Colognoisseur Best of 2020 Part 1: Overview

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That 2020 has been an unusual year would be an understatement. None of the fragrance expos. No trips to NYC for perfume events. Instead it turned out to be a different kind of exploration. I’ve been hovering around 650-700 new perfumes tried every year since I started Colognoisseur nearly seven years ago. If you asked me in May if I would be close to that I would’ve been skeptical. Yet when I look at the last line on my 2020 spreadsheet the number reads 634.

One of the reasons it is close to a normal year is I reached out to some new lines for samples. Over the course of the year I was able to delve into new independent perfumers; Jorum Studios, Libertine, Baruti, Christele Jacquemin, and Chronotope. It was a great experience which allowed me to see developing aesthetics in one piece. It was brands like these which provided that fun of finding something new which usually comes from Esxence or Pitti.

One of the trends that seemed to expand dramatically was that of reviewers becoming creative directors of their own perfumes. Most of these were as cynical as the mainstream releases using focus groups to design their fragrances. They just tried to decide what their readers/subscribers liked best based on measured response and made something to reflect that. That’s just a focus group in a different costume. There is a fantastic template for anyone serious about doing this. Just look at Victor Wong of Zoologist. He has gone from Facebook to the Fragrance Foundation Perfume Extraordinaire Award this year. He makes perfumes he likes while trusting there is an audience. So far, he has been right.

Renaud Salmon of Amouage

Amouage went through a big change as new creative director Renaud Salmon took charge. Over the course of the last half of the year M. Salmon reassured me that this important brand is going to do well as it moves in a different direction. I believe it will continue to be one of the key creative brands in perfumery.

This was also a year for some truly odd accords for perfumes to be built upon. One which repeated over and over was the scent of horse. Maison D’Etto’s entire collection is based on horses from creative director Brianna Lipovsky’s life. Ignacio Figueras Palm Beach and Sarah Baker Bascule also brought some thoroughbreds to the party.

Wet cardboard was the centerpiece of Nez 1+1 Folia. Clay pottery formed the nucleus of Jazmin Sarai Fayoum. Freddie Albrighton and Antonio Gardoni challenged me with one of the most difficult fragrances of the year in Douleur!2. It walks right on the edge of unpleasant, which was its intent.

The gourmand style of perfume continues to evolve as 2020 was bookended by Rasei Fort Cielito Lindo and Masque Milano Le Donne di Masque Madeleine. Both finding a new level for the genre.

If there was one thing I realized as I was looking back over the year I must have written a riff on the following a lot this year. “The dual nature of iris as both powdery and rooty was on display”. 2020 is the year of iris. It is also the year of great iris perfumes as you will see as I unveil the list of the best of the year.

I also want to close this overview with a thanks to everyone on the perfume side who assisted me in getting perfume sent to me. I may not have left the house, but the world of perfume showed up on my doorstep daily.

My other thanks are to the readers of this blog. In this ridiculous year of uncertainty writing for you every day was one of the few bits of normalcy which remained for me. I cherish that you choose to share my passion for perfume by dropping by.

I’ll be back tomorrow with my picks for Perfume, Perfumer, Creative Director and Brand of the Year. That will be followed by my Top 25 new perfumes of 2020.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review NEZ Folia- The Beauty of Decay

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Perfumery is full of examples of pleasant smells. Yet that is not what makes up the entirety of the scent spectrum. Odd odors and strangely compelling things we sniff furtively because they shouldn’t appeal are also part of it. There have been precious few perfumes which attempt to travel this path of fascination with the possibility of finding beauty from the outré. NEZ 1+1 Folia looks for it in the decaying vegetation of a damp forest floor.

Julien Rasquinet (l.) and Eva Jospin

Folia is the second within the 1+1 collection from the perfume magazine NEZ. It can be included in the order for the latest issue, #9, if you order from their website. The idea of the collection is to take a perfumer and add them to an artist from a different discipline as inspiration and creative director. For Folia, the perfumer is Julien Rasquinet. The artist is French sculpture artist Eva Jospin who uses cardboard as her medium. Based on the story in the magazine the place where their experiences intersected was where a small brook has collected dead leaves atop some wet stones and roots. This is reminiscent of what you find in the early spring as the snow has almost all melted. A compact sense of dank vegetal decay.

The scent of damp rotting leaves is where Folia begins. If you’ve ever been in the woods in early spring, you will recognize this. It has an unusual sweetness that isn’t unpleasant, but I wouldn’t ever define it as pretty. It sets you up for the remainder of the development. The dampness is intensified as violet leaf and a mineralic accord provide water and stone. There is also a chill which runs through it at this point. It goes very earthy and mushroom-like as geosmin, patchouli, and vetiver form the base accord. This is that slightly stinky wet earth waking from underneath the snow. I like the oddity of it all when it comes together. They say there is a tiny hint of orange blossom in here. You have a better nose than I if you find it. Maybe it is there in what I describe as the sweetness of the decayed leaves, but I can’t say for sure.

Folia has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.

I enjoy the audacity of making a perfume which embraces these kinds of weird scents. It seems a natural as an add-on to a magazine for perfume lovers like NEZ. I loved being asked to consider the beauty of decay.

Disclosure: This review is based on a bottle I purchased.

–Mark Behnke