top 10: 56 posts

Get ready to become intoxicated by Elisa’s heady selection of winter fragrances.

As I write this, it’s 65 degrees – hardly fire-building and hot-toddy weather. But Denver is erratic in spring, and it could easily snow this week. Regardless, winter is the perfect time for perfumes that feel like an après ski fantasy: cozy, firelit, complete with nightcaps. Here are some of my boozy favorites.

Mezcal

MiN New York Barrel – Described by MiN as a “complex cocktail of spirits” including tannins, absinthe, and rum, this wonderful scent has a smoky sweetness that reminds me more of a cross between bourbon and mezcal, laced with intense spices that conjure up whiffs of Chinese mustard and gunpowder.

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Red Magazine’s November issue includes my love letter to Guerlain Chamade in its feature, “10 Fragrances Every Woman Should Own.” I was thinking more along the lines of a great perfume everyone should try, and Chamade made the cut for a number of reasons: it has a distinctive personality, an original form, and it is beyond the trends and whims of fashion. There are many excellent and unexpected selections in the article. For instance, Tania Sanchez makes an impassioned call for Lush’s Gorilla Perfume Breath of God. Michael Donovan writes about Caldey Island Lavender Water, and Sali Hughes makes a great case for considering Chanel No 5.

I also describe why I love Serge Lutens’s Féminité du Bois in Red’s online feature, Best Perfumes for Women.

If you were to suggest fragrances for others to try, what would you include?

Elisa’s round up of autumnal favorites.

If summer is a time for frivolity (tropical “beach scents” whether or not one is near a beach) and winter a time for comfort (rich meals and equally rich orientals), fall is, for me, a time for looking and smelling put together.

Perhaps it’s the diehard spirit of “back to school” – I no longer live by the semester system, but when the September issues come out, I start lusting for collegiate looks and their professional equivalent: sweater vests, schoolboy blazers, plaid trousers. I also reach for perfumes that I think of as “smart,” i.e., conducive to getting down to business. To me, that means ladylike woody florals, chypres, and the dry note of leather (a structured handbag/briefcase to top off the look).

Here are my ten favorite autumnal perfumes for smelling clever and in control.

Donna Karan Signature

Like a low-cut silk blouse, DK Signature sits right at the juncture of “office-appropriate” and “sexy.” This leathery, resinous floral reads as complex but still incredibly sleek, with something like the subtle metallic rasp of a snare drum.

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Elisa on summer favorites

Here in the US, we tend to fight the heat with cold – in the South, that means the AC is always blasting and there’s as much ice in your glass as there is tea. When I lived in Houston, I’d routinely leave a restaurant with goose bumps all over my body, and for a moment, the 100-degree heat outside would feel delicious.

Elsewhere, though – in India, along the equator – people often fight fire with fire, drinking hot tea and eating foods so spicy your scalp prickles with sweat, thus tripping the body’s internal cooling mechanisms.

I prefer the American method when it comes to food and beverage (I’ll be drinking iced coffee until the first snow). But when it comes to perfume, both strategies appeal. Some days I reach for crisp, refreshing colognes, but other days, I crave notes like musk, incense, and narcotic flowers that bloom and billow in the heat.

Cold Perfumes for Summer

Diptyque Philosykos

Wearing Philosykos, the quintessential fig fragrance, you naturally get all the suggestions of lying under a shade tree – green leaves, sweet wood, milky sap. But there’s something in the fig materials that also reminds me of air conditioning chemicals, so a spray of this on a hot day is like a subliminal stroll past the vents of a swamp cooler.

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My most profound scent experience of 2013 happened as I walked down an avenue lined with linden trees not far from my apartment in Brussels. Suddenly I smelled the Kiev of my childhood–the heavy odor of wet asphalt, honeyed lindens and gasoline, and the longing to see my family gripped me  so intensely that I cancelled a pending seaside vacation and instead traveled home. That trip to Ukraine started a series of other visits and other quests.  Several months later as I was having a cup of tea–incidentally, it was linden from my great aunt’s garden–with a cousin I knew only from my parents’ stories, I realized that this year I’ve been on a linden trail.

While experiences like my linden triggered journey don’t happen often, all of my favorite perfumes transport me out of the routine of my day and spark fantasies. In making my best of 2013 list, I included the most interesting fragrances I’ve encountered, but also the ones that made me dream. Patricia and Elisa will also share their favorites below.

Marni

Marni charmed me instantly. I loved its combination of rose and Indian incense, its quirky accents of ginger and cardamom and its lingering drydown of patchouli. The notes are rich and heavy, but the interpretation is sheer and effervescent. It’s a skin scent, rather than a perfume that announces your presence a mile away, but it has plenty of character.

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