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Stagnant

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[Christine] Nagel recounts how, when the fragrance industry discovered many women enjoy sugary and caramel notes in a scent, brands only wanted to test perfumes with a quantity of these notes.

“For this reason, we started with one sugary perfume, two sugary perfume, three sugary perfume. And now, when a big brand wants a perfume with a lot of success, they put these ingredients in it,” she says. “For me, it’s terrible because it’s stagnant.”

— Read more at Perfume perfection: Hermès in-house perfumer Christine Nagel spills her scent secrets at Vancouver Sun.

Twilly d’Hermes ~ perfume review

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The background: Twilly d’Hermès is the latest fragrance launch from Hermès. It’s aimed at young women and was inspired by the freedom and creativity with which they “transform” Hermès scarves, and “appropriate Hermès’ codes to do other things”.1 A twilly, in case you don’t know (or care) from scarves, is the brand’s long thin silk scarf (see example here), and indeed people wear them all sorts of ways: as neck scarves, as headbands, as belts, as purse accessories, etc. At the moment, a 32″ x 2″ Twilly runs $160 in the US.

The juice: Hermès house perfumer Christine Nagel decided she would likewise “transform” or “twist” her raw materials…

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An interesting way to see things

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[Millennials] twist everything, they transform. They appropriate Hermès’ codes to do other things. I said to myself, it’s an interesting way to see things, and perhaps that could simply be a way to formulate [perfume] differently. If I take the major codes of perfumery and I shake them up a little, can I obtain other textures? So I started with that idea. I chose to twist three of perfumery’s raw materials: ginger, a white spice; tuberose, a flower that is a bit disconcerting, and sandalwood, an elegant wood.

— Perfumer Christine Nagel on the inspirations for Twilly d’Hermès. From Twilly d’Hermès Scent to Court Millennials at Women's Wear Daily (paywall).

Hermes Eau des Merveilles Bleue ~ fragrance review

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Hermès Eau des Merveilles Bleue, brand image, sliced

It would appear that Hermès is doing a flanker to 2004’s Eau des Merveilles every so often, but waiting at least two years, sometimes more, between iterations. In addition to the original, we’ve now got Elixir des Merveilles (candied orange peel + vanilla biscuit) from 2006, Eau Claire des Merveilles (citrus soda + cosmetic powder) from 2010, and L’Ambre des Merveilles (amber + more amber) from 2012. Eau des Merveilles Bleue is the latest, and the first from house perfumer Christine Nagel. I was only middling excited about it, because it’s blue. I like the color, but in fragrance, blue implies a particular smell-meaning, and in this case the description followed the color-coding: “the magic of the ocean and the colour of the sky”, plus “washed in sea spray” and “the taste of water on pebbles”. That sounds suspiciously like many other blue fresh, sporty, aquatic / ozonic fragrances, which are not generally my cup of tea.

And so it turns out…

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