Smellbow, you’ve reminded me how much I like Hermes Un Jardin Sur Le Nil. I find it lush, fruity and green. It is very distinctive, there is nothing else quite like it and it lasts all day on me. I am on my third bottle (over lots of years!). As far as I can tell there has been no significant reformulation.
Mother, you were asking about Midnight in the Palace Garden. I have a small bottle of this, but don’t often reach for it. On me it has a bright citrussy opening and then lots of different notes which morph in and out. I find there is a definite incense note and florals, including something which is quite indolic, probably jasmine. There are spices and another odd note, perhaps the coffee. You can definitely imagine walking through a richly planted tropical garden at nighttime. The drydown is very light on me, but lovely just the same. I feel I need to concentrate on it to get the best out of it. It’s not a “busy day” perfume, as I would just forget about it.
Shazam!, on the other hand, also with incense and citrussy notes (orange), is an in-your-face happy day time perfume. It is fizzy and spicy and busy. It has a much stronger dry down on me. I have the largest size bottle! I would say it is much more linear than MPG. Sarah McCartney has woven her usual magic with designing a perfume around an idea, this time a Moroccan spice market.