It seems like this happens every year. I get to mid-August and realize the calendar does not have enough space for me to write about all of the fragrances I think are worth writing about. I can’t just leave them to be ignored but I don’t have the time to write about all of them. As a compromise here are ten new fragrances that I like quite a bit that just never made it to the top of the priority list.

biehl parfumkunstwerke gs03– Geza Schoen wanted to get in on the nu-cologne trend and gs03 is his take on re-inventing and re-invigorating the eau de cologne. He uses a juxtaposition of neroli and mandarin on top of juniper and pepper to create a rapidly developing opening that is akin to trying to capture a summer breeze in a bottle. The heart of iris and rose along with the base of resins and musk make for a bigger bolder eau de cologne than a fragrance with that description might usually confer. This is a fragrance for the beach while watching the waves crash on the shore.

Historiae Mystic Oud– Bertrand Duchaufour’s sixth fragrance for Pascale Oger’s Historiae line is very different than the first five he did. Those were light watercolors of fragrance. Mystic Oud is like a sculpture as M. Duchaufour meticulously constructs a dense as marble fragrance around those stalwarts of rose and oud. He chooses to surround those notes with layers of saffron, aldehydes, vanilla, myrrh, castoreum, and oakmoss. All of this makes Mystic Oud a bit like traveling through a dense fog with large shadows looming just out of sight. Don’t worry they don’t bite and it’s a journey worth taking.

David Jourquin Cuir Tabac– David Jourquin is a native of the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe and he wanted to capture the scents of the market in the capital of Point-a-Pitre. To do this he takes a sturdy lavender and wreathes it in spices before rolling it in a tobacco leaf and creating an olfactory cigar. He takes the cigar and places it in a leather tube which is oiled with the finest patchouli. If you like your tobacco of the olfactory kind Cuir Tabac is one you should add to your humidor.

Mary Greenwell Lemon– Francois Robert attempts to follow-up to the almost cult like Mary Greenwell Plum which he also created. Lemon is by nature a different beast to create a fragrance around especially because it takes a deft hand to keep it from smelling like cleaning products. M. Robert is up to the task as after the lemon opens things up he uses a bouquet of hyacinth, lily of the valley, and narcissus to complement the tart citrus. Clary sage is also present to add an herbal contrast before the whole composition fades to a woody ending. It isn’t Plum but Lemon has many of its own singular pleasures.

Frapin Paradis Perdu– Perfumer Amelie Bourgeois has created a galbanum-centric fragrance which manages to not be a green sledgehammer and instead feels more like a galabanum Pashmina you want to draw closer around your shoulders. Mme Bourgeois uses citron and grapefruit to smooth out the harsher edges of galbanum while still allowing it to be sharply delineated green. The galbanum becomes a little more extroverted in the heart as elemi and basil allow it to have more of the lead. By the time vetiver and cistus come along the galbanum has truly learned to play nice. I usually like my galbanum fragrances to be boisterous but Mme Bourgeois showed me good manners can also be nice too.

PMP Perfumes Dreckig Bleiben– The last time perfumer Mark Buxton and Elternhaus creative director Stefanie Mayr got together they created the transcendent MoslBuddJewChristHinDao. Dreckig Bleiben translates to “stay dirty” which was what the punks in Hamburg, Germany were supposed to say to each other. Dreckig Bleiben never rises to the level of olfactory anarchy necessary to carry off being emblematic of any punk scene I am aware of. If I shuck the PR nonsense and take Dreckig Bleiben on its own merits it is more a cozy campfire made up of citrus and a burning wood mélange of notes. There is a bit of ginger to go with the citrus but that is really the only slightly off-kilter note in the whole thing. Dreckig Bleiben is more for those who bathe daily than “stay dirty”.

Jovoy Gardez-Moi– When Francois Henin handed me a strip of Gardez-Moi at Esxence this past March and was saying it was a gardenia fragrance I was about to say “another one?” Then I smelled it and realized perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour was interested in creating something which evoked the kind of fragrance that would have been around in the 1920’s. To that end Gardez-Moi is no simple gardenia soliflore but a full-fledged nouveau-retro fragrance. M. Duchaufour stuffs, maybe overstuffs, Gardez-Moi with a ton of florals like hyacinth, jasmine, mimosa, lily, and ylang-ylang. This makes for a clamorous floralcy and to take this and make it even more complex add in aldehydes and raspeberry on top; styrax, musk, and vanilla on the bottom and despite all of this it works really well. If you would like your gardenia to be part of an ensemble you won’t find a livelier one than in Gardez-Moi.

Odin New York 10 Roam– For their ninth fragrance Odin New York 10 Roam takes us to the rainforest. This has been one of the most successful lines of masculine perfumes of the last couple years and 10 Roam is filling a gap in the collection with the first unabashed incense fragrance in the Odin New York line. But before getting to the incense you’ll need to get the machete out and work your way through the undergrowth of green ginger lily, saffron and pepper leaf. This has a green aspect along with the fecund nature of a humid jungle. It then finds the tropical smells of coconut and coffee flower. When you finally sense the incense skirling up from the base there is also a dark woody complement along with it. 10 Roam is another above average entry in an above average line of fragrances carrying the Odin New York label.

Keiko Mecheri Savile– Keiko Mecheri wanted to create a fragrance which evoked London in the 60’s and instead of Austin Powers she wanted something more refined and elegant and so she has offered up a modern fougere. Savile starts with an outstanding lavender which is then layered with orris and jasmine before being further clothed in leather and tobacco. The middle part of Savile oozes class and sophistication. It is what the well-dressed London gentleman was wearing…last week.

Keiko Mecheri Sedona Blue– Ms. Mecheri clearly knows what she wants out of her fragrances which conjure up the high desert. Just like last year’s Canyon Dreams, Sedona Blue captures both the lung clearing altitude and the dusty earth that fills out the horizon. Sedona Blue is sunrise in a power circle as citrus and ozonic notes combine to capture the vault of the sky. A light sprinkling of spices ground our attentions before woods bring us back to center. I’m not sure how Ms. Mecheri knows how to re-create the smell of the desert so well but Sedona Blue makes her two-for-two.

I really wish I had time to write about everything I think is good but I just couldn’t let these ten go by without pointing them out. Give them a try next time you’re out looking for something new.

Disclosure: gs03, Gardez-Moi, Savile, and Sedona Blue I received as samples while at Esxence. Mystic Oud was a sample provided by Fragrance and Art. Dreckig Bleiben was from a bottle I purchased. Cuir Tabac, Lemon, 10 Roam, and Paradis Perdu came from samples I purchased.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor