Top Ten Perfumes of 2022 Emmanuelle Varron Senior, Editor and Paris Brand Ambassador and Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor

Now that you have heard from Ermano and me, (our Top Ten Perfumes of 2022 here) and (The Best Fragrances of 2022 here), Ida and Lauryn’s we continue our Ten Best Perfumes of 2022 lists today with Sr. Editors Emmanuelle Varron and Nicoleta Tomsa, their choices are very different. Now it’s time to reveal their respective Top Ten Perfumes of 2022 –Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief

2022 has been an intense year in terms of releases: new fragrances, of course, but also  many many new brands, I was often overwhelmed with the feeling of not being able to keep up with the pace of these multiple launches. Furthermore Esxence 2022, back after a three-year absence (and my first one), which was so exciting but hard to control, as temptations and favorites have multiplied. Choosing Top Ten Perfumes of 2022 was a very complicated exercise, with tough choices. I chose to highlight fragrances with raw materials that surprise, reveal new facets and perspectives; fragrances that turned me upside down, confused me sometimes and gave me hope that creativity was not yet buried in perfumery. I hope that this new momentum will encourage perfumers (and brands!) even more not to reproduce but to invent, to take risks and step out of their comfort zone. The recent initiatives of raw materials producers, composition houses included, to reinterpret Nature both in natural and via synthetic molecules in an eco-responsible approach is in any case an encouraging signal.-Emmanuelle Varron, Senior Editor and Paris Brand Ambassador

Emmanuelle’s Top Ten Perfumes of 2022 in alphabetical order:

BDK Parfums Ambre Safrano (Julien Rasquinet)  Until recently a Harrods exclusive, BDK Parfums Ambre Safrano was unveiled to me a few months in advance thanks to the generosity of David Benedek, the brand’s founder. The list of raw materials made me salivate: accords of saffron, plum and leather coated in rose, vanilla and olibanum, with a hint of black pepper… that’s how to celebrate spices with sensuality. The fragrance accompanied a good part of my summer, in a register very far from the classic citrus fruits that are worn as soon as the temperatures rise. Saffron is of rare power and transports me to the heart of a spice market in the souk of Marrakech. It’s a trip that I haven’t done in real life for a very long time and BDK Parfums Ambre Safrano is typically the perfume that makes me want to buy a plane ticket right away. Julien Rasquinet has this talent for making any combination of raw materials obvious. Here, it almost sounds like a no-brainer… And that’s what makes it a fragrance that we become attached to. @bdkparfumsparis @davidbdk1 @julienrasquinet

Zoologist Cow (Nathalie Feisthauer): Nathalie Feisthauer told me about a fragrance she had created for Zoologist called Cow a few months before its release, a perfume which had led her into a much more figurative olfactory universe than her usual compositions. Alas, it is very difficult to find the brand’s perfumes in France. So, thanks to her great generosity, Nathalie Feisthauer offered me a sample and a small bottle from her lab. Having spent all my childhood summers in the Normandy countryside, in a house surrounded by fields of cows, I was impatient to discover her own interpretation: what a surprise! I found together all the smells that were familiar to me: green apple, milk, sage and freshly cut grass treated with the delicacy that characterizes the perfumer’s work. A floral and spring bouquet accentuates the rural facet: lily of the valley, violet and jasmine form a wild bunch, one of those that one composes while strolling in the middle of the countryside. The musks and benzoin bring roundness full of tenderness after a few hours: a real delight! zoologistperfumes @nathaliefeisthauer

The Different Company Dance of the Dawn (Emilie Coppermann): Patchouli has been featured in many fragrances released this year. Which is quite daring, because if it is one of the most used raw materials in perfumery… it puts off a very large number of consumers (which I can confirm thanks to my saleswoman experience) who systematically interpret it as an olfactory version of a wild “Peace and Love” 70’s festival. But Master Perfumer Emilie Coppermann has this talent for magnifying raw materials, which are often difficult to tame. And The Different Company Dance of the Dawn was an immediate crush, discovered in the corridors of Esxence. An impressively long-lasting cologne that transports me directly to Indonesia. Sulawesi patchouli is luminous, made fresh by an opening blending mandarin, black and pink pepper. The driftwood brings a salty facet and the Diviniris® a flowery touch of a beautiful softness. As the hours go by, vanilla comes to bring roundness to The Different Company Dace of the Dawn, making it a fragrance that can be worn from early morning till the heart of the night. @thedifferentcompany @emilie.coppermann

Voyages Imaginaires L’Eau des Immortels (Isabelle Doyen and Camille Goutal) : I recently shared with you my huge “coup de coeur” on Voyages Imaginaires L’Eau des Immortels. My enthusiasm does not wane for this creation signed by Isabelle Doyen-Camille Goutal, who master to perfection the art of mixing the most noble raw materials while magnifying them individually, with an unfussy harmony. A perfume of great poetry, which sublimates immortelle by associating it with amyris, with a gourmet touch brought by vanilla and tonka bean, and the balmy magic of benzoin and labdanum. Voyages Imaginaires L’Eau des Immortels was in my Top 10 of the year as soon as I smelled it last June in Milan. It is the sign of a perfume that does not cross my olfactory sensitivity like a shooting star. Its 100% botanical composition is not an essential criterion for me. I see more in it the ability to compose a fragrance with a very reduced perfume organ, a real exercise in style and artistic expression once again handily taken up by Voyages Imaginaires. @voyagesimaginairesparfums @camillegoutal

L’Artisan Parfumeur Iris de Gris (Quentin Bisch): The launches of L’Artisan Parfumeur, a brand that I know and have worn since its creation in 1976, have lacked a bit of audacity in recent years. Pretty things sometimes, but nothing revolutionary as this house was a few years ago. Surprise! The Potager collection is undoubtedly one of the greatest achievement of 2022: featuring vegetables in the composition of perfumes is not necessarily new, but it is the first time that a brand takes risks by launching five fragrances at once. The smart thing was to mix really avant-garde creations with other more classical ones, without denying the highlighting of the vegetable garden spirit. I have had several favorites in this collection, but I particularly appreciate L’Artisan Parfumeur Iris de Gris, which offers a unique interpretation of the iris, one of the most noble raw materials in perfumery. By pairing it with green pea, perceptible from the very first seconds, Quentin Bisch gives it a crisp, green facet, intensified by galbanum earthy notes; a thousand miles from the cosmetic powdered iris. A real return to inventiveness that deserves to be renewed! @lartisanparfumeur @quentinbischperfumer

Top Ten Perfumes of 2022

Isabelle Larignon Milky Dragon (Isabelle Larignon) :For her second creation, the most independent French perfumer I know was inspired by Milky Oolong, a Chinese tea with milky and buttery notes. Isabelle Larignon has composed a true olfactory potion, with multiple facets: a spicy and herbaceous freshness from the very first seconds, where bergamot, buchu, cardamom and sage form an explosive quartet. Then make way for sweetness, the one you feel when you drink a cup of Milky Oolong, thanks to the lactones and the hazelnut. Then rose, jasmine and violet, both lightful and enveloping, give a floral facet that brings a delicious, intimate and voluptuous breath accentuated by the woody notes of cashmeran, cedar and fir balsam. Isabelle Larignon Milky Dragon is a perfume like you almost never smell, both conceptual in its spirit, and disturbingly obvious once on the skin. You can feel all the thinking behind its composition, the voice of a young perfumer who claims her creativity with a unique speak up. There is everything to make it a brand with strong DNA and everything to ensure that the olfactory and aesthetic brilliance of Isabelle Larignon remains the result of instinctive work where the counters are reset each time. This is what makes Isabelle Larignon Milky Oolong a true artist’s perfume. @isalarignon

Cristian Cavagna Murice Imperiale (Cristian Cavagna and Arturetto Landi): I could have completely missed Cristian Cavagna at Esxence 2022: it was thanks to Ida Meister, who knows that I am madly in love with tuberose, that I visited the perfumer’s booth, a true artist who initiated a collection entirely dedicated to my beloved flower, and whose third creation was introduced in Milan. It was love at first sniff and I could not wait to try IRL the whole collection. All three are superb! But let me get back to 2022:  Imagine an oceanic tuberose, cultivated in the seabed by a siren in love with beautiful perfumes. Cristian Cavagna Murice Imperiale is a divisive fragrance, whose ultra-sensual tuberose and saffron facets coexist with the more earthy and darker ones of petrichor, red seaweed and ambergris. Dividing but fascinating, and which has so much personality that it has its place among the best perfumes of the year. I wish it could be found In France, as both fragrances and bottles have the perfect style to be adopted by my people. For now, I’m looking forward to more, as Cristian Cavagna is working on the collection fourth perfume… @cristiancavagna

Abstraction Paris Our Own Backyard 194 (Alexandra Carlin): I have not yet told you about Abstraction, a young French brand launched by perfumer Sébastien Plan close to Sacré-Coeur. He and four other “colleagues” (Mylène Alran, Alexandra Carlin, Amélie Jacquin and Alexander Lee) each worked on a duo of fragrances representing their image of love and the couple, with total freedom for the authors. Among these ten perfumes, Alexandra Carlin’s Abstraction Our Own Backyard 194 has been obsessing me for several months. The 2022 French FiFi winner had previously introduced me to the Symrise vegetable SymTrap® (obtained by upcycling steam during food cooking). The onion one particularly impressed me with its warm and sensual aspect and, lucky me, it is used here for the first time in a marketed perfume. I can tell you it is an olfactory shock, surprising and fascinating. The first seconds on the skin are disconcerting because I could perceive the sulfur facet specific to the onion when it is fresh, but it is very fleeting: it actually goes wonderfully with the warm milk accord and the white musks used by Alexandra Carlin to reproduce skin heated by a night of love. Fir balsam, patchouli, cashmeran®, ambroxide® and ambrinol® give it a base that is both woody and animalic, allowing this skin fragrance to gain in intensity over the hours. And to trouble me every time I wear it. @abstractionparis @lecassisetlecumin, @alexandracarlinperfumer

Bastille Rayon Vert (Caroline Dumur): I had already started a relationship with so-called “green” perfumes in 2021, enthusiastic about the desire of perfumers to modernize this redundant facet in recent years. I remained under the spell in 2022, partly thanks to Bastille Rayon Vert which magnifies the aromatic trend, highlighted here by basil worked with fennel and anise. An ode to an optimistic and revitalized nature, which puts a smile on your face as soon as you wear it. Caroline Dumur has added flowers full of poetry: chamomile, immortelle and angelica, accompanied by a sweet neroli. I loved wearing Bastille Rayon Vert from the first days of spring: this fragrance created in the midst of the COVID pandemic is like a symbol of renewal, of the desire to move forward with simplicity but with generosity. A feel-good fragrance that I never tire of. @bastille_parfums @carolinedumurparfumeur

Headspace Tubéreuse (Nicolas Beaulieu): A tuberose, again, but this time worked in its cold, mysterious and sophisticated facet. The principle of this new brand launched by Nicolas Chabot is to accompany a raw material with another one that is familiar to us but doesn’t exist in the perfumer organ and can be created thanks to the headspace technique. For Headspace Tubereuse, it was the cigarette that was captured, for an astonishing duo. The tuberose is magnified here in its green and wild facet, where its narcotic notes are dressed in galbanum, vanilla… and tobacco. Its evolution is divine, and its opening troubling: from the first seconds, I can easily identify the smell of cigarette smoke. Not the one smoked in a hurry by habit and addiction. No, the one you usually smoke after a few moments of intimacy with the loved one, slowly and intensely. The tuberose chosen by Nicolas Beaulieu is carnal, ultra-sophisticated and was an immediate favorite at Esxence 2022, where the brand was presented for the first time. And it is without a doubt the perfume I would like to wear on a first date. @headspaceparfum, @nicolasbeaulieuparfumeur

Emmanuelle’s Honorable Mentions include perfumes and brands EACH WIN AN AWARD BECAUSE THEY ALL  DESERVE ONE and in no particular order: Celine Haute Parfumerie, Cherigan, Dior Eau Noire, Fueguia 1833, Le Galion Ferveur, Olibanum, Eris Parfums Scorpio Rising, Spiritum Paris, Elementals Tong Ren.

Marc-Antoine Corticchiato in his labo – by Emmanuelle Varron©.

Best independent perfumer  Marc-Antoine Corticchiato of Parfum D’Empire: I have (luckily) known Marc-Antoine Corticchiato for more than a decade, and he is one of the perfumers I admire the most. Founder of Parfum d’Empire, which is still an independent brand. Marc-Antoine Corticchiato is faithful to his philosophy of magnifying raw materials in their purest aspect, MAC (as many people call him) does not give in to  what is trendy, and that is why he is so respected. Each of his creations is awaited with impatience… and patience, as the perfumer does not compose his fragrances with a stopwatch. And his inspiration exudes sincerity, of course.  As I did not put Parfum d’Empire Vétiver Bourbon in my Top 10 of the year (I warned you, the selection was difficult, but thankfully Michelyn did), I use my wildcard  by designating him as my Best Independent Perfumer of the year. Restoring nobility to a material as popular as vetiver is no small feat, but it is one of MAC’s great talents.  I consider him to be  a national treasure  not only in 2022 but for a much longer time! @parfumdempire

Emmanuelle Varron, Senior Editor and Paris Brand Ambassador

 

 Nicoleta’s Top Ten Perfumes of 2022

Before sitting down and taking time to write this year’s top ten, I revisited my past year years articles and smiled, as some things become more obvious once you take enough distance to see them clearly. Many parallels have been drawn between the five stages of grief and life in a post-pandemic world and the Kubler-Ross model, initially developed for studying people who were dying, was proven to be true for how we all generally process grief and trauma.  Revisiting my 2020 top, filled to the brim with joyous gourmands and bright compositions, I chuckled. Denial much? Ahem. My 2021 was not angry per se but intense, but many of my choices were placed in escapist worlds, some built around abstract concepts and others rooted in mythology or distant imaginary pasts.  If the algorithm is to be applied this year, now is the time for bargaining. Between my newfound love for feminine soft musks and florals and bouncing back to the safety blanket of resinous dark corners or delicious gourmands, and all the way in between, my love for the olfactive art does not grow dim but rekindles itself in new, rewarding, and surprising ways. And if you will allow me to paraphrase Pablo Picasso — “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life,”  These perfumes were my favorite cleaning tools and oh boy, did I need a good dusting this year! My Top Ten Perfumes 2022 in no particular order. –Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor

Parfums Dusita Montri (Pissara Umavijani) – You know that quote from The Catcher in the Rye “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody”? Well, our wonderful Pissara did the opposite. She told us everything. And I thank her for that, even though Montri is a fragrance that has a reversed kind of iridescence– with deep colors that shift away from the light, opening up in darkness, and a shadow of oud that is fluttering like a butterfly caught beneath the skin of a gentile beast that is tamed but never domesticated.

Azman Majnoon – Perfumer Prin Lomros gave AZMAN Majnoon the perfect dosage of “crazy”- the color, kick, conflict, and exuberance, are all there in perfect proportions. It does read not read on my skin as a classical olfactive pyramid, but more of a seamless, flowing story arc – a cliffhanger of delicious, bombastic olfactive drama that will keep you alert, adrenalized, and kicking.

Etat Libre D’Orange Frustration (Mathilde Bijaoui) – Etat Libre D’Orange Frustration is a delicious gourmand with a dark soul that still manages to keep a wide-eyed sense of possibility. For me, it summoned the image of a sexy chef, sleeves rolled up, cigarette in the corner of the mouth, opening roasted chestnuts with a sharp pocket knife. In the red kitchen of the Black Lodge. My pick of choice for many autumns to come.

Manos Gerakinis METHEXIS (Chris Maurice) – a sparkling river filled with milky sweet fruits, overflowing with honey, framed by creamy woody notes and with a touch of cocoa depth & darkness for a very sophisticated gourmand effect. Fit for a naughty faun with a sweet tooth, out on the prowl for the ripest fig of the land.

Maison Tahité – Officine Creative Profumi I-Ristretto- a tribute to the most iconic Italian coffee, and also my preferred way to drink it: short, dark, strong, dense, and bitter. Arabica coffee combined with a powdery Iris for a scent it’s worth getting up for, over and over again.

Top Ten Perfumes of 2022

 Ramon Monegal Hazy Rose (Ramon Monegal) Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” and I have nothing but love and enthusiasm for any scent that has the magical note woven in its pyramid: smeared with lipstick, smoked in incense, covered in chocolate, deeply buried in patchouli, dipped in oud or scattered along wood nervures, it’s all good to me. Be them the main character or just whispering in the corners,  I can never have too much – from the bright dewy pink petals of the green ones all the way to the crimson benighted gothic petals, and everything in-between –color me interested But a hazy rose? Made by Senor Monegal himself? Between the tender, the explicit, and the suggested, the main theme is seduction – in its best, deep, and most sensuous rosy form.

Guerlain Musc Outreblanc “Would you please put down that telephone /We’re under fifteen feet of pure white snow”. On the highway from Lothlorien to Moria, crisp early morning, a high elf is shoveling snow, whistling a Nick Cave song, and wearing a white cashmere sweater. White on white with a whiter shade of pale. It’s otherworldly, pure, quiet, transparent, monolithic, and luminous. I think it just made me enter my musc era, reloaded.

Zoologist Cow:Nathalie Feistheur- Refreshing, tender, feels like eating a crisp granny smith apple, laying on your back, imagining animals shapes out of the clouds in the sky, not a care in the world. Please don’t be angry with me, but each time I wore my sample, I also sang the infamous Doja Cat song with this name

Filippo Sorcinelli Pioggia Moderata– A beautiful, atmospheric scent that replicates the way the streets of Milan smell after the rain. The damp and organic earthy smell, old buildings breathing secrets through locked gates, and the halos of street lights, flickering in the rain – all mix into an immersive gateway to an olfactive universe in which to get lost.

Nina Ricci, Nina Soleil – and what begins to be my tradition of squeezing in a “cheapie” at the end, if you love gourmands don’t miss out on this limited edition deliciousness made by Oliver Cresp and Amandine Clerc-Marie. Made with Chantilly cream, this one is a fresh, mouthwatering fluffy citrusy creamsicle gourmand that is never too much, too heavy, or too sweet.

For our part 4 Top Ten perfumes of 2022 Giveaways

Thanks to the generosity of Etat Libre D’Orange we have a 100 ml bottle of Frustration for one registered reader in the USA, EU or UK

Mille Mercis to Isabelle Larignon, we have a 50 ml bottle of Milky Dragon for one registered reader in USA, UK and EU. You must register or your comment will not count.

Thanks to the generosity of  Zoologist Perfumes there is a 60 ml bottle of Cow in North America You must register or your comment will not count.

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