Hiram Green Dilettante

Photo: Jana Martish via her website. (Direct link embedded within.)

Photo: Jana Martish via her website. (Direct link embedded within.)

Hiram Green‘s latest release, Dilettante, is rather deceiving at first glance. You’d think it was a simple, sunny soliflore, capturing the essence of an orange tree, from the sunshine gleaming around its lush floral petals to the unripened, green (neroli) fruits hanging on the spicy, bitter petitgrain of its branches, down its trunk to the earth in which it grows. If you thought that, you’d be right because that is partially what the fragrance is about. At least initially…. You see, Dilettante had a surprise in store for me, moving beyond its initial “sunshine, Vitamin C, and orange blossom tree captured in a bottle,” to turn into something molten later on. Truth be told, I’m not sure the version I experienced is the normal one for Dilettante, rather than an atypical oddity due to some strange interaction with my skin, but I was smitten anyway. Irrespective of how the later stages turned out, though, all of it feels like another solid, well-crafted, wonderfully appealing release from this small artisanal house.

Hiram Green. Source: Fragrantica.

Hiram Green. Source: Fragrantica.

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Green, a shy, humble, and gifted perfumer who deserves a lot more attention than he gets, in my opinion. In fact, I think he should be applauded for a really rare trait, one that the best chefs aspire to but not enough perfume houses, if you ask me. Namely, being good to great on consistent basis. Again and again and again, Mr. Green produces solid, good, and sometimes great perfumes that are rich, polished, seamlessly blended, easy to wear, and extremely high-quality for a moderate, reasonable price. There is zero pretension or over-the-top marketing hyperbole; no ever-increasing prices that don’t match the scents in question; and no interest in following the latest hot trend. Just one perfume a year, worked on carefully and quietly with the simple aim of making it the best he can. That’s it.

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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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Hiram Green Voyage (Limited Edition)

Spice market, Rajasthan, India. Source: puretravel.com

Spice market, Rajasthan, India. Source: puretravel.com

Imagine a passage to India that begins by sailing through a billowing cloud of fragrant spices that capture the dusky, dusty, earthy heart of the country. It’s a trip that makes a long stop to sample the lushness of Indian desserts that have been fused with suede, cream, and spicy patchouli, then wrapped up with tendrils of smoke. The journey ends at sunset when darkness creeps over a warm, golden haze of balsamic resins. It’s a Voyage compliments of Hiram Green, and one that I very much recommend.

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Reviews En Bref: Six from NISHANE Istanbul

NISHANE Istanbul is a fragrance brand that seeks to bottle Turkey’s ancient scent traditions along with Istanbul’s cosmopolitan style in a mix of the modern and the classical. Nishane was founded in 2012, which is probably why the company says it is Turkey’s very first niche brand. At that time, they put out colognes and scented candles, but they recently launched a 16-fragrance collection of extrait de parfums.

The Nishane Extrait Collection. Photo via Nishane's Facebook page.

The Nishane Extrait Collection. Photo via Nishane’s Facebook page.

I’ve tried six of them: Duftbluten, Spice Bazaar, Patchuli Khoza, Tuberoza, Munegu, and Afrika Olifant. Unfortunately, none of the six worked for me and none of them had sufficient complexity to warrant spending several thousand words analysing each one individually. Perfume reviewing is a subjective thing that is dependent on individual tastes, experiences, and skin chemistry, but it’s not easy to write exhaustive, detailed reviews on things one dislikes all in a row. So I’ve chosen to write what essentially amounts to blurbs by my (admittedly skewed) standards rather than skipping reviewing the fragrances entirely. In each case, I’ll eschew quoting Nishane’s full description for the scent and all the background information. Instead, I’ll simply give the company’s general categorization, the notes, and a link to either Fragrantica, Basenotes, or a positive review where you can read different perspectives as a counterbalance.

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