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Top 10 Summer Fragrances 2017

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I love summer. Yes, I’ll complain about the heat like everyone else, but I’d rather bake than freeze any day. Plus, the fruit! Even if you don’t like summer, you have to admit that the abundant variety of fresh fruits (that haven’t been flown in from another continent) is worth a little extra sweat on your brow. Here are 9 reasonably new-ish (all came out within the past 5 years, and most of them within the last 2 years) fruit fragrances to help keep you feeling cool and lighthearted, plus one veg, because you have to have your veg…

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Top 10 Spring Fragrances 2017

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Audubon, American Robin

1946: French writer Colette went to Switzerland, where she would undergo treatment for severe and painful arthritis. She was delighted to find that the sparrows around her lodgings in Geneva were tame. They flew into her room from the balcony, slept under her bed, ate from her hands. They would even chirp protests when she would lock them out of the bathroom as she bathed. One day she found a pair of sparrows snuggling in a fold of her bedspread. She startled them and they flew away. Colette wrote:

This gave me fair warning that the time was not far off when I should discover one individual among their small, indefinite band, the particular one, the one who preferred me and was mine by preference. With the animal world, we are subject to the same perils every time. To choose, to be chosen, to love: the very next moment we are beset by anxiety, the danger of loss, and the fear of spreading regret. What an array of big words when the subject is but a sparrow! Yes, a sparrow. In love, there is never a question of smallness. 1

A perfect segue to the love for, and smallness of…perfumes…

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Top 10 Winter Fragrances 2017

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I tried not to get too Grinch-y over the holidays, and I did pretty well, considering the world events of late 2016 plus the fact that I was suffering occasional bouts of Instagram ennui. So many exotic vacations, so many artful table settings, so many #thankful embraces scrolling past my eyes; you may know what I mean.

I’m happy with my own lot in life, truly, but sometimes I worry — not on my own behalf, but on yours, dear readers. My taste in perfume may be glamorous, but my life is pretty quiet. I hate to let you down. Still, rather than fabricate some picture-perfect fantasy life, I’ll just come clean and share my own mundane activities, with the fragrances that I wear to dress them up a bit.

Just a regular day at the office: Byredo Rose Noir. This was my most-worn fragrance of 2016, because it’s a “no brainer” for me: a blend of citrus, rose and modern patchouli that doesn’t come on too strong. It’s my olfactory equivalent of my many basic black dresses…

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Top 10 Fall Fragrances 2016

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Acer saccharum - Sugar Maple fall leaves

To give you a thoughtful top ten for fall, I went to the experts: Tracy and André at Fumerie. Both of them used to work at Portland’s Perfume House and amassed years of experience with the classics. Then, seven months ago, Tracy opened Fumerie to focus on niche fragrances, and André joined her.

To give you an idea of their tastes in fragrance, Tracy has a tattoo on her forearm of her favorite perfume notes: patchouli, hay, tobacco, cocoa, and leather. When she thinks of fall, she thinks of comforting scents that remind her of riding her horse as a teenager through the leaves, and the smells of Oregon’s crisp autumn air, sweet alfalfa, saddle leather, grain and the horse itself.

André loves vintage fragrances and has a nose for classically constructed perfumes…

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Top 10 Summer Fragrances 2016

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I didn’t realize how much I missed summer bugs (animals, not diseases) till I left Virginia as a teenager. Living on Manhattan, then Los Angeles and now Seattle doesn’t compare to the South when it comes to insect life. My childhood summers were filled with the sounds of crickets and cicadas. Butterflies put on a non-stop show in the flower gardens. Nighttime was when my grandmother and I would sit on the front porch (swatting mosquitoes, one bug I do NOT love) and watch the fireflies as we took in the heady scent of gardenias — whose white blossoms also lit up the darkness. I’d love to see a grasshopper or praying mantis, a big black-and-yellow garden spider shimmering in the sun, or a dragonfly flitting about my yard.

Here in Seattle I do get to see some beautiful moths, living their brief moments on earth holding fast to my deck screens or circling a light bulb. Tiny spiders are everywhere, inside and out, and I would never think to kill one — they work so long and hard to live and make a living. Right now in Seattle it’s the season for ten-lined June beetles (a type of scarab beetle); my cats (to my chagrin) love to chase, torment and kill June beetles, who, as they fight for their lives, raise up their antlers (yes, antlers) and make puffing sounds to ward off attacks. Here’s to bugs! (AND summer perfumes!)

Coqui Coqui Rosas Secas ~ This wonderful rose perfume smells of dried rosebuds mixing with a fresh rose bouquet; there’s also a pinch of tobacco leaf. Rosas Secas is a great rose perfume for men…

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