The French house makes its foray into chypre with a sensual and mysterious scent inspired by its iconic Barénia leather.
In the world of fragrance, a chypre—a combination of crisp, floral, and woody—is not for the faint of heart. Just ask Christine Nagel, the renowned Swiss nose and head perfumer at Hermès, who spent the last decade working on one. At first, it was in her own time out of pure, can’t-ignore-this-urge passion, and then, eventually, in a more official capacity for the French luxury house. “It’s a perfume of the skin; it’s sensuality,” Nagel tells InStyle of Hermès’s latest eau de parfum, Barénia. It, of course, bears the same name as Hermès’s Barénia leather, which is used to craft everything from its inimitable Birkin bags to its studded Collier de Chien cuffs. Drawing not just from the warmth and richness of leather but also its patina (the depth and complexity it develops over time), Barénia is an alluring journey. It opens with crisp green bergamot and sweet miracle berry with a floral heart of soft lily, while patchouli and oakwood supply a cozy, earthy foundation evoking aged leather.
While Nagel insists that she “doesn’t make perfume for a particular type of woman,” she emphasizes that Barénia will resonate most with those drawn to “perfumes that have character.” To that end—and drawing from my own experience wearing Barénia during the shift from summer to autumn—it conjures that ever-elusive, TikTok-fueled “main character energy,” inviting both compliments and curiosity of the “What is that?” variety. A comes-alive-on-the-skin chypre is inherently hard to pin down, after all. And all the more intriguing and inviting to wear because of it.
Come fall, I’m always inspired to switch up my fragrances and even layer them as I do my clothes. “When you change clothes, you change your scent,” Nagel agrees. But she hasn’t always been a fan of combining fragrances. “Fifteen years ago, I was horrified of layering,” she admits. And who could blame her, someone who spends years perfecting olfactory masterpieces? But, ultimately, what “changed her mind completely,” she says, was a friend who started layering her fragrances with individual aplomb. It gave Nagel an epiphany of sorts. “Putting perfume on the skin is very intimate, even more than clothing,” she says. “Many people layer because a lot of what’s offered is the same, and they want something personal.” That’s why, even as one of the foremost fragrance experts in the world, it goes against her beliefs to be prescriptive on how one should layer. “You have to follow your own instinct,” she says.
Whether it’s pure or layered, another special facet of wearing a fragrance like Barénia is the way it lingers. “In fall, I love the sensation of leaving traces behind,” she says. Whether you forget a scarf at a coffee shop or intentionally forget a knit sweater at a lover’s home (à la the protagonist in a rom-com), your scent lingers long after you’ve left the room. And should you want to take your scent profile to the next level, you can envelope your body in the Barénia perfumed body cream, which wears on the skin like a sumptuous, lived-in leather jacket. In other words, its melts-right-in-texture and warm, sensual accord “returns your caresses.” And come fall, who doesn’t want that extra embrace?