Now that you have heard from Ermano and Me, (our top ten 2020 fragrances here) and (The Best Fragrances of 2020 here) we continue our Top Ten 2020 Favorite Fragrances lists wrap up with Senior Editors Ida Meister and Despina Veneti. Ida lives in South Boston and Despina resides in Paris; their choices are very different. Now it’s time to reveal their respective Top Ten 2020 Favorite Fragrances.

 

Top Ten 2020 Favorite Fragrances -Ida Meister

 Oh, what a wicked year it’s been! That which has not been splendid (there were some fine moments in there) has been horrid, with very little in between. I’m extremely grateful that my family and most of my friends are safe, and sorrowful over the innumerable losses we’ve all sustained in 2020. At this writing, it is a full year since I’ve kissed or seen my eldest and/or his husband – and I’m not alone here. I miss seating loved ones at table, taking simple trips into or out of town (never mind out of state). It’s been a year when people seek comfort and that has been reflected in the Perfumed World – and so I find it very challenging to come up with The Best Fragrances of 2020. Very few of us had the opportunity to smell as many fragrances as we had done in years past due to the pandemic, so I cannot comment upon many lauded scents I haven’t yet smelt. “Best” differs from “Favorite”: one may acknowledge that a perfume is extraordinarily well-composed and original without possessing the desire to wear it. This is what differentiates a reasonable assessment from a truly biased one; being human, we’re all biased at baseline – but I strive hard to be fair. I present my choices of 2020 fragrances that I found outstanding in no particular order of preference, along with honorable mentions. Here are my Top Ten 2020 Favorite Fragrances plus a little more: 

I can’t make up my mind between Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s Iris Tuxedo and her Heirloom Elixir no.14, Muresque – so it’s a tie. Each possesses an enticing booziness emanating from fruit and they are both chypres, but there the similarity ends. Whether you prefer a plummy iris and cassis cocktail with myrrh or a dense blackberry thicket cordial with Pinot Noir and labdanum, you really can’t lose. They are sumptuous in the extreme.

 There were several really fine natural perfumes this year, but Velvet and Sweetpea’s Purrfumery Luminous Lemurs wins on all fronts: it smells divine and contributes to preserving the Madagascan ecosystem. Laurie Stern’s packaging and labels are irresistible, but what’s inside is envoûtant – seductively floral, creamy, woody and spicy. She even includes a luxurious cream which glides over your skin like a lover’s caress and bath salts to die for in the collection.

 

Neil Morris Fragrances Voices in Water: this, from a woman patently not wild about aquatic fragrances. Voices in Water is a siren song cast upon the waves painted in wood, salt and marine zephyr. It’s thoroughly original and differs from all the other sea-inspired scents for which the perfumer is known. Zen in a flacon and not your everyday Zen at that. One of the wearable, affordable beauties which soothe the soul.

Rising Phoenix Osmanthus Attar: I’m an avowed attar advocate; their intimate intensity appeals to me on a grand scale – but not all attars are created equal. Joseph DeLapp is an American attarmeister whose compositions rival old school any day. Renowned for his fine ouds, Joseph has created many more complex fragrances, but for sheer poetry and purity, his Osmanthus Attar radiates wellbeing and is simply breathtaking. Created initially for Japanese in-laws, it honors the aesthetic of Shibui (subtle, inobtrusive beauty); composed of Japanese yuzu, choice sandalwood and osmanthus absolute – nothing more. It can’t be improved upon.

 

Maison Sybarite Amber Gaze: created by Master Perfumer Antoine Lie, this line of water-based fine fragrances manages to be both full-bodied and tenacious. Amber Gaze was recently awarded Best Fragrance at Refinery29’s Beauty Innovator Awards 2020, and it’s easy to smell why. It seamlessly blurs the lines between creamy, floral and spicy: jasmine, tuberose and violet cavort shamelessly with chili pepper, pink pepper, sweet spice, labdanum, sandalwood, vanilla and patchouli. There’s nothing cloying about it. You smell it and you sigh…

 

Parfumeurs du Monde Brin de Peau: Perfumer Clémentine Humeau tread the pilgrim’s path to Compostela and this sunwarmed composition was the result of her journey, diary, impressions. Showcasing the tobacco flower, Brin de Peau smells of hay with musky ambrette emulating the flesh. Swirls of dusty turmeric and jasmine entwine. Enchanting, ephemeral and spiritual, it is embroidered with the haunting of memory.

 

 Sultan Pasha Attars Chypre Chrysantheme: from our prolific attarwalla comes this ever-so-complex, shape-shifting chypre: another master study in the art of perfumed chiaroscuro. It’s bright, murky, a fragrant changeling – which makes it fascinating, as well as the fact that it is patently not linear in design, so there’s a journey in store for the wearer. The top is deliciously floral and citrus-y; on its heels arrives one of the quirkiest hearts going, replete with the gorgeous solemnity of chrysanthemum, dulcet flowers dotted with honey, coffee and clary sage. Everything shadowy awaits in its base – animalics, seaweed, oakmoss, labdanum, you name it, and then MORE.  It is unique, unusual and oddly compelling.

 

Jorum Studio Athenaeum: Euan McCall’s iconoclastic fingerprints are all over his latest release Athenaeum. How does a fragrance manage to juggle the semi-monastic and pastoral? There’s an intriguing Narcissus-and-Goldmund aesthetic at work here, from the beeswaxed wood and ink to a honeyed apple and fennel-seasoned Highland lavender. One of the more riveting fragrances this year, Athenaeum may not find itself in everyone’s wheelhouse – but its originality cannot be denied.

 

Madame Chouteau for American Perfumer: Perfumer Shawn Maher’s limited-edition perfume for American Perfumer resembles a master class: apricotty/peachy/plummy/mossy/sandalwood/floral/orris/tobacco/musk joined in holy matrimony. Forget what you thought you knew about fruity-floral-tobacco scents; this is a fresh take on a much-loved theme and nothing about it is humdrum or ordinary. Madame Chouteau is bold and beautiful, full of pioneer backbone.

BLUEHILL Seabreeze: this latest fragrance by Sandy Carr captures every aspect of the Maine coastline – salinity, atmosphere, driftwood and stone; it’s masterful. It takes talented hands to create an exquisite perfume in my least favorite genre. The stony drydown is worth waiting for.

 Honorable mentions: DSH Highland Idyll (Heirloom Elixir no.11), a perfumed paean to the Scottish countryside in full bloom; DSH Poplars and Planes for its photorealistic depiction of forest bathing. Rogue Perfumery Jasmin Antique – one of the fullest-bodied, unsaccharined jasmines with nuclear sillage. Sultan Pasha Attars Basmati Rose: a love at first sniff romance between rice and rose, this potent attar is supremely comforting.

Most Industrious Perfumer of 2020: it has to be Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, who has released 32+ perfumes this year. Is it possible to create so many beautiful perfumes in such a brief span of time? Everyone was special and unique.

I feel badly that there were so many fragrances which I was unable to experience; some of these were easier for my European colleagues to access. Please enjoy their lists as well!

May 2021 prove more gracious to you all. May we be able to press the flesh once more as in less fraught times and be able to greet our friends, loved ones with truly open arms.

-Ida Meister, Senior Editor and Natural Perfumery Editor

Top Ten 2020 Favorite Fragrances -Despina Veneti

Notwithstanding the limitations in sampling fragrances this year, I got acquainted with several beautiful creations throughout 2020. Looking at my list, I realize that these scents took me for a fantasy voyage to some (more or less concrete) destination – or simply to happier days. Considering how odd and hard, and often painful and lonely, this year has been, that is no mean feat. These are my top ten 2020 favorite fragrances in alphabetical order:

Atelier des Ors Rouge Sarây (Marie Salamagne):This primordially sensual, yet infinitely elegant, scent is almost sinfully delectable and downright addictive: dried date and plum compote sprinkled with cinnamon, edible flowers drizzled with vanilla syrup, almondy heliotrope, honeyesque resins, creamy woods… The fragrance’s adventurous spirit and exuberant sensuousness transport the wearer to blazingly hot days in Petra, and to moonlit desert nights along the Silk Road. Indulging to Rouge Sarây’s temptation feels inevitable like destiny; it easily made it among my favorite gourmands of the last decade.

DSH Biwa (Dawn Spencer-Hurwitz) Biwa was created in memory of our colleague, Robert Herrmann, following  his specifically expressed wishes just before he passed. It understandably holds special sentimental value for all of us at Çafleurebon – however, the reason it’s on my list is that it happens to be that wonderful a perfume. Tenacity and softness harmoniously co-exist in this celestial – yet grounding – scent, featuring pearly aldehydes, creamy jasmine rice and ethereal woods. An olfactory voyage to the titular Japanese lake, the realization of a human being’s final fragrant dream, a memory-in-a-bottle for Robert’s numerous friends around the world… but also a testament to Mme Spencer-Hurwitz’s technical prowess, artistic sensibility and warmth of heart.

État Libre d’Orange Exit The King (Cécile Matton-Polge, Ralf Schwieger) A brilliant example of olfactory story-telling (of the kind that Étienne de Swardt’s creative direction so often achieves), this cool, crisp, emerald-green floral chypre features a tenacious, fizzy soapfoam accord that is conceptually consistent to a fragrance that aims to celebrate clean starts. Balancing between modernity and vintage allure, Exit The King radiates a cheerful, chic, mind-clearing energy. Whenever I wear it, I feel a little more optimistic about eventually leaving this year’s anguish behind.

 

Frassaï El Descanso (Irina Burlakova): Part of the brand’s recently released trio of scents that celebrate natural treasures of Argentinian landscapes, the fragrance is an homage to the seamlessly endless, golden wheat fields of the South. It is also one of the most refreshingly original, unexpected creations of the year (just like its two other fragrant “siblings”, Rosa Sacra and Cuir Pampas), with an amazing note of bran balancing between barn straw, tobacco-like hay and a bowl of nutritious cereal, surrounded by subtle florals and woods, ambrette and galbanum, vanilla and tonka bean. El Descanso feels like a cornucopia of Mother Earth’s gifts: it nourishes, protects and keeps the wearer grounded.

Gallivant Bukhara (Ralf Schwieger): Nick Steward’s “perfumed escapism” couldn’t have been more current, more urgently needed than in the year that’s ending. Gallivant’s founder/creative director presented us once more with a fascinating olfactory journey, this time to Uzbekistan’s city of Bukhara, a historical meeting point of cultures, merchandise and knowledge. The earthy, contemplative orris butter is surrounded by sensual spices, dried fruits, suave floral touches, silky woods and ambery resins – and an amazingly breezy aura that carries the smells of the bountiful bazaars, a mineral hint of the faraway sea and the very promise of spring.

Nicolaï Parfumeur-Créateur Bois Bélize Intense (Patricia de Nicolaï): Using guaiac wood and maté (both closely associated with the aromatic tradition of Central/Latin America) as her two key ingredients, Mme de Nicolaï composed an utterly delightful fragrant interpretation of the Belizean forests. Bois Bélize Intense feels like enjoying an invigorating, energising cup of smoked and spicy tea in a cabin amidst the best-smelling forest of one’s imagination: its earthiness embellished with hay and tobacco hues, its woodiness sweetened by lactonic and honeyed nuances. The perfumer’s ever-polished, luminous touch elevates the tangibly earthy notes to the realm of the ethereal, offering us one of the most beautiful, elegant woody scents of the year.

 

Parfums Dusita Moonlight in Chiangmai (Pissara Umavijani): Mme Umavijani’s precious memory of watching her fellow humans from the top of a mountain outside Chiangmai, all of them co-existing under the same starlit sky, gave birth to this soulful, stunning perfume. Succulent citruses, night-blooming jasmine, soft spices, ambery resins and a moist Thai teak wood accord convey the magic of the perfumer’s homeland recollections, as well as her wish to unite people under this scent. The fragrance’s serene energy and air of exotic seductiveness float around the wearer like a gentle nocturnal breeze that blends with the diffused moonlight.

Puredistance Rubikona (Cécile Zarokian): Proving once more her mastery in handling patchouli, Mme Zarokian composed Rubikona as a gorgeous interpretation of the color red, as well as of the timeless appeal and emotional power of rubies. Her patchouli here is moist and fertile, impregnated with nectarous citruses, luxurious florals and a most delectable vanillic/ambery base. Deeply gratifying both conceptually and aesthetically, the generous, extroverted Rubikona radiates glowing opulence, warmth of spirit and voluptuousness that just can’t be helped.

Roberto Greco Porter Sa Peau – L’Objet Parfumant (Rodrigo Flores-Roux): Hypnotically atmospheric in its textured haziness and profoundly sensuous in its pastel carnality, Porter Sa Peau reflects the glory of human skin in its various facets – suppleness, sensitivity, comfort, eroticism… The heady, yet tender, Narcissus is crowned by a wreath of the most elegant of flowers interwoven with rustic twigs; and, even if the floral Prince is lit by an ethereal aldehydic halo, his earthy roots are by no means forgotten. From its first soft touch to its progressively sensual caress, the fragrance is a true olfactory soulmate to Roberto Greco’s photography; if you believe that perfume making can reach the high plains of Art, Mr. Flores-Roux’s creation could prove your case.

Shalini Iris Lumière (Maurice Roucel): In his fifth collaboration with Shalini, Monsieur Roucel created an astonishingly crystalline take on orris butter, an iris seen by the light of the silvery moon .A dewy, nocturnal freshness highlights some unexpected facets of this precious, fundamentally earthy and rooty, main raw material. The sober greenness of galbanum meets the emerald floralcy of muguet, while strategically placed touches of hyacinth and frankincense enhance the cool, watery sensation of an ideal spring night. A perfume of calming grace and luminous finesse.

– Despina Veneti, Senior Editor

Top Ten 2020 Favorite Fragrances Draw

Worldwide: 100 ml of Parfums Dusita Moonlight in Chiangmai

USA ONLY: 30 ml of BLUEHILL Fragrances Seabreeze

UK, EU and USA: 3ml of Sultan Pasha Attars Chypre Chrysantheme

To be eligible you must be a registered reader or your comment will not count. Also please tell us what you think of Ida’s Top Ten 2020 Favorite Fragrances and Despina’s Top Ten 2020 Fragrances and which you would like to win. Draw closes December 31, 2020

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