Voyage d'Hermès Eau de Toilette Refillable 100ml

Anybody who wears this daily should own Voyage d'Hermès Eau de Toilette Refillable 100ml rather than the plain bottle, because the whole point of the format is that the glass outlives the liquid.

Only two materials are recorded, and the scent is as straightforward as that suggests. Juniper berry gives it the character, dark and bracing with a dry bitterness that reads clean without ever reaching for soap. Cedarwood sits behind it, sharp and dry the way a newly sharpened pencil is, and it keeps the juniper from thinning out to nothing too quickly. There is nothing sweet here and nothing warm, so this is a short composition built on two cold materials and it never pretends to be more than that.

Toilette strength keeps it light. Expect a couple of clear hours, a quiet trace afterwards and no great projection at any point, which is the trade you make for something this easy to wear in company. Two thousand and ten is the year on it.

It reads as unisex and the house designed it that way. Offices, daylight, travel and warm weather are where it works, and a 100ml refillable bottle is the size most regular wearers end up with. Those who want more weight from the same idea should look at the eau de parfum instead, but for daily use in company this is the easier of the two, and the refill arrangement means the bottle on your shelf need never be replaced.

Harness and saddlery, not scent, was the trade when Thierry Hermès founded the house in Paris in 1837, and it has stayed with his family through six generations. Perfume came in 1951 with Eau d'Hermès, composed by Edmond Roudnitska.