Hermann à Mes Côtés Me Paraissait une Ombre was launched in 2015 by French niche line Etat Libre d'Orange. Based on a poem written by Victor Hugo, the perfume is an homage to Etat Libre d'Orange founder Etienne de Swardt's grandmother, who taught French literature and would read this poem to him when he was a child. So, Hermann à Mes Côtés Me Paraissait une Ombre is a scent memory of her that lives in the wind and the shadows. The nose chosen to create this fragrance was Quentin Bisch.

When I first tried it, I was surprised by how much I liked it and how soon it became a big love.

It opens with warm black pepper, not too sharp or bracing; it's paired with spicy, green, piney galbanum. A note of fruity, woody blackcurrant buds reinforces the greenness with a minty coolness and adds an animalic aspect to the top - and just like that, I am in a forest. As it blooms, a note of piney, earthy incense comes forward. It's not heavy and dark but sheer as a veil that allows the green through. A note of calypsone adds a cool, watery fresh-citrusy feel to the fragrance. It combines with geosmin to create the smell of freshly turned earth which has just been rained on. The forest just got eerie and moody. Soon note of light, floral rose wafts through the fragrance. Petalia has a fruity rose, peony scent that extends the rose absolue without deepening it while, at the same time, it maintains the effect of the scent of roses in the distance carried on a breeze.  At the base, vetiver smells earthy and woody, and patchouli smells earthy and musky, like the smell of wet soil. Ambroxan ties it all together with its sweet, earthy, musky aroma.

Hermann à Mes Côtés Me Paraissait une Ombre is a shadow game of notes that juxtapose each other and move through each other to create a gorgeous expression of a forest – the fountains, flowers, wet earth, flowers – all of it resting on my skin like a shadow.

Notes: black pepper, galbanum, blackcurrant buds, incense, calypsone geosmine, rose absolute, petalia, vetiver, patchouli and ambroxan.