Un Jardin à Cythère

When I was a little kid in Greece, my grandmother used to be my favourite company and my favourite storyteller. She was living alone, in a village at the suburbs of a small town, having a beautiful house up to the hill. Lots of orange and olive trees surrounded her house, every year she would take care of collecting the olives, even making some olive oil from them and gifted it to us. Whenever we would visit her, the first thing that I would be aware of, would be her smell. A mix of olive tree, olive oil, fresh citruses, but most importantly the smell of "nychaki" (portulaca grandiflora), a very special flower that she would collect herself from the near mountain. She would dry the flowers and then put them into some lace bags in order to fill her closet and a chest with them, where she would store all her clothes. Every single piece of cloth of my grandmother would have that specific smell. Unfortunately when I was just 8 years old, she left us after a chronic battle with mental health problems, that no-one would ever talk or take care of back then, because of the stigma. She and her stories of dragons and princes still stay as a beautiful memory in my heart though. When I first smell Un Jardin à Cythère I was quite shocked with how familiar its smell was. Trying to understand what was going on, it finally hit me: this was the smell of my grandmother, after so many decades of abscence she was again next to me. With her stories, her olive and orange trees, the olives on the table, the olive oil as a gift, the dragons and princes, her "nychaki" bags scenting her clothes, all came out from nowhere. Sometimes scents are so personal - and it is hard to be objective, when a scent brings you to the past. That's my story though and the story of a woman that I still have in my memory. This review is dedicated to her.

Decided to log back in after years and make my first review for this scent. I like it :-) The lemon stands out immediately but not in a way that is overly acidic (which smells rancid on me) or reminiscent of soap. It’s light, refreshing, and reminds me less of perfume and more of just an incidental scent. It is exactly the scent left on you and in the air after you zest a bunch of lemons and squeeze the juice out- fragrant and fresh, not directly like you’re sniffing any part of the lemon itself. It’s softened and incorporated somehow. I credit that to the nutty and olive notes, which emulsifies the punchy aspects into something full bodied and almost creamy or rounded (but not heavy at all). You know the “kiki vs bouba” linguistic experiment? Those notes nudge it towards the “bouba”. I don’t smell the olive or even an oil note at any point. However, after a few hours, the pistachio becomes more prominent on me without the lemon going away (only mellowing). I don’t get a sense of the savouriness on me, it’s just not desserty or explicitly sweet fruity. It just smells citrusy and nutty in a neutral way, and it doesn’t feel gourmand either- just like a real lemon smell that rounds out and blends into the skin. I think a large part of my preference comes from how everything turns slightly sweet/floral and how citrus scents get way too oily/pungent or almost rancid with my skin chemistry. To have something that isn’t at all sweet or floral and melts into the skin is nice. It’s unisex but character wise I’d say it’s youthful and sunny. Pairs perfectly with a breeze and recovering from a vitamin D deficiency. A pretty girl I know said I smelled fresh.

First time posting a review here. I will fully admit I am a poster child for Hermessences. They are one of the few fragrance lines that don't give me headaches, and my ideal perfume is intimate to moderate sillage with good longevity. So I decided to try a few outside the Hermessence range. I hadn't actually planned on trying any of the Jardin series that day, but gave Cythere a squirt last time I was in the boutique. I liked it, and as it dried down I liked it even more. For me the initial scent has some fennel in it (reminiscent of the departed Brin de Reglisse Hermessence) along with the citrus, and some nice green and vegetable scents. Soft and casual. Lovely for a lightweight scent in warm weather. If they shifted the base DNA of it just a hair more away from what lies under the Jardin series, it could be a good contender for the Hermessence line. Now I have a little sample to try out, but I think I'll be adding some J a C in with my other H fragrances. ETA (6/27) Still love it. I even amp up the lemon portion with lemon body lotion. :) I do live in a very very hot climate that has high humidity much of the year, and this is a wonderful scent for hot days (which for us is April through September). I can't ever imagine wearing some of the heavy perfumes I read about that seem to be popular. You would choke on them in this climate. But something like this, is very easy to wear when the sun and hot air feels like stepping in a sauna every time you go out the door.

Un Jardin a Cythere is the adult version of Twilly d'Hermès Eau Ginger. Where Eau Ginger is an immature and linear soapy, musky, clean laundry scent through and through, Jardin a Cythere possesses a hint of that same base, with a prismatic complexity and a unique identity built atop. The pistachio and olive accords are literal and well balanced with the citrus. Some have compared Cythere to a salad dressing, and that's an appropriate acknowledgement of the authenticity of the plants attributed in the notes, but Cythere is not a culinary gourmand by any stretch of the imagination. There's something strangely reminiscent of Guerlain's Samsara, which is high praise from me even if the comparison might be a challenge for some to accept. My attempts at describing Cythere all fall short, and that's because it is unique and impressive. I'm not alone in this struggle for adjectives and analogues, as evidenced by the many seemingly contradictory but glowing descriptions below. I hope Christine Nagel, the perfumer, reads all of these mystified reviews here and finds herself delighted for inventing something so perplexing and warmly embraced. Leans feminine but can absolutely be worn by a man if allowed to dwell for a good amount of time to take full advantage of the considerable longevity. Cythere works with the body's natural aroma rather than fighting or masking it. Pretty sexy stuff.

What a pleasant surprise has Un Jardin a Cythrere proved to be!! It’s a rather fresh, green, woody and unique pistachio dominated perfume that smells unlike anything I’ve smelled that contains pistachios in it! It has a grounding or calming effect on me personally! I don’t know how to describe this perfume exactly to make it justice for how beautiful it smells, but it’s a special blend of rather unusual notes that smells very beautiful without feeling perfumy. Without too much blabbing, Un Jardin a Chythere goes straight to my to buy list. It’s fairly priced and I love that sleek, semi transparent, sunny, yellow tinted statuesque bottle. If you like pistachio and you want something else than the sweet and gourmand take on pistachio, go and test this! You might be positively surprised by how well this scent is! Edit 10.10.25 After a couple more day wear/test during a recent trip to Sardinia, I decided to finally purchase a full size bottle of Un Jardin a Cythere! It’s something else that most perfumes nowadays are and it’s putting me in a calm mood when I wear it. It’s not exactly an autumnal scent, but during the more warm, sunny days of fall, I can wear it. And for next year’s spring and summer months, it’s perfectly suited. I might even take it with me to my next Greek holiday...