Twilly d’Hermes for Women EDP 2ml vial sample

The juice: Hermès house perfumer Christine Nagel decided she would likewise “transform” or “twist” her raw materials, which are ginger (reportedly an “enormous quantity”),2 tuberose and sandalwood.

The packaging: The bottle is meant to recall a carriage lantern and the cap is meant to recall a black hat. The neck is wrapped with a spaghetti strand of patterned silk, which can of course be repurposed.

The advertising: Compare the millennial pink assembly line for Twilly d’Hermès with the more conventional / romantic spot for Jour d’Hermès — it’s not hard to see which is the fragrance going after the youngs.

What it smells like: A soft clean floriental. There is a spicy kick from the ginger early on, mingling with some mild fruity notes — mango peach jam? — which gives it some verve, but it is not a fruit bomb by any means, nor is it overly sweet, and once the ginger fades, it’s not an edgy or assertive fragrance. The tuberose, to my nose, has been twisted into something that smells like molecular fractions of orange blossom and something else flowery — it could be tuberose, who knows.3 There aren’t enough of the sharp and/or dirty bits remaining to tell any tales. The base is a pale woody musk, and likewise, I suppose it could be sandalwood. It’s warm-ish, but nowhere near so warm that you’d set it aside for cold weather.