2015 in Review: Best New Releases & Personal Favourites

Source: World in a Bottle Facebook page. Photographer unknown.

Source: World in a Bottle Facebook page. Photographer unknown.

As another year draws to a close, it’s time to look back at the best of 2015. For me, this was an iffy year for brand new releases because there weren’t a huge number of fragrances that stood out from start to finish. The exceptions to the rule were impressive or lovely but, when I went back over all the fragrances that I covered, I found the vast majority fell woefully short.

One reason stems from the hot new trends of the year. Leather was a major compositional note in 2015 or, to be more precise, the tarry, woody, forest-fire smokiness that purports to recreate the sense of “leather.” Another hot trend seemed to be a deluge of black pepper. Neither one is appealing to me, particularly since their chemical nature was usually so intrusive as to be front-and-center. Yet, that sort of excessive darkness was, in and of itself, the most common stylistic approach, one that was frequently juxtaposed next to shapeless white florals, amorphous spiciness, or some sort of limp “freshness.” The end result was that a lot of new releases smelt far too similar for me to find them distinctive, interesting, or compelling. In addition, many of them lacked the quality to warrant the higher prices that we’ve been seeing across the board.

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Providence Perfume Company: Four Reviews

Source: Parfum1.com

Source: Parfum1.com

Mossy forests, leathery tea medleys with apricot, ginger spice blends atop soft florals, and indolic floral orientals — those are the heart of four fragrances from Providence Perfume Company that I thought we’d look at today.

Providence Perfume Company is a highly respected, American artisanal and all-natural brand founded by Charna Ethier. I really liked her Provanilla when I tried it earlier this year, a deep, dark vanilla with Caribbean rum and a surprisingly delicious splash of creamy honeydew melon. Ms. Ethier kindly sent me samples of her other creations and, today, I’ll cover Osmanthus Oolong, Ginger Lily, Hindu Honeysuckle, and Moss Gown. That’s a lot to fit into one post and I don’t want it to be ridiculously long, so I’ll try to be as brief as someone with my verboseness can manage.

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Providence Perfume Co. Provanilla: Jack Sparrow’s Caribbean Vanilla

Source: chronicart.com

Source: chronicart.com

Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum.” Drenched in vanilla. If Captain Jack Sparrow and the pirates of the Caribbean ever wore a vanilla fragrance, I suspect it might be Provanilla from Providence Perfume Co., a boozy, quietly smoky, dark, but surprisingly tropical scent. It is actually what I had hoped Maria Candida Gentile‘s Noir Tropical to be, but wasn’t.

Charna Ethier. Source: perfumepharmer.com

Charna Ethier. Source: perfumepharmer.com

Providence Perfume Co. is an American artisanal brand founded by Charna Ethier around 2009. According to her website, she had spent several years “working for large beauty and fragrance companies” before deciding to create a natural line of perfumes that “embrace the finest natural botanical ingredients from around the world.” Everything is hand-done in small batches.

In early 2015, she released Provanilla, an eau de parfum and her very first vanilla fragrance. A detailed blog entry on her site demonstrates the surprising challenges in handling vanilla, the complicated creative process behind Provanilla in specific, and the background to the scent. Apparently, clients asked Ms. Ethier for a vanilla scent, and the queries came every single day. However, she was initially quite reluctant and unenthused. She had thought vanilla to be a simplistic, “ho-hum-yawn” genre and potentially linear in nature, but she “learned very quickly that creating a natural vanilla scent is very, very, very challenging.”

Vanilla Beans via seriouseats.com and shutterstock

Vanilla Beans via seriouseats.com and shutterstock

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