of oakmoss that pulls the whole toward chypre. The bottle is designed by Pierre Hardy.
Two reviewers welcome a fuller version than the original, one doubting it will please everyone, the other finding it more legible.
Olfastory’s review
Robin, Now Smell This, May 20, 2014
Robin describes a fleshier floral than the first Jour, without any flower letting itself be named for all that: the fragrance smells stronger and smells of something else, but she says she cannot point to the flower the move to the Absolu would have intensified. The apricot suggests almost an osmanthus to her. She finds the base warmer and earthier than that of the original, barely, and holds the fragrance to be a spring or summer eau. Her verdict is double: superb, and not made to please everyone.
Dariush Alavi, Persolaise, August 2014
Alavi reads the Absolu as the same story told from a slightly different angle, and made more intelligible by it. Both versions are for him luminous florals in which no petal dominates, to the point of forming a mirage of a bouquet. Both carry a disconcerting green note, between grass, sap and salad dressing, always ready to turn the smile of the flowers into a grimace. If the Absolu is more amiable, he says, it is because the fruit of the first has become rounder and fleshier in it.