Hermès Eau des Merveilles Bleue: Tasting the Sea (2017) {New Perfume}

Hermès will launch a new unisex fragrance from February 2017 called Eau des Merveilles Bleue, a flanker to Eau des Merveilles (2004) by Ralph Schwieger and Nathalie Feisthauer, which is a study on one of the most precious, organic elements to be harvested from the sea, ambergris...

For her third work as the new in-house perfumer for the house, Christine Nagel is taking a different approach, looking at the much more humble stone pebble polished by the sea, a familiar vision on sandy beaches. She's reportedly worked on the mineral and salty nuances of this motif; she's in fact turned to a childhood memory of licking such a marine pebble.

The perfume composition features notes of minerals, salt, driftwood and patchouli.

The warm tones of the "Culbuto" bottle have been replaced by a pale blue hue. While limited-edition bottles had already played on this color shift, this time, the change reflects a change in the jus too.

One can note that Hermès released a marine fragrance in 2013 signed by Jean-Claude Ellena in the Hermessence collection called Epice Marine, which attempted to bring the marine genre to cross-fertilize with the gustatory one. Nagel, however, is playing with a palette which is less obviously edible, save for the salt - and perhaps the patchouli, which can smell like cocoa to the nose. What is interesting in her case is that she is going back to a primary instinct of having tasted something which you cannot eat - a trait of children. At best, it would have been like licking a marine lollipop.