Daniel Tharp

Hello and welcome to Week 1 of the 2010-2011 Scent of The Year experiment.  This first week has been all about finding the simplest way to process all the data, and to figure out what exactly we’ll be tracking over the next year.
So let’s take a step back, for the uninitiated.  Scent of The Year [...]

First: a word about art and money. Mediocre works with outrageous price tags are going to get (deservingly) harsher criticism. (Looking at you, Soup Can Man!) Arrogantly priced houses should be held to a higher standard. One as expensive as Bond No. 9 ($205 for 100mL) had better be bottled transcendence. [...]

It was fairly early into my exploration of fragrance that I realized I particularly enjoyed a few notes, more than others.   At the top of the list was cedar, and I’ve come to enjoy it in all it’s shades and nuances.  Perfumery mainly uses two species, the Virginia Cedar, which is the sharp, resinous, woody [...]

Okay, my nose has had time to recover, so I’m going to dive into the second half of these samples.

Parfums 06130 Cedre: I’m reminded a great deal of Viktor & Rolf Antidote, which isn’t a bad thing but Antidote would be the cheaper alternative. May well do this one side by side with [...]

My package from Luckyscent arrived this afternoon and I don’t have nearly the self-restraint to let these go untested until they each come up on their day for testing. During the first set of niche samples I put my initial impressions up on Basenotes (in this post, to be precise) and it also gave [...]

Before I actually tackle the matter at hand, I’d like to thank Nukapai at Basenotes for putting the question to me, on Twitter (where else?). When I commented that most of my wardrobe was for cool to cold weather and I needed more summer variety, she wanted to know what I thought made a [...]

Recently on Basenotes I ran the first-ever Basenotes March Madness, and one of the criteria for a fragrance being in the running was to have the most reviews. A*Men led the pack by a huge margin, but it’s also probably the most divisive fragrance mentioned on the boards. It’s very polarizing, you either [...]

Luckyscent is getting more business from me as I delve back into reviewing niche. Expect to see reviews for:
Andy Tauer Lonestar Memories
Andy Tauer Une Rose Chypree
CdG Series 2 (Red): Sequoia
CdG Series 3 (Incense): Avignon
Domenico Caraceni 1913
Keiko Mecheri Bois de Santal
L’Artisan Timbuktu
Le Labo Rose 31
Mazzolari Lui
Montale Red Vetyver
Parfums 06130 Cedre
Parfums de Nicolai New York

Inspired by Redneck Perfumisto’s plug of Chandler Burr’s GQ article, I’m gonna see if I can’t pare my wardrobe down to five fragrances that let you do anything in life, and smell great doing it.
1.) Aramis Havana. Serial readers saw that one coming after reading the title. It’s a spicy, heavy, masculine fragrance [...]

I write this with still-shaking hands, the events described below are no more than ten minutes old.
Saturday was a day for rest and relaxation, or so they say.  I was lounging on the couch in nothing more than a pair of underwear when the serenity was abruptly ended.
THUD! THUD! THUD THUD THUD THUD!, went the [...]