Twilly d'Hermès Eau Poivrée (2019)
by Hermès

I thought at first - oh, an even more pink bottle with more boring notes. No ginger that made Twilly so lovely! Ah. But I still tried it next to original - how could I resist?

The interesting thing is that they actually used these completely different main notes - pink pepper instead of ginger, rose instead of tuberose and patchouli instead of sandalwood - to achieve the same mood, the same idea and the same feeling. I mean, you spritz each on your different wrists, and you smell them, and you get the feeling that these are two paintings of the same landscape (or portrait, or nature morte), just done with different colours.

They are very different, but they still are sisters.
I really liked that.

I think I even liked the new Poivrée version a tiny bit more than original - but of course, my favours may change in the future. The original is still probably more unique with its sour ginger, as pink pepper is really prevalent everywhere nowadays – as is rose. But I thoroughly enjoyed the really punchy pepper (it starts off stronger than it's usual for pink pepper, it's similar to black pepper to me at the start, though it mellows down and softens later, unfortunately) and I liked the slightly sour combo of rose and patchouli probably a bit more than slightly sweet and creamy combo of tuberose and sandalwood of original.

For now, I'm not planning to get myself neither one of the sisters, but I'd be really glad to get any of them as a gift. They both are pretty cheerful and energetic, and optimistic, and young, and carefree, and stylish, and pretty. Just like the ad says.

Nothing really poivree about this - more of a tart opening, followed by a lovely, rosy floral accord, unfortunately tainted by a huge woody amber, which Nagel is known to use (see Citron Noir). It's cleverly concealed, so your mileage may vary, but it ruins it for me.

Not bad, but not something I would wear when the genius original is still on the shelves.