Eau de Pamplemousse Rose Eau de Cologne 200ml

The 200ml bottle is the honest size for a cologne, and Hermès Eau de Pamplemousse Rose Eau de Cologne 200ml exists because people who like this fragrance use a great deal of it.

The composition dates from 2009 and runs to two materials, which is unusually few. Grapefruit does most of the work, dry and bitter and zesty, closer to the peel of the fruit than to anything you would drink, with that slightly green sharpness which makes it so effective in heat. Rose is the counterweight. It is applied with restraint and acts as a softener, lending a little petal warmth and roundness so that the citrus has somewhere to land rather than simply cutting off.

A two material fragrance behaves predictably, and that is not a criticism. It is clear from the first spray and it does not change its mind halfway through, which is exactly what most people want from something they wear in hot weather. Cologne concentration means lightness and a short life on the skin, perhaps two or three hours, and the large bottle is a direct response to that. This is a fragrance to be used freely: on the chest in the morning, on the neck before going out, and once more when the afternoon drags.

It reads as unisex, suits summer above all, and makes an easy house bottle that several people can share without anyone objecting to it. A fragrance with two materials and no pretensions is very hard to fall out with, which is part of why the large size sells at all.

Thierry Hermes, harness maker, is the man behind the name, and 1837 is the year he began in Paris. The business remains with his descendants, and its perfumery dates from 1951 rather than from the start.