Every time I am at a trade show the best part of it is when I find a something completely new to me. That moment of discovery is where the magic is. At the most recent Elements Showcase that bit of serendipity occurred midway through the first day as I approached the Di Ser Eau de Parfums booth. What was there was a display of ten fragrances completely unknown to me and I’m guessing the rest of the attendees as well.
There is that moment when a perfumer hits an inflection point and their creativity takes an exponential jump upward. In 2011, one perfumer I believe found herself on that upward trajectory is Charna Ethier of Providence Perfume Company. Thankfully she didn’t keep me waiting long as her first release of 2012, Hindu Honeysuckle, has been my companion for the last two days.
Hr. Schoen always seems to want to touch us with beauty and intelligence when he creates perfume. It is why when I heard he was making a perfume for the 20th anniversary of the death of German actor Klaus Kinski I was elated.
The fragrance line bearing the JPG line has been one of the best masstige fragrance lines as LeMale continues to be a big seller. This is why any news that a new JPG fragrance is coming creates a bit of buzz around it. The latest release Kokorico is currently available in France only and will also be available in the UK later in 2012 with a 2013 release slated for the US.
As the end of the year arrives it is time to look back over all that the last twelve months have produced and list the best of the year. In 2011, I tested 471 new releases and reviewed 207 of them. Even those numbers didn’t allow me to test half of the new releases for the year. The fast and furious nature of these releases makes it difficult for anyone to truly have a handle on everything that came out in any given year. That being said out of those new fragrances I did try there were some pretty amazing releases.
As we entered the fall I heard a rumor that Czech and Speake was going to be adding their first new fragrance since 2003 and it was going to be a vetiver based fragrance. As we moved further into the fall some of the UK based members of the internet forums got a chance to try Vetiver Vert and the verdict was it was good and in some of those early tester’s words it was spectacular.
