Eau des Merveilles Bleue

One of my all time favorite freshies! Personal: 9/10 – Salty mineral water with soft woods. It’s crisp, airy, and beautifully refreshing. I love how unique this take on an aquatic freshness is. It's an amazing execution of an aquatic. Mass appeal: 8.5/10 – Very clean, breezy, and subtle. Some might find the mineralic angle odd, but most will enjoy its refreshing transparency. Performance: 6.5/10 – It doesn't project heavily or last too long, but you'll enjoy every minute of it. Value: 8/10 – Hermès pricing is mid-luxury but fair here, considering the uniqueness and refinement. It doesn't perform the best, but you’re paying for elegance. It can also be found pretty reasonably priced on most discounters. Uniqueness: 8.5/10 – A salty, mineralic aquatic that feels more like air and water than citrus or herbs. Very distinct compared to most mainstream freshies, and one of the best unisex freshies out there. SCORE: 81/100 Full bottle buy? YES, this is one of my favorite salty aquatics, and I’d happily wear it often. Blind buy? YES, if you like freshies. It’s clean, airy, and safe enough despite the mineral twist. Recommend? YES, as one of the best refined summer aquatics on the market. Date night? YES, for casual outdoor evenings. It’s fresh and unique enough to stand out without being heavy or strange in some way. Office safe? YES, very subtle, clean, and professional. Built for the office. Pros: Crisp mineral-aquatic vibe, refreshing and elegant, refined and unique among freshies. Cons: Performance is weak, leans a bit “watery stone” which can feel strange if you prefer citrus-heavy aquatics. Meant for people with greener taste than a blue taste. Eau des Merveilles Bleue is a perfect example of Hermès doing refinement better than almost anyone else. It’s clean, transparent, and evocative, like seaside air over sun-warmed stones. It doesn't have beastly performance, and it doesn't last for 12 hours, but it'll last through most of the work day, so you and everyone around you can enjoy the remarkably well blended beauty that is Eau des Merveilles Bleue. I think this is one of the cleanest executions of a blue fragrance that doesn't lean on the typical herbal or citrusy notes to make it feel fresh, bright, and summery. I think this could even be worn during the daytime in winter if you want something that morphs into feeling a bit icy and cool from the juniper note. The epitome of a unique, refined blue fragrance. This should be on everyone's lists as a potential summer staple, and the prices on discounters means this is a very attainable freshie. Review #143 in my fragrance journey – this fragrance I own as a decant

My bottle was given to me by a family member who had tired of it. I also own the original EDM, and I find the bottles themselves extremely beautiful! Seeing them on my vanity during the summer always brings a smile to my face. I think the two scents are clearly related, but distinct enough that I can easily justify owning both. As far as the perfume itself goes, it is quite distinctly cool, not sharply cold at all but salty and refreshing like an ocean breeze. I get the feeling that I'm drinking a cocktail rimmed with salt on the beach in the late afternoon. Throughout the wear time, there's an undercurrent of patchouli, wood and moss(?) that I become aware of in waves. I would say the patchouli is fairly prominent, but as a fan of even heavier patchoulis I certainly don't mind it. It grounds the scent and blends well with the saltier aquatic notes - it's so well blended that it has taken me a long time to even isolate the moss. As for sillage, EDM Bleue is moderate to good on me. With three sprays, it can be smelled much further than arms length away on me for half of the wear time. I find it usually begins to fade after 6-7 hours, but I catch whiffs of it verging on 11-12 hours later. My boyfriend has not tested out this fragrance himself, but I do think this reads as unisex. It recalls associations of other aquatics that smell very distinctly male, but it sidesteps those associations. I don't think this is a safe blind buy for men or women-test it first. Yes, even if you like aquatics or the original EDM! I feel like some of the notes, especially the patchouli, can go "strange" on some people, even though they work for me. This is a "yacht club" fragrance for me, plain and simple. Tasteful, with a rugged undertone. Back when I was spending a lot of time on the water, this was a favorite of mine. I still get a lot of wear out of it even in the city, but I miss that special sparkle I felt it had when I wore it in seaside New England, where it made me feel as if I was taking on the natural fragrance of my surroundings. I've worn it on other beach excursions far away from there, but to me that was when it really stood out.

This is another one that excites me when I put it on. When I started exploring scents I was given a sample of this with an order. And it shows what a novice I was/am because I'd never noticed aquatics before. I'm 50 next birthday and have had no interest in 'fumes for decades, merely using what I was gifted. Before, as a teen, I'd only been interested in smelling like every one else and attracting the girls. I bathed in Kouros; Jazz, and Aramis. I stopped in the early 90's (we didn't wear fragrance to raves - the hyper-accentuated senses couldn't cope with beast-mode projection!). And so Cool water et al passed me by. Then earlier this year I smelt Eau des Mervailles Bleau and was rocked by it, an incredibly evocative scent of shoreline and sun, and something else. I was at that time slavishly following the masculine/feminine delineation so didn't buy, exploring Bvlgari Aqva Marine and Acqua di Gio Profumo amongst others. Now my metro-sexual self is content with its range of masculinities so EdMB sits among my collection. I still am not sure what that 'other' accord is in here. I think I read elsewhere of a Driftwood effect being attemptd. I get the salt, and a whiff of sea-breeze, but the edge that this scent has I can't define. The closest I can get in words is the violet/leaf note in He Wood, or the Ivy in Beach Hut Man. maybe the creator of this wanted to reproduce the less than totally pleasant but nevertheless entirely natural aromas that mingle at the shoreline. Others use seaweed notes but the woods and patchouli here create what to me is a scent that sits just the right side of sickly - and I think that's what makes me love it. It's challenging but rewarding. Like I say, I'm a beginner who, for example, has struggled with geranium and violet but loves them now (whereas I've a way to go yet with ambroxan, and lily-of-the-valley!). So overall, I'm very happy to have this one now, and if some warmth finally reaches the Northeast of England this summer, I'll wear this with something coconutty and dream of Magaluf in 1989. Btw, this is going strong after 2 hours, will update on longevity.

To start off, let me update you on the weather over in Sri Lanka right now. It’s 32 degrees (celcius) and because of the humidity the weather app on my iPhone indicates that it feels like 39 (special shout-out to those who deny Global Warming and Climate Change are real!!) So as the rest of the world transitions from colder spring days, us on the equator are BOILING. Because our President is corrupt and drove our country into bankruptcy and the Ceylon Electricity Board is not making enough money, we have 6-7 hour (on average) brownouts (in case you don’t know what a brownout is, they are sporadical blackouts/power cuts) every single day! Now try to imagine a hot as balls day + no AC or even a fan to keep yourself cool. I feel I have now set the stage! I am wearing EdM Bleue today. It feels like I sprayed on the Original EdM mixed with Iced water and sea notes. Stunning, refreshing and just what I needed to feel sane again. There’s so much more than just three notes and this is absolutely stunning. The more I sweat, the more it begins to project so remember to spray your inner elbows, back of the neck and chest if you wear this on a day you plan to sweat ! And this lasts amazing on clothes! Being an EDT it does not have beastly longevity on skin; but it does last longer than most other designer EDPs 😏 Hermès is my most favourite designer fragrance line tied with Guerlain. They can do no wrong but are often misunderstood. The Eau Des Merveilles line is one of the most beautiful perfume lines. What I love most is it suits this super hot tropical climate so perfectly. This is going to be a summer staple for me!

I can't quite put my finger on why I found this to be such a love for me! I don't dislike aquatic fragrances, but I don't think I have a single one in my collection that can be classified that way. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of that would come close is Aqua Allegoria Teazurra, and I think that has more to do with it's freshness and the color of the juice. And yet I haven't been able to forget this one since I received a sample about two years ago. Of course, it has the original Eau des Merveilles DNA, and I love that one too, but the aquatic accord is so remarkable that I actually prefer this one. I get a mental image of sitting on a yacht - a sailboat, with the sails billowing, full of wind. Ocean spray is in the air, clean and fresh, and I am wearing a light cotton, sky-blue sweater on, with a scarf (Hermes of course!) vainly attempting to keep my hair from becoming a tangled mess! Sorry for that bit of reverie, but I find it incredible that so few notes in such a crystalline composition could provoke such a strong image. I certainly wouldn't mind having full bottles of both this and the original but if I had to choose one over the other, Bleue would be my choice. PS - reading through the reviews, it makes me happy to see that this fragrance appears to invoke similar imagery and wonder in others! PPS - LOL! I just saw my review from a year ago, which is a less vivid description of all I just wrote! I suppose it really has made an impression on me!