Daniel Tharp

Wrapping up the L’Artisan reviews today with Méchant Loup, French for Bad Wolf (think like the Big Bad Wolf). Reviews for this one have always been promising, hazelnut and honey on smoky incense. The nose is Bertrand Duchafour, who I’m starting to respect more and more as a gifted artist. The nut and honey are [...]

I was amazed it took so long for the random number generator to land on one of the By Kilian fragrances; after all a full quarter of them were Kilian Hennessey creations (Straight to Heaven and Cruel Intentions reviews forthcoming), so A Taste of Heaven gets it’s turn in the barrel today. The opening blast [...]

I think it’s safe to say that no new release this year has been more hyped on Basenotes than the collaborative effort between Comme des Garçons and Monocle, known as Scent One: Hinoki. The project has been lauded as a huge success, and the next project with Stephen Jones is on the way, the nose [...]

My main experience with that mysterious wood known as oud, aoud, agarwood, agar, whatever you want to call it, is the unique Yves Saint Laurent offering, M7. M7 was one of the first fragrances I sampled and suffice it to say that it’s an acquired taste. One of the most common analogies is the smell [...]

First off I apologize to the readers for having to endure the terrible Andy Tauer pun. I couldn’t help it, and as reparation I will be wearing Acqua di Gio today. Okay, that’s actually a lie, I’m wearing Mechant Loup which will be reviewed tomorrow. ANYway, L’air du Désert Marocain was one of the fragrances [...]

L’Artisan Parfumeur has a reputation for being daring, innovative, and completely unique. I’d heard enough good about Tea For Two and Mechant Loup (review forthcoming) that I selected both of them for sampling from Luckyscent. In short, the scent lives up to the name. The opening is smoky and mildly sweet, like tea steeping. In [...]

The experiment had to start somewhere really. The package from Luckyscent arrived and all 14 samples were nice and intact. Not knowing where to start, and not wanting to contaminate the thought process by favoring one right off the bat, I’ve been using a random number generator to decide my fragrances for me out of [...]

Chris: Hey, look, Dad! They have 12-packs of kidneys! Peter: Yeah, but you got to buy the cooler, too. That’s how they get you. So I realized today that I’ve been sitting on the opportunity to get a free domain name through my host and have gone about three months without actually taking advantage of [...]

It’s a bit scary to realize that at this point I’ve only been a fragrance enthusiast for about six months, and my collection has amassed to 34 bottles.  And probably that many samples.  How it started was simple, I ran out of my usual cologne (Polo Blue) and was looking for something new to try.  [...]

We make stamps at work, I want one that says “I ASKED A STUPID QUESTION” in angry red letters.  And when someone…asks a stupid question, I will smash the stamp down on their stupid head.  And send them on their way slightly wiser for the experience.