Colognoisseur Best of 2018: Part 2- Perfume, Perfumer, Creative Director, and Brand of the Year

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Part 1, yesterday, was my look back at the year in broad terms. Today in Part 2 I get specific naming the best of the year in four categories.

Perfume of the Year: Arquiste Esencia de El Palacio Guayabos– Arquiste Creative Director Carlos Huber and perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux began their exclusive collection for luxury Mexican department store El Palacio de El Hierro in 2016. As of the end of 2018 they have released eight perfumes exploring the botany of Mexico in a set of “tree stories”. Both creative minds behind this collection have always put a little bit of their homeland of Mexico in every Arquiste release they have collaborated on. Saying that, this collection feels like there is heart and soul, along with the country, within each of these excellent perfumes.

Rodrigo Flores-Roux (l.) and Carlos Huber

During the summer I received Guayabos which immediately connected with me. I have worn this weekly since I received it. I’ve sprayed my bed with it. The poodles have inadvertently ended up smelling like it. It is one of the very best perfumes ever made by Sr. Flores-Roux.

I scheduled a call with him at Givaudan to find out how this came together. The concept was to create a guava perfume which captured the ripe guava in his house as child. As an adult the perfumer had to undertake headspace analysis of green guava, ripe guava, and guava blossom. This would lead to a layered effect which captured the esencia of guava. Jasmine and osmanthus provide the perfect floral companions over a clean woody base accord.

Guayabos is my perfume of the year because it was an obra de amor (labor of love) for Srs. Flores-Roux and Huber.

Charna Ethier

Perfumer of the Year: Charna Ethier– 2018 is going to be memorable for the excellent independent perfumer releases. The independent perfumer who had the strongest year was Charna Ethier of Providence Perfume Co. She has been one of the most consistently innovative perfumers I encounter. 2018 is the year where that quality overflowed in three spectacular releases. The first was Vientiane a study in sandalwood which was elevated by a jasmine rice tincture. Next came Lemon Liada an abstraction of lemon eau de cologne with no lemon used as an ingredient. Sedona Sweetgrass captures the scent of the American desert southwest in a photorealistic manner.

The breadth of these three perfumes is not only testament to why the indies rocked 2018 but more specifically why Charna Ethier is my Perfumer of the Year.  

Runner-Ups: Rodrigo Flores-Roux, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Maria McElroy, Cecile Zarokian, and Sarah McCartney

Rania Naim

Creative Director of the Year: Rania Naim– How about this for a to-do list for 2018? Take on the reformulation of one of the great historic perfumes. While doing that create four new contemporary perfumes honoring that history. That would sink most creative directors. That Rania Naim succeeded makes her the easy choice as Creative Director of the Year.

The first part of the year was given over to completing the new formulation of Jacques Fath Iris Gris. Mme Naim oversaw a painstaking effort to achieve something amazing in L’Iris de Fath. She would end up trusting a young creative team to accomplish this; which succeeded spectacularly. The decision to trust in young creative perfumers extends to the Fath’s Essentials releases where perfumers Cecile Zarokian and Luca Maffei produced two perfumes each under Mme Naim’s direction. All four exemplify the creativity still able to be found in the niche sector.

Capturing the past while living in the present means the future is all that is left to Rania Naim; my choice for Creative Director of the Year.

Runner-Ups: Carlos Huber (Arquiste), Victor Wong (Zoologist Perfumes), and Celine Roux (Jo Malone)

Brand of the Year: A Lab on Fire– If other brands weren’t going to show me something different Carlos Kusubayashi allowed perfumer Dominique Ropion to capture “The Morning After” winning an Academy award in And The World Is Yours. A long night into day encapsulated by neroli and cumin. This was followed up by perfumer Emilie Coppermann combining violet along with the De Laire base of Iriseine in a gorgeous purple flower melody called Hallucinogenic Pearl. Mr. Kusubayashi has never been afraid to release what comes of giving perfumers the space to create freely. In 2018 it makes A Lab on Fire my Brand of the Year.

Runner-Ups: DSH Perfumes, 4160 Tuesdays, Arquiste, Jacques Fath, and Jo Malone

Part 1 was my broad overview of 2018

Part 3 is my Top 25 New Perfumes of 2018.

–Mark Behnke

New Perfume Review Providence Perfume Co. Sedona Sweetgrass- Sweet Dreams in the Desert

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If there is a part of the world I have grown to love it is the desert southwest of the US. For what seems like a spare landscape of dusty red rocks it has a natural scent which is indelible to me. A part of that is the combination of the low humidity along with the altitude seem to heighten what there is to smell. There are a few perfumes which capture this very well; Providence Perfume Co. Sedona Sweetgrass is a new addition to my list.

On one of my visits I bought a braid of sweetgrass from one of the Native American tribes out there. It became my companion on many hiking trips as it stayed sealed in a zip lock bag in a little compartment on top of my pack. I know lots of people use lavender to help them relax before bed. There were many nights that braid of sweetgrass was the last thing I smelled before falling asleep in my tent. I couldn’t have put my finger on it at the time but now I know what I was smelling was coumarin. Sweetgrass is one of the higher percentage botanicals containing coumarin. It is a logical place for any perfumer to start a new fragrance.

Charna Ethier

Charna Ethier is the perfumer behind her brand. She is one of the best independent perfumers we have. One reason is her knowledge of her materials along with an innate sensibility at tuning a final formula. What she has done with a perfume inspired by the desert is to make it as expansive as the stars above you on a desert night. This never becomes heavy as it could be with the ingredients she uses. Ms. Ethier finds the wide-open spaces in between her ingredients.

One of my favorite smells of the desert are the tall pine trees. There is a seemingly sharper scent profile to those desert sentinels. Ms. Ethier opens Sedona Sweetgrass with those pinon pines. The provide the green platform upon which to place the sweetgrass. I’m not sure how she makes this as soft as she does, but it is like laying my head down underneath one of those pine trees with my braid of sweetgrass under my nose. Nothing is intrusive it is all relaxing and meditative. After a while the far-off scent of the remains of the campfire swirl through along with some incense which helps the dreamy mood.

Sedona Sweetgrass has 8-10 hour longevity and moderate sillage.

Ms. Ethier has captured what I smelled on many nights in the desert. On the days I wore this I slept with some on my pillow just to remember those days. Sedona Sweetgrass allowed me to enjoy sweet dreams in the desert on those nights.

Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Providence Perfume Co.

–Mark Behnke