Hermessence Cuir d'Ange Hermès 2014

Bottle Design Alnoor Design

8.0 / 10 302 Ratings

A popular perfume by Hermès for women and men, released in 2014. The scent is leathery-powdery. It is still in production.
Pronunciation

Main accords

Leathery

Powdery

Floral

Spicy

Animal

Fragrance Notes

Leather

Hawthorn

Perfumer

Jean-Claude Ellena

Ratings

Scent

8.0302 Ratings

Longevity

7.5223 Ratings

Sillage

6.3229 Ratings

Bottle

8.2211 Ratings

Value for money

6.546 Ratings

Submitted by Lilienfeld, last update on 29.03.2024.

Reviews

14 in-depth fragrance descriptions

06/07/2018

Gschpusi
65 Reviews

Translated Show original

Gschpusi

Top Review 15

The second skin

I found Cuir d'Ange unpleasant on my first spray. Dry and tart like freshly tanned leather, which lay over a wooden trestle to dry.
It just smelled like leather. Nothing soft, nothing warm, just leather.
Based on the existing comments I had to test it again, because it was incomprehensible to me how one can rave for this smell. Yes I know, tastes are very different and that's a good thing.
So Cuir d'Ange had to get on my skin again and this time hardcore. 2 sprayers on the right and left side of my neck, one in my neck, one between the bells and one on my wrist. Pooh *laughs* that's where we both have to go through.
And then there it was, this moment, when suddenly your childhood love stands before you. The heart beats to the throat. All your veins are pumping and you feel like you're glowing. He smiles at you and takes you in his arms. A little stiff you still stand there before you just surrender and sink deep into this unarming. Leather, now you're soft, warm leather. Caused by my own body heat and by my own smell. Sweet in love. Like little angels with arrows. Heliotrope as creamy velvety as a caramel candy, hawthorn floral light and fragrant of wild roses. And this leather.... as if my skin paired with a new skin. Oh dear, what am I writing? A second skin . Nappa leather or softer. A hint of leather. One is naked and vulnerable and yet feels completely attracted. A beautiful angel leather, that's exactly what it is.

01/13/2021

7
Sillage 8
Longevity 9
Scent

Tabla
17 Reviews

Translated Show original

Tabla

Top Review 28

..... Tits and Ass will chance your live....

By Munich standards, she was already a bit late for a ski course in her early twenties when she signed up at Sport Scheck. In the early eighties, one was properly equipped with a jumpsuit and skis from Head and she set off with her best friend to the Dolomites, to the beautiful Corvara in the Dolomites. The pension with the ski stable at the end of the slope was just the right location. She learned quickly and after a few days she was able to leave the blue slopes and ski red and even some black slopes. Ok, the Pordoi Scharte not exactly, since this was closed anyway because of some more serious accidents for quite some time.

Once after the usual après-ski, she wore trousers of thin nappa leather in a shade that would now be called nude to dinner, with a black turtleneck. Accompanied by pointed ankle boots with a high heel. Nowadays a no-go, this outfit was completed by a wide stretch belt with a silver buckle, which was very fashionable at the time. The siluette of a young lady dressed like this is determined not only by her outfit, but even more by the way she walks and stands, the way she looks at the world .....na yes ......
She never cared much for the looks that followed her, always had to smirk a little inside about it......Tits and Ass will chance your life.... it warbled in her head from the musical Fame as she took her seat at the table for the evening's dinner. Such song lyrics nowadays also again a no go...Never mind...

Now to the fragrance
Hermessence Cuir d'Ange reminds me very much of a nude colored leather pants, as I also once owned. I liked these pants very much, but the leather smell that emanated from it, was always a notch too archaic for me. Therefore, I wore them maybe only 2-3 times before I gave them away at some point.

Shortly after the first spray is by the fresh-sweet heliotrope note immediately a leather Accord to sniff. I mean almost the body odor of the animal, what gave his skin for it to range. The leather seems heavily worked, very supple and soft, but left a bit thicker. Some Schopper of Hermes are made of such a leather.

Over a few hours, this strong leather note, which clearly reminds me of a horse in the further dominates the perfume. The scent turns so skin-related that I get stuckweise the impression it is my own skin, which smells so. Maybe it is exactly this subliminal eroticism that is in this leather scent. Partly sweetly airy, then again with sweaty impressions, the perfume changes in the further course of the fragrance, without further transformations, which I would have actually hoped for. So after 3 hours I take the fragrance more and more creamy becoming, but stehts dominated by the horsehide Accord.

With only a few components, such as heliotrope, hawthorn, musk and leather, Hermès has created a perfume, what the original tradition, the once most elegant saddlery of Paris to be an olfactory monument. An extremely successful horse leather perfume.

The Silage behaves appropriately restrained, on a cashmere scarf I perceive the perfume the next day still good.
Overall, a very valuable perfume, of restrained elegance, as you can expect from the house of Hermès. I think, however, that predominantly rather gentlemen should be more taken by it. Ok, maybe the missus stibitzt times a sprayer, if they want to be a little more archaic on the road.

Personally, I'm a bit fussy about leather perfumes for me and so I like to sniff Hermessence Cuir d'Angedas, rather on others than on myself. Preferably on a man who has never given up on the guy in him.
Who and where it can be worn remains to be determined. It is in any case a fragrance for everyday life, but please not in the office. Unless the office belongs to a horse stud, for example, on Lake Starnberg. (Ironi off)

From Hermès I love not so much the Prafüms, but the scarves and the belts... and yes, a Birkin Bag I would also very much like to call my own...let's see.

05/18/2015

jtd
484 Reviews

jtd

Top Review 10

Cuir d'Ange

2014 marks Jean-Claude Ellena’s 10th year as in-house perfumer at Hermès as well as his departure from the house. His final perfume for Hermès is Cuir d’Ange, released as a part of the Hermessence line that he created soon after his arrival to Hermès. Hermès was one of the first French luxury house to create a luxe-plus, high-cost line. Dior launched their Collection Privé the same year. Chanel followed with Les Exclusifs in 2007. Cartier released Les Heures in 2009.

The luxury on steroids bandwagon was the result of a number of tendencies in the perfume market but had one common goal: profit. The trends driving the escalation included the perfumer-as-artiste movement, a desire to reclaim the distinction that niche brands had stolen and demands for market growth. Each house sold the premise differently. Chanel touted its heritage. Guerlain used misdirection, rereleasing poorly selling perfumes in new bottles at high mark-up in line after line, from l’Art et la Matière and les Parisiènnes to Les Elixirs Charnels and the City Lines. The ongoing question is, how are the perfumes in the exclusive lines any more valuable than their less expensive counterparts? Luxury houses have long espoused convoluted and esoteric equations of worth to sell us their wares. The bottom line was: they created and maintained markets for ever more costly perfumes.

Rather than commissioning hired guns to produce a perfume at a time, Hermès had a more ambitious plan and brought in Ellena to reinvent Hermès’s perfumery starting with the creation of the Jardins series and the Hermessence line. It is valid to be skeptical of the charm of a contemporary luxury goods producer. The avarice of multinational corporations filtered through the haughtiness of top-tier tastemakers calls for suspicion at a minumum. Still, Hermès’s renovation was well considered and transparent, something refreshing in Fashion.

Ellena was the ideal choice. He had a proven track record of success with designer houses (Van Cleef and Arpels, Bvlgari and Cartier) and played a large part in defining niche perfumery with his work for l’Artisan Parfumeur, The Different Company, Amouage and Frédéric Malle. He had an enviable lineage, apprenticing in Grasse, studying at the new perfume school at Givaudan in the 1970s, following in the lineage of Edmond Roudnitska and being a founding member of l'Osmothèque. He brought expertise, talent, a proven track record and, importantly for a house whose currency is status and standing, prestige. The position offered Ellena the possibility to play a critical part in shaping the state of the art of contemporary perfumery and pursuing a vision. It was a rare opportunity for a perfumer. It was a match made in heaven.

But was it also a deal with the devil?

Ellena’s body of work for Hermès defines the states of art and elegance. But it could be argued that Hermès’s explicit focus on finery, exclusivity and branding were a set of golden handcuffs for Ellena. Ellena’s minimalism and Hermès’s refinement might seem like a perfect match at a glance, but the incongruity is implicit. The company’s pristine objets are impeccable, but conceptually fussy. They stem from the decorative arts, but serve as dull finery and symbols of bourgeois prestige. Ellena’s minimalism is deliberate and rigorous, not a superficial style. His work is the result of years of contemplation and effort on the nature of perfumery. In a line of work where chasing the next brief defines long-term planning, Ellena’s body of work demonstrates a coherent vocabulary and philosophy.

So is Ellena’s work for Hermès restrained or constrained? The brand’s sheer, radiant perfumes with their controlled range of dynamics are thoughtful successors to perfumes like Bvlgari Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (1992) and Osmanthus (2001) for the Different Company. But this is also the perfumer who made highly orchestrated perfumes such as Van Cleef and Arpels First (1976), l’Artisan Parfumeur l'Eau du Navigateur (1982), Rumba (1988) for Balenciaga and Amouage Dia (2002). Was this side of his work set aside during his tenure at Hermès? Will Jean-Claude Ellena step out of his rue du Faubourg St. Honore closet and live large starting in 2015?

Only the future will tell, but Cuir d’Ange provides an enticing hint.

Cuir d’Ange takes a full step away from the tone of Ellena’s prior work for Hermès. It is as composed and edited as the others in the Hermessense line, but it is far more lyrical. Where the majority of the Hermessence line are defined by a dispassionate understatement, Cuir d’Ange has an expansiveness, a brio that is almost startling. Ellena is known for having fine-tuned the narrowly evolving, quietly radiant perfume while at Hermès. He made perfumes that were not static but were largely linear. Cuir d’Ange has sweeping topnotes and a range of dynamics that are akin to those in Calèche, a perfume made by Guy Robert for Hermès in 1961. Cuir d’Ange simultaneously fits the brand’s legacy and Ellena’s oeuvre like no other perfume he’s made for the marque. It has a foot in the past and reaches into the future without sentimentality or contrivance.

(The relation of Cuir d’Ange and Caleche is conjecture, but it isn’t without precedent. Ellena’s Dia for Amouage was a response to Robert’s Amouage Gold [1983], the perfume that launched the Amouage line.)

Cuir d’Ange is a floral-leather, a category that existed before Hermès produced its first perfume. The nod to historical genre tells me that Ellena intends to work with, if not within, tradition. The specific floral quality of the perfume is unexpected. It is bitter and dusty with an herbal, soapy quality reminiscent of Ivoire de Balmain. The scent is strong and specific yet detached. Cuir d'Ange smells more specifically like suede than most leather perfumes, but suggests that the scent comes from objects in a nearby room. Despite the olfactory realism the perfume is abstract and it defeats the expectation of how a leather perfume should play out. It’s neither smokey nor woody and it never warms or sweetens. It becomes hushed over time, but stays soapy and cool, hovering just off the skin without ever becoming a ‘skin scent’ as most leather perfumes do.

Ellena’s work is both literate and legible. He uses a systematic and ordered approach to make expressive if subtle perfumes. His perfumes reveal a coherent aesthetic that can be read. He has both a sense of history and an intimate knowledge of the most recent innovations in perfumery. He is poised to leave Hermès into a wide open future and I’m keen to see what he’ll choose to do next.

from scenthurdle.com

04/17/2015

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM

Very helpful Review 6

Majestic!

The new Cuir d’Ange by Hermès is undoubtedly a gorgeous scent, showing an actual careful work, great composition skills (not that we needed a confirmation for that), and perfect choice of materials. As-is, the idea is not new: basically a floral-suede scent with a subtle, slightly earthy floral accord of narcissus and heliotrope topped with musky-anisic-spicy tips, but Ellena succeeds in making it smell completely innovative and unique, putting together an impressively crystalline, sharp, clear, deep scent – not a “thick” deepness, rather airy, almost celestial as the name suggests. Cuir d’Ange is ethereal and minimalist in a way, as regards to the composition, yet really dense and with a quite bold projection. The leather accord (which I am usually quite picky about) is great, carrying a range of nuances from musky to silky/polished, all conveyed in a slightly drier and more “roasted” accord if compared to the usual and over-used (most of times, rather uncreatively) safraleine/suederal bases. It smells contemporary and synthetic in a way, but not conventional. Floating all over, a gentle and slightly resinous anisic-floral breeze with a sort of subtle “milky” substance (or better say “watery” in a liquid, mineral meaning – not ozonic, shortly), melting with a powdery white musks note, all together colouring this scent with delicate pastel hints of grace. Simple yet complex and incredibly well executed, showing all Ellena’s clever elegance and ability in creating a thin scent full of nuances and notes which fill the space at the same time leaving it airy and “empty”. Beautiful and also quite persistent despite being close to skin (as you would expect, from both this type of fragrance and Ellena’s style). A bit linear perhaps, but not a flaw here. I can not think of any particular similarity with other scents, as this really brings the floral-leather genre to another level, but I'll agree with the below-mentioned similarities with Guerlain's Cuir Beluga or Heeley's Cuir Pleine Fleur, but the distance from both (and others) is wide enough - just more a matter of general inspiration. So, in short, a sophisticated and terribly pleasant scent which is compelling and remarkable to every extent, and most important, totally unique and distinctive despite showing a deceptively “already-seen” pyramid of notes. Now, if the market situation was different and there were more remarkable new scents around (as I wished), I’d be probably less enthusiastic and rate this only as a “really good” scent; but given the dramatic lack of new ideas and good scents both in niche and mainstream, this is a memorable standout. Probably more costly than it should be, but nice enough to be worth it (perhaps...).

8,5-9/10

10/15/2014

9
Scent

DemonHead
18 Reviews

DemonHead

Very helpful Review 6

Ethereal leather

This October, we are honoured to receive more prose from the perfumed pen of Hermès nose Jean-Claude Ellena, as the house gives flight to Cuir d'Ange, the twelfth creation in its exclusive Hermessence line.

In 2014, Jean-Claude has found his muse between the pages of a book - one that has touched his life profoundly. Twentieth century French writer Jean Giono refers to 'angel leather' in a passage from the book "Jean le Bleu", and it was from there that Ellena's inspiration took seed.

"Two words, two smells: the smell of angels, the smell of leather, and already the name of a perfume".

In keeping with strong House traditions, Cuir d'Ange is devoutly Hermès through and through... it tips its hat to the historic Hermès scents of the 1950's, whilst in the same breath feels strikingly contemporary. If one were asked to trace its ancestry, one could not look past the cardamom-laiden citrus flight of Eau d'Hermès, and the delectable bittersweet leathery qualities of Doblis. Moving forward along the timeline, the floral/leather treatment of Kelly Caleche springs to mind, though Cuir d'Ange feels a little more mature and sophisticated. I wonder too, if Ellena has borrowed from his recent creation Épice Marine, perhaps with a rearrangement of it's salty ozonic accords included here to suggest vast and infinite space overhead. After all, is that not where angels reside?

Cuir d'Ange darts between the ethereal and the earthbound. It's enchanting florals - heliotrope, iris, violet and daffodil - steal glances through a more grounded leather/musky veil. The sandy pink calfskin lid and nude blush hue of the flacon communicate a certain tenderness... the napped suede caress of an angel, maybe.

Two words is all it took for Ellena to make tangible a scent that is genderless and appealing, and observes the traditions of the House. As an author of perfume, his words are his smells, and here he has written a poem of unearthly beauty and the sublime.

More reviews