Marc-Antoine Barrois Tilia: the new Ganymede?

When will Tilia by Marc-Antoine Barrois be released?

T The release date of the upcoming Tilia from Marc-Antoine Barrois has not been officially announced. However, rumor has it that Tilia is going to be launched on April 1st, 2024. Well in time for linden blossom season.

As of today, online reports about Tilia that surfaced after Esxence 2024 trade fair in Milan have been deleted (probably at the request of the brand). But the genie is already out of the bottle, and thanks to friends who brought me a sample from a store that probably started showing it to the customers before the official launch date in France by mistake, I was able to get an idea of the new perfume.

What does the name Tilia mean?

Tilia is another name for linden that stems from Ancient Greek via Latin. Linden is the European part of the botanical species family that counts around 30 members. The North American relatives of the linden trees are known as basswood.

As far as perfume names go, on the first sight Tilia is pretty straightforward. Especially compared to the cosmic and abstract theme of Marc-Antoine’s previous releases – B683 (homage to the asteroid in The Little Prince B612, modified to spell Be Fabulous Haute Couture), Ganymede (Jupiter’s satellite moon), and Encelade (an ice covered moon of Saturn). However, a real Tilia asteroid exists in the outermost regions of the asteroid belt. It got its name to honor the tree, so the botanical connection is there. But so is its space origins that open doors for experiments and imagination.

What does Tilia smell like?

Marc-Antoine Barrois Tilia smells like linden. Yet, although linden blossom is easily recognizable, it feels purposefully strange and constructed. It’s icy cold, pulsating with hot infrared bursts. Quentin Bisch, the perfumer, and Marc-Antoine the creative director and brand founder have brought to life a cosmic linden vision.

Smell of real linden blossom is yellow – both because of the actual yellow color of the flowers, and through olfactory associations with honey, sweet nectar powder collected by fluffy bumblebees (any mellitologist (bee scientist) reading this is probably rolling their eyes, but we are talking about ways to describe scents, not about actual insect behavior), hints of mimosa, lemon, and the special feeling on first sunny days of spring.

Smell of Tilia linden is different. It’s not as yellow as the real thing. Instead, Tilia combines the whiteness of lily-of-the-valley, sparkling orange blossom and even tuberose with the wine-like viscous red from the heart of a rose, and an added drop of dark honey.

It’s still linden, and you’ll quickly identify it as such. But it behaves like a gas star rotating around the gravitational pull of an enormous black hole – it pulsates and emits energy. Cool sparks of clean white florals are replaced by hot flashes of wine-red rose and crystallized honey that merge back into the white light and repeat the cycle.

It’s not a cozy scent like many other linden-heavy fragrances. Marc Antoine Barrois Tilia doesn’t feel like a warm hug from a friend, instead it reminds me of a beautiful creature one prefers to look at without touching.

Maybe because it’s not as sweet as I expected (in fact, Tilia has just the right amount of sweetness to be pleasant, but avoid any associations with sugar). Maybe because in its heart Tilia carries some otherworldly new synthetic floral molecules that smell like science-fiction flowers – bigger, brighter, softer and more spectacular than anything growing on Earth (after all, Quentin Bisch created Fleur Narcotique for ExNihilo that smells both familiar and totally unreal).

The perfume feels fresh and airy (as opposed to intense and dense), it has enough energy to soar high and scent the space around the wearer. It also has a built-in gentleness, characteristic of silky soft flower petals. For me, it’s a plus, because I am getting tired of aggressive perfumes that aim to punch you in the nose before you had a moment to think.

With Tilia, Marc-Antoine Barrois is offering an artistic new take on linden blossom accord that leaves the Earth behind and strives for the stars. It’s eerily beautiful, and I would love to have a bottle and wear it on skin longer than half a sample I was lucky to get in advance allowed for. Tilia appears to be the kind of perfume that can surprise and delight over time, because its many layers follow a new unbeaten path.

Tilia and Ganymede comparison

Tilia and Ganymede are very different perfumes. Ganymede is unique (judging by presentations at Esxence a wave of copies is already underway), absolutely abstract, gender-neutral (although mostly worn by women), addictive, energetic, and aggressively expansionist. A scent that announces itself before it announces you.

Ganymede reflects the Zeitgeist so well that it replaced the almighty Baccarat Rouge 540 as the hottest must-have fragrance around the world. I don’t think this level of success was anticipated or planned for by Mr Barrois or Mr Bisch when they launched Ganymede back in 2019. Luckily, the stars aligned just right.

Tilia differs from Ganymede in several important ways. It has a quieter personality. By this I mean not the sillage or longevity, but the character of the scent itself – Tilia is softer, gentler and more relaxed (even though it’s also full of contrasts).

With Ganymede, I want to step out, start new ventures and change the world. Wearing Tilia felt more like a weekend endeavor, as if it were created for days you care less about the world and more about yourself.

Both fragrances compliment each other – Tilia’s slower pulses pick up where Ganymede’s high frequency vibrations become too much.

Will Tilia repeat Ganymede’s success? Only time will tell, but unless the zeitgeist pendulum is ready to swing to a more peaceful direction, I think Ganymede will continue to be the bestseller.

Will you like Tilia if you love Ganymede? Hard to say. The scents are not closely related, each is unique. So my honest answer to this is a maybe. Your mileage may vary, but if it helps – I like (not love) Ganymede, and I enjoyed Tilia to the point I’d like to get a bottle.

My recommendation: smell Tilia yourself! Not only because it’s the newest perfume from the hottest brand of the day, but because it’s a nuanced work of art in its own right.

Are you excited about Tilia? Have you already tried it? What’s your verdict?

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