I’ve rolled this idea around for a while, hesitating because it is soooooo much work, but I think I’ve found some ways to work it out that doesn’t require me to hand count every vote and put it in a spreadsheet, which is the way I did it last time, back in 2007, I think it was. quit my job to have enough time to count the damn votes.
What I would love is your help on a couple of things. But wait, other things first.
I’ve got most/all the 2012 release list put together (down at the bottom of the page). I’ve skipped some incredibly redundant flankers for now, though I may put them in just to showcase the level of ridiculousness Givenchy and Calvin Klein have dipped to. I’ve got some proofreading to do on it as well, so don’t point out all my typos, I know, I know!!.
If you notice any glaring omissions – and there could be a lot! – just let me know via comments or click on Drop Us a Note at the top of the page to e-mail me. I’ve culled this list from data at Basenotes, Fragrantica and NST, as well as my personal recollection. Once you are in the 600s, they start running together. There are some smaller lines that I’ve never even heard of that aren’t on the list. I’m open to adding them, but I think I have a better idea, which I’ll ask for your help on below (keep reading)!
This is the way it will work. Perfume list is sorted by – mainstream, niche, flanker, celebrity, small/indie. We will start voting in about mid-January. Everyone will be able to vote for any perfume in the category (niche, celebrity, etc). Once the first round of voting is complete, we will take the top ten perfumes from each category and start another round of voting – the final round – to determine the winners and runners-up in each category.
Here are the categories I’ve got so far, which is expanding minute by minute. I’d love to hear your suggestions for other fun or serious categories in comments as well!
- Best Perfume 2012 – mainstream
- Best Perfume 2012 – niche
- Best Perfume 2012 – flanker
- Best Perfume 2012 – celebrity
- Best Perfume 2012 – small/indie house
- Best Perfume Women 2012 – mainstream
- Best Perfume Men 2012 – mainstream
- Best Perfume Women 2012 – niche
- Best Perfume Men 2012 – niche
- Best Perfume Women 2012 – small/indie house
- Best Perfume Men 2012 – small/indie house
- Best Fragrance House – Mainstream
- Best Fragrance House – Niche
- Best Fragrance House – small/indie
- Best Perfumer 2012
- Most Innovative Fragrance 2012 (mainstream, indie, niche)
- Most Innovative Fragrance House 2012 (mainstream, indie, niche)
- Most Freakish Fragrance 2012
- Most Likely Fragrance to Get you Naked 2012 (mainstream, indie, niche)
- Best New Perfume line – niche
- Best New Perfume line – small/indie
- Best New Perfume Line – teeny micro indie
- Best Classic Fragrance (must be at least 20 years old) men and women
We don’t need a category for Best Perfume Blog because, well, you’re here already! I do have several categories I need your help with. These are the nominations I’d love to get from you as a comment to this post. If you want to e-mail me with a nomination, please feel free to do that too!
- Best New Perfume Blog (launched in 2012) you should be reading (feel free to nominate your own blog – shameless self-promotion is a skill everyone must cultivate
- Best small/indie perfume house (if it winds up not being listed in the major nominations
- Best new micro indie perfume house
- Best Perfumer nominations
- Most innovative, freakish and likely to get you naked nominations.
- Suggestions for other categories we should vote on!
Is there any way to check the ones you’ve actually smelled so you could have a category showing the one the most people have actually tried? Or is that too complicated? And can we have a biggest disappointment category? Mainstream only as I have no wish to hurt indie feelings or affect their sales.
Some of the ones on your list are collections (eg Luckyscent Decennial) and should be separated into the individual perfumes.
Sonoma Scent Studio Forest Walk…
An omission — the full YSL collection from DSH (La Vie on Rose, The Beat Look, etc.). I believe she also released Pretty & Pink and Sweet Dreams (probably others too?) this year.
Good lord there are a lot of new releases I haven’t tried…
This sounds like fun – thanks for figuring this out! Thoughts: maybe natural lines like Abdes Salaam Attar should be a separate category? Personally, I’d give an award to EVERY line that does a decant sized exploration set (Neela Vermeir, Anne Gerard and Xerjoff – not sure if the FM ones are new) or coffret. (There were some great ones this year!) Gotta say, it’s sobering to see this huge number of new scents, and almost embarrassing to vote when one has only tried a tiny percentage. Oh, also, maybe rather than separate masculine and feminine perfumes (always a bit misleading), separate the results by male and female VOTERS (women’s favorite, men’s favorite). Yeah, feeling RADICAL tonight! 😉
I’d like to suggest the addition of Opus Oils M’Eau Joe No. 3 to the list – its glowing review here on Perfume Posse got me to order a sample, and I would certainly vote for it in multiple categories! I also second the idea of a bottle category : )
I’d like to add Olympic Orchids’ Ballets Rouges, a fantastic rose chypre’ which debuted this year. Olympic Orchids is an American Indie brand.
God bless your sweet heart. I am beginning to believe there are masochistic tendencies hidden deep within you!
Can I suggest my own perfume blog, Chemist in the Bottle which came to life this summer?
I second this nomination wholeheartedly!
Oooh, how about a “Most likely to get you ostracized not just from polite society, but shunned even by feral wolf-raised children?” category? Or “Biggest overuse of staple synthetics that have trickled down to household cleaners”? Oooh, “Bottle that most looks like a Lovecraftian nightmare”! I could go on all night…. (I’ve had the flu for the past few days and am now at the stage of recovery where I am extremely ditzy, giggle a lot, have no attention span, and have all sorts of silly ideas… must catch up with posts once I’m fully well!)
NP
Yes, a bottle category!!
So far this year, I’ve only tested Amouage Interlude for women and was lukewarm on it. Scarily enough, I haven’t really tried a lot of new releases this year, I’ve been focused on classics.
eldarwen22
In case it’s helpful:
-Neela Vermeire Mohur is missing
-Serge Lutens Santal Une Voix Noire: “Santal” should be deleted