This year, 2018, marks my twelfth year writing about perfume. I’ve passed a period where I bought a bottle of fragrance a month, and I no longer need to study my way through the classics to understand fragrance benchmarks. I’ve given up on trying to sniff most new releases, and I only bought two new bottles of perfume this year. But I still wear perfume every day. In other words, by now I’m living with fragrance the way I’ll probably live with it the rest of my life.
Now that I’ve lowered your expectations, here are my perfume highlights for the year:
The two new bottles of perfume I bought this year were Le Galion L’Ame Perdue and Masque Milano Luci ed Ombre. I smelled L’Ame Perdue in Paris and loved its throwback feel — I am such a sucker for a good fruity chypre. When I couldn’t track it down for sale online in the United States, I walked to Jovoy and handed over my credit card. (At Jovoy, I was sorely tempted to buy Revillon Detchema, too, but somehow resisted.) I don’t wear L’Ame Perdue more than a few times a month, but when I do, I’m happy to have it.
My spray sample of Luci ed Ombre sat on my desk for a few months before I caved and bought a bottle. It smelled so moody yet easy, and so unlike the dozens of other samples I’ve smelled that have felt too much like some other scent calculated for market share. Twisted Lily’s cyber Monday coupon tipped me over the edge. Luci ed Ombre gets lots of wear. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t mess with my vibe. Plus, it’s accommodating enough to let me layer on something else after three or four hours.
The bottle I’ve turned to for comfort most this year has been Neela Vermeire Créations Mohur Extrait. I wrote an article for Nez magazine about NVC, which led to tea with Neela Vermeire under the massive stained glass dome at the brasserie on top of Le Printemps department store. Mohur reminds me of the glow from that stained glass: rich, lovely, serene, and uplifting. When I’m fed up with the political situation, I reach for Mohur. When I’m nervous and want to feel my best, Mohur calms me and lends confidence in a soft, subtle way.
The fragrance I’ve sampled that has intrigued me the most this year, but that I haven’t yet come to fully understand — but I will! I’ll give it more time on skin and get to the bottom of it — is Naomi Goodsir Nuit de Bakélite. It’s one of the shape-shiftiest fragrances I’ve smelled in a long time. Wearing it was like playing pinball, where the fragrance pinged through green, leather, flowers, and a phenolic tang, racking up points as it traveled, yet somehow staying on the same canvas.
As always, this past year deepened my appreciation for the terrific people in the perfume community. I’ve made wonderful friends and had opportunities I never would have otherwise, thanks to perfume. Fingers crossed, next year will bring more of the same.
What have been your fragrance highlights of 2018?
Note: top image is Hearts Aglow [cropped] by Anne Worner at flickr; some rights reserved.
Fragrance highlight was going to Boulder and having Dawn Spencer Hurwitz make me a custom perfume. The experience was amazing plus how else was I going to get an animalic (with REAL musk, ambergris and civet) honeyed carnation perfume?
Wow, what a highlight that is! Congratulations on your own perfume! Have you named it?
It’s called Slinky Carnation, version B is Lounging Around and version C is Silk
Love it!
I didn’t realize there were versions B & C! How do the flankers differ from the pillar? 🙂
Lounging Around replaces the peach with plum and is smokier and a smidge heavier in the base while Silk replaces the peach with saffron, white pepper and Szechwan pepper
Love that your custom perfume has flankers! All three sound wonderful.
Angela, I enjoyed reading your highlights for 2018. This year has been a strangely rough one and I haven’t been able to comment on NST as much as I wanted to and used to. I am now on Winter Break until Jan. 7th and hope to make NST a staple in my daily routine as I did once before. My only perfume highlight is that I feel that my taste in fragrances has really changed. I am still and always will be a Jo Malone girl, but I feel my style has evolved to more “masculine” like scents. One of my favorites for 2018 was not one that was released this year, but was new to me….Baccarat Rouge 540 by MFK.
Isn’t it interesting how fragrance tastes change? Baccarat Rouge 540 is so different and complex compared to many of the Jo Malones, too.
It is quite interesting. Its like I’m becoming a veteran perfume lover. Always loved fragrance, but my appreciation and knowledge of notes that I wasn’t familiar with has grown. My nose has matured and can appreciate finer notes.
For me, the more I engage with fragrance, the more I get out of it.
For me the biggest perfume highlight was visiting Providence Perfume Company during our New England vacation this summer. I got to meet Charna and snagged a bottle of Sedona Sweetgrass before it was even available online. This is one of the more unusual scents I have tried. It certainly doesn’t smell like anything else in my collection. It pretty much initiated my resolved to focus mostly on indie houses for a while at least. Mainstream perfume lost my attention quite a few years ago, and now even most “niche” houses seem tiresome–too many releases, too fast, that smell too much like too many other things. I have great respect for the true indie perfumers who put real heart and though into their work.
I know what you mean about the seemingly sudden profusion of niche brands, many of which seem to be doing the same thing. Some of them are terrific, though, thankfully.
Charna makes wonderful perfume and is so personable and charming. I have several of her creations in my collection and never tire of them.
The few things I’ve tried from the Providence Perfume Co I enjoyed.
I also had a happy perfume experience with Masque Milano. Despite all sorts of internal debates about how may iris perfumes do I *really* need, golly, it’s expensive, etc. etc. I did end up buying a bottle of L’Attesa and it is very nice indeed. As for perfume reading there was (of course?) Perfumes: The Guide 2018.
L’Attesa is fabulous! Good buy! I also had a great time reading the new perfume guide and even got to see Luca Turin speak when he was in town. That was a good memory for the perfume year.
Yes to all of this! Great post. This year for me has been similar in my perfume journey, wherein I have settled down a bit and feel content to wear a select few scents during a given season. I don’t feel that crazed, must-smell-everything feeling. I am also obsessed with NVC. Most lately with Pichola, but really they’re all so good. Happy new year!
Pichola is a good one, and Happy New Year to you, too!
I have been very blessed with fragrant friends here on NST, and have enjoyed many scents shared with me to try. One scent that really was fun to try was Eau de Crypt, I discovered the many nuances of Iris, and loved trying all sorts of gardenia and tropical white flowers. Thank you friends of NST. ?
Perfume people really are the best!
Aye aye!
I loved your first paragraph. I’ve been down the niche rabbit hole for 13 years and I am still buying far too many bottles per year, but I really hope I can get to your level soon! This year I fell hard for Hiram Green Slowdive and Hermès Cèdre Sambac. I also finally bought Masque Milano Tango, after finding a good deal on the older 100ml bottle. It was a great perfume year for me.
The Luci ed Ombre I bought was in the old bottle, too–a real savings per ml over the new bottles. I liked Slowdive, too, but still dream of Arbolé!
I’ve been wearing perfume on a daily basis since 1970/71. I have come to the realization like many others here that I no longer need to try everything and I also don’t want to accumulate/hoard too many samples or decants because they end up evaporating. So I am working my way through using things up on a sometimes daily basis and then will focus more on my full bottles that I already have in my collection. I am also a lot less excited about new releases and with the exception of two St. Clair Scents, First Cut and Casablanca , haven’t been moved to want to buy any 2018 releases, which for me is a good thing 🙂 So I guess for me the highlight of 2018 has been discovering that less is more, if that makes any sense.
I completely understand! I’ve been using whole vials of vintage extrait, too, that I’d previously hoarded. It’s a glorious feeling to smell like a 1920s flapper, for instance, rather than suspect your vials and decants are spoiling.
What a pleasure to get to read your highlights, Angela. Which issue of Nez is your piece on Neela in, for the curious? 🙂
2018 was mostly painful and ugly for me. I rarely wore perfume- most days did not seem important enough to merit it. But I did keep up with new releases; my favorites were Kilian Princess (the matcha note is super tasty) and I Am Trash. Tom Ford Lost Cherry was also very nice, but the price is just grody.
Look at those names! They aren’t worthy of you, no matter how fabulous the fragrances smell. That said, now that you mention them in particular–Lost Cherry, Princess, and I am Trash–I need to smell them.
The issue of Nez the NVC article is in is the latest.
I’m sorry your 2018 was so painful and ugly, Ari 🙁 I wish you the best in 2019. (I wish me and the rest of the country the best in the coming year, too!)
I second this–no painful and ugly 2019 for you, please!
You know what I liked the most about this post? The fact that you wrote about perfumes that you really enjoyed, bought and wear instead of more usual reviews of everything new and noteworthy for the year. And now I really want to try those two that you featured that prominently.
Happy Holidays to you, Angela!
I’m not sure I could do a “new and noteworthy” post if I tried, since I’m so behind on what’s new! So, I’m glad you enjoyed this one. Happy Holidays to you, too!
Really enjoyable article, Angela, thank you. My tastes seem to have changed in the last while too, like some other commenters have observed about themselves. I picked up a sample of Ylang Ylang Espresso from Floral Street (lovely set-up in their shop in Covent Garden) last month, but have yet to try it – even a couple of years ago my tastes would have led me to the exact other end of their spectrum of 8 fragrances; picked up an Atkinsons Posh On The Green sample which sounds more like what I would normally go for (still to try it) & have an Hermes Muguet Porcelaine sample also untried. Have just organised a 4 day/3 night Glasgow trip at the end of Jan, which will take in Graham Nash’s ‘An Evening of Songs & Stories’ & which will enable me, as I mentioned on here previously, to do what may be a final sweep of Fraser’s department store perfume offerings, before the dreadful new owner transforms the organisation into somewhere I will probably never go to again!
Your trip to Glasgow sounds wonderful! I hope you find some good perfume at Fraser’s, too. (And imagining what an ylang ylang espresso fragrance smells like has my brain going.)
Nice article, Angela. Now I want to try Mohur!
While I cannot give such a detailed overview as you did, a couple of weeks ago I made a list of scents I tried in 2018 and enjoyed the samples so much that I bought a decant of each scent. In a way, they are my highlights:
Bvlgari Eau Parfumee au The Bleu (lovely minty lavender)
Ormonde Jayne Ormonde Woman (truly unique forest chypre)
Etro Anice (fresh liquorice/anise)
Jo Malone Orange Blossom (reminds me of spring, because to me it smells like black locust in bloom + citrus)
Penhaligon’s Malabah (yummy chai tea/spicy cola)
Guerlain Insolence EDP (beautiful powdery violet, great ‘makeup’ scent)
Serge Lutens Miel de Bois (amazing honey)
I may still buy a decant or two of something else before the year ends. 🙂
Great list! A good friend wears Orange Blossom, so it always makes me happy to smell it. I have an old bottle of Ormonde Woman, and I recently smelled it from a new tester. I was surprised at how it had changed. It’s still Ormonde Woman, but not as rich. I still love it, though.
Hi Angela,
I buy a lot less than I used to, but like you, I bought L’Ame Purdue at Jovoy this past summer. It was perfect for the fall, a favorite season for fruity chypres. I was also tempted by Detchema, but I tested it on skin in the store and found that while I liked the top notes (very true to the vintage) it weakened considerably after about 1/2 hour. I suspect that restrictions on many of the older ingredients make it difficult to replicate. So I did what comes naturally. I found an unopened vintage bottle on ebay and satisfied the craving.
Oh, that makes me feel better about not buying the new bottle! I’m going to keep my eyes open for some of the vintage for sure.
Agree with your “perfume progression.” That seems to be the way most of us go. The next step is “whatever happened to that person on MUA?” (where I used to post obsessively and now mostly lurk).
Love your writing on perfume! I’m always happy when I see “by Angela.”
I’ve wondered about certain MUA people, too! And thank you so much for the kind compliment. Happy Holidays!
I’m always happy to see Angela’s articles too!
Thank you!
I wore perfume every day of 2018 but went almost no-buy after our summer trip to Paris and London where I added some Nicolai and OJ to my collection. I really looked at my perfume shelf and decided I need to use what I have and have mostly ignored new releases- I can’t sniff most niches locally so I was spending too much on buying samples. That said I did just buy a couple of small things from DSH and a sample of St Clair Casablanca, but those were my first perfume purchases since July; and I except the no-buy to go right back in place.
It’s amazing how easily I can “shop” my own perfume cabinet and come up with fragrances that smell new and interesting to me. But it would be hard to travel to Europe and not come home with a bottle or two!