Sr Editors Gail Gross and Lauryn Beer’s Best Fragrances of 2019
As we announce each of our Editors and Sr. Contributors best fragrances of 2019 we continue to see a pattern emerging… independent perfumery is the real winner this year.
Each of my ten best fragrances for 2019 recalls or represents a unique and vivid interpretation of an experience that is very close to my heart. These are the best fragrances of 2019 that resonate with and reflect my own imagination, memories and emotions.
Atelier des Ors Riviera Drive (Marie Salamagne): Glints of bright lemon and loose bouquets of fresh, wild herbs create an impression of carefree vacations, of summer wind in my hair, of youthful exuberance and possibility.
Chatillon Lux Biblio (Shawn Meher): A musky, waxy, sweetly intoxicating tale of crumbling boards, split spines and fading moiré-patterned endpapers. Sensations of dry, desiccated woods float like motes of dust through beams of filtered vanilla-almond light.
DSH Perfumes Heirloom Elixir No. 8 Gold Leaf (Dawn Spencer Hurwitz): Olfactory visions of vineyards and orchards ripening in the late autumn sunshine, serving up a final, delicate, ephemeral warmth before the first real chill of winter.
Laboratorio Olfattivo Baliflora (Jean-Claude Ellena): Diffuse pastel watercolor images of lilies and exotic flowers meld and resonate with distant impressions of Balinese and Indonesian Gamelan orchestras.
Lili Bermuda Nautilus (Isabelle Ramsay-Brackstone): If you spend any time on or near the water you will immediately recognize the vibrant, honest, crisp opening; fair winds and following seas nuanced with notes of bright lavender and geranium leaves.
Micallef Parfums Desir Toxic (Geoffrey Nejman): The shining ethereal spirits of bergamot and lemon are pulled to the dark earth, to the sweet, woody and sultry. Recollections of Ariel and Caliban from Shakespeare’s Tempest come unbidden, their unconventional and ill fated relationship profiled in the Post Script to W.H. Auden’s The Sea and the Mirror. “ Elegance, art, fascination, Fascinated by …mortality…”
Neil Morris Fragrances Psychedelic Luau (Neil Morris): My 2019 party in a bottle is lush, fruity, a little trippy, full of energetic, juicy life, adorned with leis of buttery lactonic white flowers, bunches of bananas and a hint of the surreal, head shop vibes of earthy, mellow patchouli.
Nomenclature Fluo_ral – Photo courtesy of Nomenclature NYC
Nomenclature Fluo_ral (Nathalie Feisthauer – 2019 Russian Fifi Perfumer of the Year): Fluo_ral (the 2019 Russian FIFI award winner in the Exclusive Niche category) glows with an aura of ultra bright, green, crunchy, rhubarb, the perfect vegetal compliment to Nomenclature’s new and fluorescent take on ozonic Colone.
Parfums Viktoria Minya Hedonist Rose Absolute (Viktoris Minya): In this uniquely Hungarian/Parisian interpretation of the oriental rose attar, peachy sensuality marries the most fragrant of Turkish roses and the richest ouds and ambers. I now understand why the 16th century Turkish dervish Gül Baba, the Father of Roses, rests forever in Budapest.
Sarah Horowitz Parfums Banq de Parfum Embers (Sarah Horowitz-Thran): Deep, rich and smoky, Embers weaves a spell of recollections; olfactory images of late harvests, fallen leaves and blustery evenings with friends and family cuddled safe and warm by the fireside – a scent of comfort and remembrance, the perfect antidote to what has been, for many of us, a long and difficult year.
Gail Gross – Senior Editor
What a wonderful year for independent perfumery 2019 was! At various moments, my best fragrances of 2019 (in no special order) pulled at my heart, confused me with their beauty, or made me dizzily happy.
DSH Perfumes Wild Coyote (Dawn Spencer Hurwitz): Where Antonio Gardoni went large with ylang, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz went for sheer joy. Wild Coyote, from Spencer Hurwitz’s Heirloom Elixirs collection, is a seeming impossibility: a translucent ylang, a translucent ylang; a contemplative heartbreaker. This ylang hints at honey-dripping vamp, then girlish white-green floral; tropical sloe-eyed sexpot, then milky Southern belle – without becoming any of them exactly. It is so beautiful it made me cry.
Anatole Lebreton Perfumista(Anatole Lebreton: A shapeshifting rose with delicious, glinting green and earthy notes, Perfumista is the wonderful Anatole Lebreton’s valentine to perfume lovers. With its echoes of chypres past, mossy, silken Perfumista is one of my favourite chypres of the last few years.
Photo by Hernando
Bogue Profumo for Luckyscent I Love YY (Antonio Gardoni): Antonio Gardoni’s big-ass ylang frag for Scent Bar’s New York opening is hugely, over-the-top gorgeous. Gardoni creates a symphonic fragrance of three different ylangs overlapped with layers of velvety violet, dark syrup, cedar, jasmine and rose. This is the Met Gala of ylang perfumes and worth a trip to lower Manhattan for a sample. Even if you live in Hawaii.
Antonio Alessandria Dies Aurorae (Antonio Alessandria): I have never been to Calabria, but master perfume storyteller Antonio Alessandria makes me feel as though I have. His fragrances encapsulate moments and memories of his Sicilian childhood in a progression of scents that take the wearer on a specific, delineated journey. With its evocative smells of traditional sweets olivette and torrone, incense, beeswax candles and warm cedar, Dies Aurorae may actually make you yearn for winter.
Eris Perfumes Mxxx(Antoine Lie): Otherworldly, quietly intense, softly animalic, Mxxx from Eris Perfumes is one of the best fragrance and most unusual perfumes of the year. Using an extravagant amount of pure, aged ambergris and a top-end cacao, Mxxx brings a deep sensuality to genderfluid perfumery. The smell of slept-in skin mingles with that extraordinary, bitter cacao, punches of spice and resin that glow and retreat. Mxxx is dislocatingly stunning.
Catherine Omai Contagious (Catherine Omai): One of the standouts of Pitti Fragranze this year, UK-based Catherine Omai (the first African woman to exhibit at Pitti), introduced an offbeat, smoky, woody, labdanum-rich oud fragrance that pays homage to her Nigerian roots. On a cold day, this is comforting, sensuous, and absolutely delicious. This is a perfumer to watch.
Chatillon Lux Weinstrasse (Sean Maher): Chatillon Lux’s Weinstrasse was so startlingly different, I didn’t know how to process it for a moment or two. Then I fell hard. It’s an uncategorizable hybrid where honey, florals, moss and an arresting white burgundy grape note tumble over each other, shifting places unexpectedly like multicoloured flecks in a kaleidoscope. A true original from the talented Shawn Maher.
Hans Hendley Bloodline (Hans Hendley): A red cedar distillation made by his father from a tree on family land inspired Hans Hendley to create one of the most memorable and best fragrances of 2019. Bloodline is the perfect name for this earthy, smoky, mulchy scent. With its multifaceted cedar and forestall notes, Bloodline is a perfume for nights deep in the woods, pine and cedar trees keeping their counsel while tall tales are told over an open fire.
Zoologist Bee (Cristiano Canali): Honey is one of my favourite notes in fragrance, so I am picky, picky, picky. In Cristiano Canali’s creation for Zoologist, this honey is a drowsy late spring afternoon; bees drunk with syrupy orange blossom, beeswax candles being dipped, ginger, dry hay-like broom mingling with garden flowers on warm, resinous bed. Bee is both voluptuous and girl-next-door pretty. It’s hard not to smile with this nearby.
Timothy Han Heart of Darkness (Timothy Han): Heart of Darkness, based on the Conrad novel, is an olfactory interpretation of that unsettling journey into the jungle. A bold opening of smoky and watery notes gives way to a startlingly green middle that recalls honeysuckle leaves. Murky, mossy and animalic one moment, then aquaeous and floral, Heart of Darkness is an unpredictable scent that twists your mind like a river.
Special mentions for Best Fragrances of 2019 to Prosody London A Capella Ray, Olivier Durbano SpeM PetraM and Frederic Malle Rose & Cuir.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
USA and Canada: From the ever giving Dawn Spencer Hurwitz The Heirloom Elixir Gift Set ( the fifth perfume award from the our best fragrances 2019 as of today’s post)
Thanks to Antonio Alessandrio’s generosity, we have a one 50 ml bottle for a registered reader in the U.S., Canada or Europe (this is the 4th perfume award from our best fragrances 2019 lists).
To be eligible, what did you think of Gail’s and Lauryn’s Best Fragrances 2019? Have you tried any? Do you have favorites and where did you live. You must be a registered reader. You can do so here, Draw closes December 31, 2019
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Also be sure to check Part 1 Best and Worst of 2019 by Ermano and Michelyn here, Part 2 Best Fragrances of 2019 by Ermano and Michelyn here and Ida and Despina here. (There are still draws open on all)
There is no spilled perfume