Un Jardin sous la Mer

Hermès describes Un Jardin sous la Mer as a floral, musky fragrance: a radiant tiare flower, the enveloping character of a tamanu nut, mineral notes that evoke the coral reef. The house does not say in what order these materials reveal themselves as it is worn.

Christine Nagel also mentions bergamot, which the label declares as a peel oil, vanilla and coconut fiber. ELLE Singapore describes a watery opening, a bouquet of white flowers and, at the end of its development, woody and creamy notes.

The top thus goes to bergamot, the heart to tiare and the mineral notes, the base to vanilla and coconut. The tamanu nut, which the house counts among its three main materials, remains described in prose.

What the label declares

Hermès declares thirty-two entries for this eau de toilette. At the head of the list are alcohol, fragrance, water, triethyl citrate, limonene, bergamot peel oil, tetramethyl acetyloctahydronaphthalenes, a synthetic wood, and benzyl salicylate.

It lists a cananga oil, a cousin of ylang-ylang, an Atlas cedar oil, vanillin, coumarin, rose ketones, two UV filters, ethylhexyl salicylate and butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane, and an antioxidant. No colorant appears.

What stays out

Yuzu, seaweed, ambergris and driftwood, often associated with marine fragrances, appear neither at Hermès nor in Christine Nagel’s own words. The Atlas cedar declared on the label is not named as a note and is not retained.