Hera
Papillon Artisan Perfumes (2022)

My first reaction was I was smelling Bal a Versailles Parfum in its prime. I have liked jasmine up to now, but after trying this sample, I am firmly in the LOVE and ADORATION camp. 10/10:from me.
One of the cleanest and finest parfums ever sampled. Classic and masterful.

You look at the notes and the description, and you think, ah, ok, a wedding bouquet perfume. Lush, creamy white and yellow florals spilling over a whale-boned corset of puffy marshmallow musk. Romantic, serene and beautiful in that conventionally feminine manner expected of brides. But you don’t actually get any of that from Hera. The first surprise is an atomic cloud of spicy violet-iris powder, a diffusive ballooning of molecules powered by what feels to me like aldehydes but is actually ambrette, a natural musk derived from the musk mallow plant. The apple peel and grappa facets of the ambrette sharpen the violet sensation of the opening and feathers the whole thing into an ethereal mist. But in no way does this smell pretty or candied or like face powder. No dainty bridal pastilles here, no Siree.

There is also – immediately – the tarry benzene edge of Extra or First Ylang, announcing the first of the floral absolutes that don’t really smell like their usual floral representations in perfumery. Ylang is always painted as banana-ish or custard-like, but in truth, the natural stuff (essential oil) often has this surprisingly creosote-like smokiness that most often gets smothered by perfumers with sandalwood or vanilla, in the hope of squishing it into a more banana custard shape. Here, the ylang is uncut and unsweet. And it definitely doesn’t smell like banana custard.

The surprisingly true ylang in Hera is soon joined by a spicy Sambac jasmine – again, not the creamy, sweet white jasmine of conventional perfumery, but more the authentically leathery-sour twang of Sambac absolute. The florals do not smell lush, sweet or traditionally feminine. In fact, Hera does not even smell particularly floral. The central surprise of Hera – its abstraction – is the way in which this tug of war between potent floral absolutes takes place inside this smoky cloud of iris-mimosa-violet powder, stacked one on top of another like a matryoshka doll. It is an incredible feat of construction that turns florals as heavy as jasmine, orange blossom, and ylang into a fizzy, violet-colored ether.

With time, another layer of the matryoshka reveals itself as a murky accord that smells like tobacco but is probably ambergris. This lends the perfume an aura of salty, powdered skin, like the glow on healthy young skin after mild exertion. Momentarily, the interaction between the purplish dry-ice florals and damp, tobacco-ish ambergris produces an impression of Caron’s Aimez-Moi (which itself smells like a pouch of moist, tobacco leaves dotted with anise and dried violets). But this impression is fleeting. Hera feels spicy but remains utterly air-filled and diffuse, as if someone has tried and failed to plug cinnamon sticks and clove buds into an ever shifting dust cloud of wood molecules. There is also something like myrrh, with its dusty, minty-latexy bitterness. But Hera never gets bogged down in the thick, sweet thickness of resins, thus neatly sidestepping any effort to pigeonhole it as an incense. Yet, the spices and the myrrh do give Hera a hint of what I imagine medieval candy might have smelled like, a sort of salty-herbal-fizzing concoction that, when ingested, banishes all evil.

The perfume seems to deepen, but the overall sense of its construction – a complex whirligig of chewy florals and tobacco inside a bright, acidic haze of floral high C notes – remains consistent. I picture Hera almost synesthesically, a violet-greige cloud of molecules that spark off each other like electricity. It is an abstract experience, similar to the hard-to-define Spell 125 or even Seyrig (Bruno Fazzolari), but that’s not to say that Hera doesn’t also meet the original brief, which was to honor Liz Moores’ daughter, Jasmine, on her wedding day. Indeed, Hera feels fizzy and bright and sensuous. It smells optimistic. What Hera absolutely is not is a re-tread all the tired tropes of traditional bridal perfumery, so if you’re expecting something conventionally feminine or sweet, then park your expectations at the door. Hera feels made for a lifetime of marriage – interesting, complex, wistful, packed with all the bittersweet moments of a relationships that morphs over time – rather than for one single shiny, glittery, picture-perfect day. And in my opinion, it is all the better for it.

I am an infrequent reviewer at best, but I felt compelled to write a review for this one. It is fantastic, in my opinion, but the reviews are so all over the place that I thought I'd add my for good measure. Call me suggestible, but I am getting something that does the story behind the fragrance justice; A exuberant, richly golden floral, backed with a warm, resinous base that gives off almost-whiffs of smokiness. The florals come across as a blend of white flowers, of which a fruity, sweet-yet-tangy jasmine is the undisputed star. The fruitiness is never cheap or mindless, it actually creates a certain moreishness that, combined with the smokey resins, has my nose glued to my wrist. The whole thing is just radiant and glorious in that vintage leaning way that is typical for Papillon perfumes. It's also hideously expensive, well maybe not if you compare it with most of the nouveau niche that's coming out these days, but still, quite the investment. One I am pretty sure I am going to make one of these days, even though these symphonic florals are not something I typically wear very often.

Portrait of a Woman

Hera is beautiful in that vintage perfumery tradition. But as it is originally designed for Moore's daughter's wedding, it is perhaps a perfume that speaks so much to someone else that it had less to say to me.

I'd describe it as an aldehydic floral, but not in a diva-esque, attention seeking way. Quite the opposite, it feels incredibly well-measured. Hera opens with a lovely veil of aldehydes that give its florals just the right amount of lift. As the scent develops, the flowers are abstracted but not stereotyped and certainly not the innocently fresh bouquet we associate with brides. Rather they are lushly dense with subtle, interchanging degrees of powder, butter and sweetness, all grounded in a gentle but hefty base of musk, labdanum and sandalwood. One has the impression of light, but it's not sunny in any Pollyanna sense, nor is it one of Dryad's sun dappled fields. It's more of a radiant, soft focus effulgence. There is too much of a sense of corporeality for Hera to evoke simple summertime sunshine. Allusions to the body in perfume are almost always a reference to sexuality, sweat and what goes unwashed but here, it is really about presence.

What I like most about Hera is that it paints a portrait of a woman that feels very real, one that you can feel is authored by a woman's perspective. There are no fantasies here about blushing brides, no virgins or whores, no maidens, mothers or crones. I almost feel like I know something about Moore's daughter through Hera.

On sniffing the vial, this smells bright & juicy, however on skin it takes on a very retro, chypre-esque feel, with bergamot, a slight green woodiness, & a vaguely animalic hint. The florals are mostly concealed beneath a musty fug, but most identifiable to me is narcissus with its characteristic inkiness, & a little rooty iris. This is not "golden" to me, but more of a sludgy green. Ninety minutes in, l get that weird note of uncooked bread dough that l sometimes detect in vintage perfumes, but also got in Malle's Dans Tes Bras. l have no idea what produces this, but for a while it's all l smell, until the labdanum arrives in the base about four hours in. After ten hours, just as it's fading, it could finally be said to be "golden".

l'm not sure what l expected from a fragrance named for the Queen of the Gods, but it wasn't this, & l see others got similar impressions. Apparently it's a bit of a shape-shifter, so l will try it again in a different season to see if my impressions change. For now though, it's my least favourite that l've tried from this house, aside from Salome.

I absolutely love Hera's opening notes: the combination of a stunning orris and greenish jasmine makes for a scintillating and complex beauty. Here, I am reminded of the gorgeous and unusual combination of notes that make up vintage Vol de Nuit. Very, very unfortunately, however, this opening quickly disappears and is replaced by an almost dank and overbearing underpinning that goes on forever and makes up the majority of the scent. It's almost as if Moores combined Dryad with Anubis and stirred it all together with some orris concrete. If only those first notes had hung around longer, I would have snapped this up in a heartbeat. As it is, my sample will suffice.