Happy new year everyone. I hope you had a very fragrant end to 2019 and have had a perfume filled start to 2020. Last year went by in a flash and gave us many highlights and a plenty of lowlights. Check out my favourite releases of last year if you haven’t already. For my first post of the year I thought I’d talk about what’s on my 2020 perfume wishlist.
Wish 1. Chanel releases a new pillar fragrance for men – I feel like I wish for this every year, and every year I am disappointed, but it has been years since Chanel have given us anything truly worth holding aloft on the men’s side. Egoiste, Pour Monsieur and Antaeus are now decades old, and while I love the Allure Homme line, the Bleu de Chanel suite of scents is still something I struggle to get overly excited about. So, I would love to see Chanel push the boundaries on the men’s side and release something that pushes the brand to the forefront of the men’s fragrance game once again.
Wish 2. Designer’s continuing to buck the trend and release high quality unexpected scents that are unique. Gucci in particular over the few years have really upped their game with the “Bloom” series for women and the Gucci Guilty line for men. Memoire D’Une Odeur, a divisive, but for mine a standout release from last year brought chamomile to the forefront. More of the same please from Gucci, and it would be nice if a few others could step up to the plate to join them.
Wish 3. A slowdown in releases. Yes, it can be a great thing to have so many releases, especially for a perfume blogger but it seems that there are 5 or 6 new releases everyday and new niche houses popping up everywhere. Some of these new houses don’t really have anything new to bring to the table. I’ll happily take 1-2 carefully crafted releases over 9-10 hastily put together simultaneously released money-grabbing mediocre scents. Quality over quantity. It took a lot of sifting through and sampling last year to get to a truly quality innovative scent, and please no more of the never-ending boring flankers on the designer side.
Wish 4. There’s plenty of scents I want to sample in 2020, at the forefront is Copper from Comme des Garcons, a house that always brings something new to the table. While on the subject of Comme des Garcons I’d also like to sample their 3 new clash scents, that bring together raw materials that were never meant to coexist. I’d also love to delve more into some of the niche houses that have impressed me over the last year, including Nishane, Rogue Perfumery, and Bruno Fazzolari. Some of the scents I want to try are Sultan Vetiver from Nishane, Derviche from Rogue, and Vetiverissimo from Fazzolari.
Wish 5. More great perfume book releases like Neil Chapman’s excellent, Perfume – In Search of Your Signature Scent.
Whats’s on your wishlist for 2020?
Note: Bottle images courtesy of Fragrantica.