Eau des Merveilles Hermès is the Ocean in a Bottle
of the sea and stars, sparkling citrus and ambergris
There is something about the formative ecosystems which shape us. The cool depths of the Pacific are one of the main backdrops to my life. I do not know who I am independent of the ocean waves. When I am parted from the sea, I feel I am always trying to return there. The call of the waves is seductive and all-consuming. I find I can write of almost nothing else besides the salt-air, the brine, fish scales, sand castles, seashells, seagulls, the tangles of seaweed, the crest of foaming tides and the fog rolling in and out day after day.
And when I am finally reunited with the ocean, I am lost gazing into the depths day after day, hour after hour, as if under some sort of siren spell.
For me the sea is an endless cycle of longing and enchantment.
Enter the oceanic appeal of Eau des Merveilles by Hermés, released in 2004, which held the honor of being my signature scent for about three years.
I am not sure what originally drew me to this “Water of Wonders,” At the time I think I wanted to smell sophisticated and perhaps elemental. When I discovered Eau des Merveilles, I was looking out the window at the ocean every day, I was used to smelling the sea air and the marine brine.
Something I was initially intrigued by with Eau des Merveilles was that part of the scent profile is meant to emulate the classic perfume note ambergris. In nature, ambergris is a secretion from the sperm whale. The ambergris itself is a hardened substance made from the undigestible parts of squid, which make up a large part of the sperm whale’s diet. Once the sperm whale gets rid of this substance, it floats atop the ocean, until it washes ashore or is discovered at sea. From this whale waste comes the coveted ambergris, which is so valuable and rare that it’s known as “floating gold.” The scent of ambergris in nature can range from salty and oceanic to musky to sweet to woody to warm depending on how long it has aged. General consensus is that the older the ambergris and the more time it has spent in the ocean, the better.
Since ambergris is too rare to be used widely in modern commercial perfumery today, the scent is replicated in the lab, mainly with the synthetic raw material Ambroxan, which is meant to evoke the ‘woody amber’ of true ambergris.
Eau des Merveilles has it’s own ambergris-like experience with a salty marine underpinning to the sparkling citrus top notes. According to the Hermés official description of Eau des Merveilles, upon wearing the perfume you are meant to be transported to “[a] world where the extraordinary is revealed with a shower of stars in broad daylight.” Fittingly, everything is brightened around you as soon as you put on Eau des Merveilles. Then as you let the perfume sit, there is a salty, ocean-like aroma that rises up and an underlying musk, somewhat animalic and earthy. I imagine this as the essence of ambergris floating by on the ocean waves under a sky of the brightest daylit stars- the perfect day of Eau des Merveilles.
I could wax poetic about the oceanic animalia of ambergris forever and I love Eau des Merveilles, my little ocean in a bottle.
Speaking of which, another element of Eau des Merveilles worth noting is the perfume bottle itself, which to me feels and looks like an elegant piece of polished sea glass that washed ashore. The somewhat, odd, lopsided angling of the bottle is fascinating too, as if it’s meant to be thrown and tossed around by the waves, back and forth, back and forth.
If I were a mermaid, I feel Eau des Merveilles would be perfect for my grotto of pearl and pirate treasure. I remember reading that in the Haitian Vodou tradition there are reportedly young women who disappear into the waves, reemerging a year later having been transformed by the mermaid spirit La Sirene. Eau des Merveilles makes me feel like I missed my place in the natural order, like perhaps I too was meant to disappear into the waves and be reborn as a mermaid.
I love Eau des Merveilles because it is equal parts elegant and earthy. I think it has a universal appeal but is still unique enough that the fragrance feels special and not oversaturated out in the wild.
Eau des Merveilles is purely oceanic, purely of the sea and the stars mirrored in the sparkle of the waves.
Eau des Merveilles is the ocean calling me home.
Because I feel the sea water in my veins. Because I listen to the roar of the sea and it speaks to me like a mother’s voice. The tide pulls at my heart and the face of the moon fills my soul with a strange longing…