It has been a busy first half of 2010 for Liz Zorn the creative force behind Soivohle. She has recently opened a new Cincinnati brick and mortar space in the OverThe Rhine section of that city.

 

Despite that great undertaking Ms. Zorn has continued to turn out beautiful unique artisanal fragrances. To coincide with the opening of the new store in the Pendleton Art Center, Scentual Artistry; Ms. Zorn has released three new fragrances in her Studio Collection.

 

Peche et Vert was inspired by the desire to make a fragrance with peach as the dominant note. Ms. Zorn wanted to keep it from getting too sweet and thus the other half of the name as she adds some green to keep the peach from becoming cloying. What she manages to do is to create a peach that feels as if it is still ripe on the tree and ready to be picked.

 

 

Fig Amarette also works on the ripening theme as instead of the more ubiquitous green fig note we find in fragrance, Ms. Zorn uses a riper, darker fig accord as the centerpiece of Fig Amarette. The darker fig is joined by gourmand notes of almond, pear, and vanilla. It is the combination of the fig and almond that gives Fig Amarette its heart and makes it a standout.

 

 

The third fragrance, Vanille OTR, is the one that really surprised me and turned out to be my favorite of the three new releases. If green fig is ubiquitous,  then vanilla is omnipresent when it comes to fragrance. Vanilla is also a note that many perfumistas can find to be at turns beautiful and overwhelming. There are many vanilla fragrances I like but as 2009 waned there were two vanilla fragrances I came to really admire, L’Artisan Havana Vanille and Jo Malone Vanilla & Anise, both of which used a greener version of vanilla. I was left wondering what would happen when a perfumer chose to really take that green theme further. In Vanille OTR Ms. Zorn does exactly that as she creates a fragrance which contains a number of green notes all interacting with a restrained sweet vanilla as the axis around which Vanille OTR spins.

Ms. Zorn has become one of the most reliable artisanal perfumers working and in the Studio Collection, we find her working at a high level, again. In a time where everything seems to be 'going green' Liz Zorn creates three exceptional new fragrances. 

Disclosure: This review was based on preview samples provided by Soivohle.

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor