top 10: 56 posts

Spring flashes past me in a flurry of pink cherry petals. Every year I anticipate it with the same impatience, whether or not the winter tested me with too many snowy days. I just love the rejuvenation I feel in the air, the promise of something new, and fresh scents all around me. I immediately want to clean out my closet, throw things away, wash windows—what madness!—plan an exciting trip, read new books, learn a new language. I don’t make New Year resolutions; my springs are all about making changes.

In tandem with my bouts of energy, I also crave uplifting perfumes. Because I wear fragrances to match my mood, rather than my seasons, I noticed over the past few years that my springtime staples tend to be invigorating and energizing. They give me an extra jolt when my spirits begin to sag thanks to the nasty colds I catch as the seasons change, and they also make it easier to go through the day when the morning are still too dark and the evenings are still cool.

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881! According to Michael Edwards’s database, that is the number of new launches for 2011. Basically, if you were smelling a new perfume everyday this year, you still would not have covered it all. Not that such thing is to be recommended anyway. As the year winds to a close, it is tempting to offer some sort of recap. As I jotted down my favorites in two categories that I track, niche and prestige (department store), I noticed that I overwhelmingly preferred the department store launches. Most of the niche fragrances released this year seemed to me either overpriced or simply not compelling enough to become my favorites. This is a very personal list, and I do not pretend to have smelled even half of the 881 new launches but here is what caught my attention.

Best Niche Launches

If I had to name only two 2011 favorites, I would pick De Profundis and Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum. Serge Lutens creates an elegant, touching composition by combining the bitterness of green flowers and the resinous chill of incense. De Profundis maintains an exquisite balance between rich and airy, dark and effervescent.

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Do you ever think of perfume as a costume? If you were dressing up for Halloween, what character would you be and what perfume would you wear?

In the spirit of Halloween, I have decided to match some of my favorite fragrances with costumes. One does not need to be a child to play dress up, and with perfume, it is easy to assume a different guise.

To see another one of my top 10 fall favorites list (a bit more conventional one!), please take a look at my post from last year, Favorite Fall Perfumes.

Ballerina

 If the ballerina in question is a fiery Sevillana a la Kitri from Don Quixote, then she needs the hot spicy roses of Guerlain Rose Barbare. If she is an ethereal Giselle, then the gossamer and cool Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist would be more appropriate.

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In the city, with its molten asphalt streets and suffocating subway cars, it is easy to forget the allure of summer. But the moment you leave the city, the summer appears in all of its indolent glory. Everything that seems to have been forgotten returns within a heartbeat—the long days of sunshine, lunches that somehow segue into dinners,  lazy afternoon naps. It seems as if summer is here to stay with its sounds of laughter, waves breaking against the shore, and rain dancing on the roof. And its sensations of rough sand against bare feet, of someone’s lips against your sunburnt skin, of velvety peaches. And its tastes of foraged wild raspberries, of grilled prawns, of milky corn.

And of course, the summer scents. My favorite summer perfumes not only capture the idea of summer, but they also evoke it well into the winter. Since in the summer I tend to have more time to change my perfume wardrobe, I have organized my selections around the scents I like to wear at different times of day.

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On a hot summer day, it is easy to appreciate the allure of a classical cologne, a citrus rich composition accented with green, herbal and orange flower notes. The effervescence of citrus—be it the bracing sharpness of lime, the peppery shimmer of bergamot, the intense verdancy of petitgrain (bitter orange leaves and buds) or the playful sweetness of mandarin—has a refreshing, exhilarating effect. It instantly cools, evoking the delicious sensation of an ice cube melting on hot skin. It creates a light, unobtrusive veil of scent. There is also a very strong logic behind using colognes in warm climates– neroli and petitgrain oils share the same pungent component as perspiration and allow it to become masked by the bright, green freshness of orange flower.

I’m not sure whether my perfume tastes are in flux, or whether I’m being influenced by the fact that our air conditioning broke down in the middle of a heat wave, but lately I have been relishing citrus colognes and exploring this genre in all of its permutations. Below are my ten choices for some of the best colognes I discovered during my quest. Some of them are venerable classics; others are interesting newcomers. While they are perfect on a hot June afternoon, my other criterion for selecting these fragrances is that I would want to wear them year round, mercury level notwithstanding.

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