The Candies 2013: The Very Best and Very Worst Perfumes of 2013

The Candies 2013: The Very Best and the Very Worst Perfumes of the Year

Can you believe that 2013 is coming to a close already? I certainly can’t! It only feels like yesterday that I was sat at my laptop, tapping away at the first reviews of the year and looking forward to the exciting new smells that next 365 days would bring. It has, all-in-all, been a very good year, with lots of interesting new perfumes launched, and on a more personal note too, as this year I took on the exciting role of Fragrance Expert for Escentual.com.

The perfumes have come thick and fast over the year, and once again the industry has seen an increase in the overall number of perfumes launched. Over the year we’ve seen our fair share of masterpieces, duds, flankers and celebrity money makers in, and as with any other year it has been a roller coaster ride of an experience sifting through just a tiny portion of what has been released.

In this post – my annual perfume awards (‘The Candies’) – I’m taking a look at my fragrant highlights of the year and those perfumes that have impressed, moved and surprised me. I’m also highlighting the specific scents that have failed to meet the mark this year and are disappointing enough to warrant naming and shaming. So sit back, don your red carpet gown (or suit), pop the champagne and enjoy The Candies 2013.

[Please also head over to my fragrant brothers and sisters who are sharing their very best perfumes of 2013; Persolaise, Olfactoria’s Travels, Eyeliner on a Cat, Fragrant Moments, Perfume Shrine, I Smell Therefore I Am, SmellyBlog and The Fragrant Man.]

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The Final Perfume Review of the Year ft. Tauer Perfumes, Vero Profumo, Puredistance & Hiram Green

The Final Review of 2013: Tauer Phi Une Rose de Kandahar, Vero Profumo Voile d’Extraits, Hiram Green Moon Bloom and Puredistance BLACK

I am plagued by a constant lack of organisation in my life and it’s always at this time of year that I cannot help but feel I am running out of time. In a little over a week, 2013 will be a distant memory on the horizon and everyone and everything will be fully focused on what 2014 will bring.

But it isn’t time to give up on 2013 just yet, after all It has been a busy year for perfume tmwith way over 1,000 new launches to sniff and throughout the year I’ve been seeking out the good, the bad and the downright ugly to help you know what to bother with and what to ignore. On the 27th December I’ll be holding my annual perfume awards (‘The Candies’) but before we start the celebrations I wanted to share with you four reviews of perfumes that (for the most part) deserve not to be ignored this year.

Here you’ll find new scents from the likes of Tauer Perfumes, Vero Profumo and Puredistance – venerable houses that constantly push the boundaries of the perfume industry, as well as Hiram Green, a newcomer. So for the very final review of the year let’s take one last look at some new fragrances that have helped make 2013 one heck of an interesting year for perfumery.

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New Escentual Post: Red, Green and Gold – The Fragrant Colours of Christmas

I’m finishing this week as I started with another Christmas post. For my Escentual column this week I thought about the colours of the festive season (red, green and gold) and perfumes that captured these hues in unique ways that were in keeping with the spirit of the yuletide season. These 6 perfumes represent all that is Christmas from the rouge of winter spices to the golden gleam of bejeweled gifts. Please click on the image above to read.

I’ll be back next week with one or two more reviews and the 2013 edition of ‘The Candies’ – my annual perfume awards.

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Christmas Smells (Really Good)

Christmas is just round the corner. I mean it people, the 25th of December is just up the street, lurking down a dark alley with criminal intent and an evil glint in its eye. By now one should have completed the super-fun/awful task of Christmas shopping (I have and yes I’m smug about it) and will now be putting the final touches to the Christmas plans that one is so looking forward to.

With all of the traditions and festivities it is unsurprising that Christmas is an incredibly fragrant time of year. The abundance of yuletide food, church masses and changes in the season make for an incredible wealth of smells associated solely with the one celebration, and each year one looks forward to reliving those odours that make the season so darn ‘Christmassy’.

As I’m a lover of both scent and Christmas I thought it would be fun to put together some of my favourite yuletide smells alongside perfumes that manage to capture the essence of these odours. Here you’ll find smells of the season and fragrances that are evocative of such wonderful treats as gingerbread and mulled wine. Christmas smells (really good in fact) and on The Candy Perfume Boy this winter, it has never smelled better!

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What’s It All About, Anyway? – Juliette Has a Gun Anyway Perfume Review

I don’t understand Juliette Has a Gun. They started out as a rebellious niche brand boasting a number of intriguing fragrances evoking the spirit of fierce women with daring characters (scents such as Calamity J and Lady Vengeance) – all at designer prices. But with the brand’s most recent launches it seems that Juliette has lost her nerve and decided to throw away the pistol that made her so spunky and dangerous.

This decline in boldness can be seen in the increasing lack of ingenuity in scents such as Mad Madame (a collage of just about every scent in the line) and Not a Perfume (at least they got the name right with this one), both of which felt very safe and not in keeping with the punky spirit of the brand. An over reliance on ambroxan has also ensured that these new offerings are all very similar in both odour and style.

The brand’s latest fragrance ‘Anyway‘ runs very much along the same lines as its recent stable mates and presents an airy, relaxed style of perfume that tries its absolute best not to offend or make an impression. The brand proclaim it to be a “simple and original formula” boasting “only fifteen ingredients” – a fragrance that has been designed to be a signature scent and anything but “anonymous”.

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What’s On Your Christmas Wish List?

It’s that time of year where we all start to put together our Christmas wish lists for Santa, or as I like to call him – ‘Nigel’. Being the perfume nuts that we are means that beloved family and friends can sometimes struggle to pick fragrances out as gifts for us, after all we’re a selective (read: ‘picky’) bunch by nature and nobody would want us to open up a gift that we would deem as unsuitable on the big day.

To mitigate the chances of a botched perfume purchase at Christmas I supply a perfume wish list to my partner and my father every year. The other members of my family family flatly refuses to buy me any perfume, stating that I have “too much” and it’s “bordering on an obsession”. Who knows what they’re smoking, but I can always rely on my dad and Nigel (if he’s in a good mood) to pick something from my carefully selected list.

Let’s take a look at what’s on my list this year!

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New Escentual Post: Christmas Fragrance Gift Guide

Christmas is round the corner, lurking dangerously in the shadows, poised to jump out and catch you unprepared at the very last minute. OK that may be somewhat of an over dramatisation (drama queen? Moi? Never!) but it is true that the number of shopping days before Christmas are rapidly depleting!

This week’s Escentual post is a Christmas Fragrance Gift Guide to help you make the most of the remaining shopping days and pick a wonderfully scented gift for your loved ones, whether they be party girls or boys, rebels or lovely parents. Please click on the image above to head on over to Escentual to read the guide, and don’t forget to leave me a comment saying what some of your favourite fragrant gifts are.

I have also contributed three items on my personal wish list for Escentual’s #EscentualWish campaign. Tweet @escentual with the link of the Escentual product you most want for Christmas with the hash tag #EscentualWish and you could be in with a chance of having your wish granted. Escentual will be granting one wish per day and you can read the full info (including my wishes) and T&Cs here.

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Dita to the Rescue – Dita Von Teese Erotique and FleurTeese Perfume Reviews

Erotique and FleurTeese by Dita Von Tees

Celebrity fragrances (or ‘celebuscents’ as I like to call them) are so often the scorn of the perfume industry. Mainly because most are simply extra vehicles for our dear ‘celebrities’, a term which must be used loosely for a lot of the stars releasing perfumes these days, to make extra cash. After all, what’s easier than putting your name on a bottle of something you’ve had little involvement in creating?

But not all celebrities are in it for a quick buck and over the years we’ve seen a number of good celebuscents join the foray. Etat Libre d’Orange’s collaborations with the weird and wonderful Tilda Swinton and Rossy de Palma are notable examples, Madonna’s Truth or Dare was nicely done and even Britney Spears’ Fantasy has a degree of merit to it (I dare you to disagree that it is the perfect fruity floral cupcake scent). And then of course there is Dita Von Teese – the antidote to the world of naff celebrity scents and Dr. C. Perfume Boy is prescribing two big doses today.

Dita came to the rescue with her first perfume ‘Dita Von Teese‘ (sometimes referred to as ‘Femme Totale’) in 2012, a perfectly decent floral-patchouli affair that puts most of its contemporaries to shame. We shouldn’t be surprised though, as Dita is known for exuding glamour and style, and her perfumes certainly follow suit. This year sees the launch of Dita’s third and fourth perfumes – FleurTeese and Erotique, both of which show the Queen of Burlesque’s passion for fragrance

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Fatal Flowers – Serge Lutens Tubéreuse Criminelle, Sarrasins and Iris Silver Mist Perfume Review

Carnivorous Flower by M.Sh on pxleyes.com

I’m on a Serge Lutens kick at the moment, which is funny considering that I was considerably late to the Lutens party and it took me quite some time to ‘get’ the brand’s aesthetic. This is due in part to the fact that much of what Uncle Serge puts out is truly hedonistic and oriental, and can often feel thick and oppressive. This style is attractive to many but for years I failed to see the beauty amongst the spices, resins and balsams.

Unsurprisingly, it was the florals (specifically the incandescent Fleurs d’Oranger) within Lutens’ stable that served as a gateway to understanding perfume’s most highly respected, reclusive and artistic individual. But why the florals? What does Lutens do to nature’s blooms that others don’t? What does he see amongst the petals, the stems and the pollen that many perfumers and creative directors cannot?

The answer is simple – Serge Lutens sees the darker side of flowers and he’s not afraid to present the beautiful amongst the downright terrifying. Within his exclusive collection of fragrances housed inside his Palais Royal shop in Paris (a purple-tinted perfume Mecca), Lutens has three of the most deadly, carnivorous and fatal florals ever to have graced the noses of the human species, they are; the maniacal tuberose – Tubéreuse Criminelle, the viper jasmine – Sarrasins and the ghostly iris – Iris Silver Mist.

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#TeamPenhaligons – Penhaligon’s Extract of Limes Perfume Review

Tis the last day of Movember and so ends a month of mighty moustache cultivation and manly celebrations. More importantly than the mo-growing and showcasing of masculine fragrances however, is the money raised for an important cause that supports the research and awareness of men’s health issues. This month I have raised £207 for Movember and my team – #TeamPenhaligons – have raised a staggering £2,000, with the total continuing to rise. [On that note, should you wish to make a donation, please do so here]

In tribute to my awesome Mo Bros and Mo Sisters in #TeamPenhaligons and as a final nod to the masculine fragrances of Movember, today I’m reviewing one of my favourite masculine scents from Penhaligon’s, the most quintessentially British of perfume brands. That scent is Extract of Limes, and whilst it technically counts as a unisex scent (I’m allowed to cheat a little) I definitely feel that it is one of Penhaligon’s most enjoyable fragrances and is a great scent for dapper and fashionable gents to wear.

Originally launched in 1963 and currently residing within Penhaligon’s Anthology Collection, Extract of Limes is a fusion of mouthwatering citrus and clean floral notes that is both bracing and surprisingly contemporary. Having been resurrected in 2009 by perfumer Mike Parrott, this lime-centric scent is one of the more overlooked scents in the brand’s stable, but it’s also one of the most delectable and is very much worth a sniff for anyone who wants a unique citrus fragrance.

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