Here is our eclectic selection of favorite fragrances, including older perfumes we most enjoyed wearing this year. We also would love to read your lists of 2015 highlights–perfumes, books or anything else that stood out. Bois de Jasmin will return on Monday, January 4th, and in the meantime we wish you a happy and fragrant new year! We look forward to another year together with all of you.

The “Best of” in the title of this article should be taken with a grain of salt. I spend enough time testing fragrances and thinking about them, but even so, I’m hard pressed to remember everything I tried this year, much less to rank my preferences in a logical manner. But would such a list even be interesting? When Elisa, Andy, Patricia and I exchanged thoughts about our discoveries in 2015, we quickly realized that our lists fascinated us for their idiosyncrasies.

Victoria’s 2015 Favorites

Alaïa Paris by Azzedine Alaïa

Alaïa is doubtless my favorite launch of 2015. Describing it as floral leather doesn’t convey all of its nuances and its thoroughly modern way of reinterpreting this classical idea. It feels impeccably elegant and yet without anything fussy or too high-maintenance.

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We have our “Recommend Me a Perfume” thread today. You can use this space to ask any questions about perfume, including fragrance recommendations. We wish you Merry Christmas and hope that your holidays are filled with joy and light. Please come back on Monday, December 28th for a roundup of our favorite 2015 discoveries.

Also, a reminder that the vintage Diorissimo contest is still open. You also have a chance to win vintage Chanel Cristalle, Chanel No 5 parfum, Diptyque Volutes and Serge Lutens La Fille de Berlin (thank you to everyone who contributed these fabulous prizes).

How does it work: 1. Please post your requests or questions as comments here. You can also use this space to ask any fragrance related questions. To receive recommendations that are better tailored to your tastes, you can include details on what you like and don’t like, your signature perfumes, and your budget. And please let us know what you end up sampling. 2. Then please check the thread to see if there are other requests you can answer. Your responses are really valuable for navigating the big and sometimes confusing world of perfume, so let’s help each other!

To make this thread easier to read, when you reply to someone, please click on the blue “reply” link under their comment.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin

Elisa on the return of an old-school rose.

Ultra-feminine and quite literal roses were popular during my childhood, in the ‘80s. Think Perfumer’s Workshop Tea Rose, which is fresh, pink, and photorealistic, but – somewhat undermining the delicacy of its namesake – possessing mushroom-cloud sillage and nuclear tenacity. Or Her Majesty’s Rose, the rose soliflore available at Victoria’s Secret, back when its aesthetic was more lacy-nightgown-in-a-country-cottage and less sex-bomb-in-garters. I had a coffret of perfume minis from VS when I was about 12, and the rose one, while pretty, reminded me distinctly of potpourri in antique shops.

I apparently wasn’t the only one to make that association. Moving into the ‘90s, roses that smelled like roses were about as uncool as you could get. In junior high, my mall-going friends and I ditched Her Majesty’s Rose and the other overt florals and embraced Tranquil Breezes, an intense and distinctive cucumber-melon scent. Around that time the perfume I most wanted to smell like was Calvin Klein Escape. Over the next few years I ended up with bottles of CK One, L’Eau d’Issey, and Polo Sport – aquatic, blue-smelling calone bombs to a one!

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My grandmother Valentina’s approach to food is simple–if it doesn’t taste good, it can’t be good for you. She doesn’t have patience for the self-induced sufferings of health food devotees, and she remains suspicious of green juices, raw beet salads and salt-free cabbage soups. I once loved to experiment with all of the above. To my credit I even convinced a friend to try a raw food diet for a week. Such an idea in the Soviet Union during winter wasn’t for the fainthearted. Our food supply was ideal for Park Slope locavores–seasonal. It meant that once we got fed up with last year’s apples and carrots, we moved onto raw potatoes. There is a reason–and I suspect, evolutionary sense–why humanity has chosen to give potatoes some form of thermal treatment.

After that infelicitous experience,  I’ve remained immune to most food fads, preferring instead to follow Valentina’s logic. Above all, it must taste good. Although Valentina doesn’t care for raw lettuce, she has a repertoire of vegetable salads, many of which she makes during the summer and preserves for the winter. Her pantry shelves are lined with jars of pink cabbage, eggplant slices in a spicy sauce, pickled zucchini or honey marinated peppers. Since Belgian markets have peppers all year round, the latter is an effortless dish to put together, summer or winter. I skip the canning part.

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Recently I was interviewed on the BBC about a new study on the attraction of smells we consider unpleasant. The research undertaken by a group of Scottish and Czech scientists revealed that women prefer the sweat of men who had eaten garlic. I was somewhat skeptical about the study and especially the explanations, but I find nothing surprising about the appeal of so-called bad odors. Our noses are more precise and interesting than we think, and it only takes a walk through a fragrance lab to discover what kind of unpleasant materials are essential for the most beautiful of perfumes.

This topic is the subject of my Financial Times Magazine column. I explain why bad smells are important in perfumery and even take you to a special place in the lab where pungent ingredients are mixed.

“One of the paradoxes of perfumery is that to create a good smell, you need a bit of funk. A strawberry accord won’t smell convincing without a sulphurous accent. Recreating a dewy white blossom requires the same substances that are present in horse sweat. There is even a space in every perfume lab devoted to materials with strong, reeking odours, and it’s appropriately called ‘the stinky room’. Next to the roses and vanillas in a perfumer’s palette, notes reminiscent of dirty hair, musty fur, burnt toast or decaying fruit have their place of honour – costus, musks, civet, pyrazines and many other pungent ingredients. They may be used in small quantities, but they’re important enhancers, giving vibrancy, texture and spice to an otherwise conventional fragrance.” To continue, please click here.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin