Thank you. Thank you to the experimenters and the inventors, the alchemists and the artists, the poets, the witches, the thinkers, the lab rats, the rebels, the renegades, the troublemakers, the curious, the obsessed, the driven, the haunted, and the inspired who made 2019 such an astonishing year for independent and artisan perfume.

Wandering the aisles of the department stores and duty-free halls, it’s easy to sink into scented ennui, or drown in the liquid cynicism peddled in blinged-out bottles. Yet in a year of perfumes like *these* gems, I find it impossible not to be excited about the futures of perfumery. There are others. Of course there are others. But just look! Look at what happens when perfume escapes the smothering grasp of accountants and marketing committees.

So, to Antonio Gardoni, Christophe Laudamiel, Chris Rusak, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Diane St Clair, Euan McCall, Hans Hendley, Josh Lobb, Liz Moores and all the others who are in love with the possibilities: thank you. Thank you for the questions, pleasure, sensation, sauciness, laughter, and thinking you’ve turned into scent. Yes, more of that, please.

And who knew that Instagram was a place to find such good words about scent? What a year of discovering the writers, researchers,  and gloriously opinionated smartarses who focus their shiny, shiny beautiful brains on fragrance. Thank you for the insight, history, good chat, kindness, and excellently bad puns.

Originally posted 5 January 2019.