In front of me lie two scent strips soaked with Terre d'Hermès and this cheap product from the brand Pascal Morabito, known for the stunning Or Black (Fougère as a black hole). And I am currently wondering whether scent is a wave or a particle, as I observe an interesting interference phenomenon here. If I smell the Terre d'Hermès strip for a longer time, the Bois & Vetiver becomes unnoticeable afterward. The reverse is just as true. The scent impression of one simply cancels out the other until the nose is recalibrated by a pause.
This is certainly related to the fact that the Morabito scent is clearly a clone of the successful perfume from Hermès, albeit one created by a lesser perfumer than Jean Claude Ellena with fewer resources. Everything is there: the orangey grapefruit note, the slate-like flint mineral quality, vetiver, a hint of geranium and pepper, all polished with plenty of Iso-E-Super, just much thinner than the original and without the sparkling details, the density, and the compositional rigor - a Rembrandt from the pedestrian zone, so to speak. You can hang that in your living room, but since the original doesn't cost a fortune, that would mean saving in the wrong place when deciding between Terre vs. Bois. In any case, Serge Majoullier has impressively shown here, ex negativo, why Jean Claude Ellena is regarded as one of the great maître parfumeurs of our time.
