So let’s take a step back, for the uninitiated.  Scent of The Year (abbreviated to SoTY) is a yearlong exercise, reading the daily Scent of The Day threads and compiling all that data to one central spreadsheet, and seeing what conclusions there are to be drawn from it.  You’ll be receiving regular updates for every week (SoTW), month (SoTM), quarter (SoTQ), half-year (SoTHY) and finally the big SoTY rundown, which will happen right around February 1^st, 2011, to coincide with my other project, the lead-in to Basenotes March Madness.

Why, one could conceivably ask, would someone take on the tedious, dull, boring and exceptionally un-fun work of reading other people’s fragrance selections and type them into a book with other people’s fragrance selections?  I’ve got two reasons, the first being I get restless without a good long-term project to work at, and the second being that I do get a lot of enjoyment out of playing with data, and seeing what can be really gathered from it.

I harbor no such illusions, however, that you enjoy statistics quite to the level that I do, so I’ll try to keep it interesting, entertaining even, but hopefully informative as well.  If I start drifting off-course, please send me an email, PM, or tweet and let me know, or take me by the shoulders and gently steer me back in the right direction.

To work, then!  The first step when you start collecting data is, obviously, determining exactly what you want to collect; the fragrances themselves, of course, but what else?  Being able to look up the fragrance house independent of any particular fragrance sounds smart, so that was added.  I hit a bit of a wall at that point, as that was pretty much all that was being tracked when the experiment was done from 2008-2009, along with gender.  I chose to also track the Basenoters themselves, and added fields for username and gender.  Lastly, and another common sense one that I initially forgot, was the date!  It does help to know when these are being entered in when you’re on a weekly schedule.

Once the dataset was decided on, the reporting had to be figured out; that is, how I want the condensed and summarized table of information to be displayed for maximum information.  Right now I have three tables, measuring the most worn fragrance, the most worn house, and the most posts by username.  All three can be filtered by date, gender, or both.  Every combination there can give good info, and it’s with that set of tables that I’m using for now.

I’m already getting off track, aren’t I?  Sorry for the thrilling insight into Microsoft Excel, you’re here for the smellies.  All total, 1029 different entries were recorded from the 31^st of January to the 6^th of February, 2010, with men accounting for 67.7 percent of the total and ladies, 32.3%.  471 fragrances were only worn one time this week, for a uniqueness index of 45.77%.  This first dataset is pretty darn important, as this is the first Top 10, we can see who hangs around and who doesn’t have quite the staying power.  Starting with the combined genders, the most worn fragrance was a Guerlain.  So was the second most.  And the third.  And the fourth.  L’Instant de Guerlain topped the charts at 11 wears, followed by Mitsouko Eau de Toilette with 10, Guerlain Vetiver with 9, and Guerlain Heritage with 8.  Tied below Heritage with 7 wears are Tom Ford Black Orchid, Guerlain L’Heure Bleue, and Andy Tauer’s L’air du desert marocain, for positions five through seven.  Six different fragrances all had six wears, and they were Dior Homme, Guerlain Coriolan, Burberry London, Caron’s Le Troiseme Homme, Guerlain Jicky, and YSL Rive Gauche Pour Homme.

In what may be a bold predictor for the foreseeable future’s totals, Guerlain as a house had more than double the wears (110) of the next closest house in Chanel (47).  In fact, Guerlain’s entries in the Top 10 frags alone outnumber any other house’s total wears all week long.  Serge Lutens and Creed tied for third with 35 wears, Yves Saint Laurent was one behind with 34, followed by Christian Dior with 32, L’Artisan Parfumeur with 26, Hermes with 25, Caron with 24, and Tom Ford rounding out the field with 20.  Obviously there’s a big difference between the most worn houses and those trailing slightly.

Looking just at the men’s side, now, we find that Guerlain Vetiver got zero wears from the ladies, but was tied with L’Instant de Guerlain for the most worn by men, with 9 wears.  Guerlain Heritage was third with 8, and surprisingly (at least to me) we find that more men are wearing Mitsouko than women this week by more than a factor of two! (7 wears) L’air du desert marocain, Burberry London, Dior Homme and Guerlain Coriolan all tied with 6 wears by men, for positions five through eight.  Nine fragrances tied for the final two positions in the top 10, including names not previously mentioned like Chanel Pour Monsieur, Yves Saint Laurent M7, Creed’s Bois du Portugal, and Prada Infusion d’Homme.

Looking at men’s houses, we discover that of Guerlain’s monster 110 wears, a full 80 of them (72.7%) were by men, but men do account for 67.7% of the total wears recorded this week.  This does mean Guerlain is favored slightly more by men than women this time of year.  Creed was the next closest, with 30 wears, perhaps a more interesting number than Guerlain’s.  Creed’s overall third place performance this week came with the help of only 5 wears on the women’s side of things, 5 of the 35 total.  Below Creed in men’s is a tie between Christian Dior and YSL with 27 wears apiece, then Chanel with 21, Amouage and Hermes both with 17, Tom Ford with 15, Caron with 14, and a two-way tie for the last spot with Montale and Serge Lutens both earning 12 wears.

Moving over to the women’s side of things, we find that having a smaller population can really effect the weekly standings of things.  Tied at number one with 5 wears each are Terranova Gardenia and Keiko Mecheri’s A Fleur de Peau.  The catch?  Both were worn by only one person, for five consecutive days each.  Rochas Tocade got 4 wears the old fashioned way, by multiple users, as did L’ Artisan Havana Vanille, Bal A Versailles and Chanel No. 5 Eau de Parfum.  Below those six fragrances are eleven different fragrances with three wears each.  More data is needed before any true conclusions can be reached, but it may take until the SoTM at this rate.

The women’s house standings were quite interesting, and featured a few new faces.  Guerlain’s 30 wears by the ladies were enough to make it the most-worn house this week, trailed closely by Chanel with 26 wears and Serge Lutens with 23.  Things trail off rapidly after that, with L’ Artisan at 14 wears, Caron with 10, Hermes with 8, YSL, Keiko Mecheri, and Frederic Malle all with 7, and Bond No. 9 wrapping up the top 10 with 6 wears.  The women’s field is much more diverse than statistically expected, men recorded wears in 202 separate houses and women in 120, with 248 total (There were 46 houses worn exclusively by one gender or the other).

Finally, mikeperez23 (14 wears), Inselaffe (13 wears), and kbe (12 wears) go above and beyond the nose of duty on the men’s side, with Baldufita (11 wears) being the busiest sniffer on the ladies’ side.

That’s it for this week, see you next Monday for new numbers and new insight as we give this fledgling SoTY project some legs.  Until next time, post those SoTDs every day!

It’s been compared to Serge Luten’s aggressively spiced Feminite du Bois, but Lexington Avenue strikes a balance between invigorating and comforting. Resinous blue cypress paired with fennel, similar to anise or licorice, for a bracing foundation. They balanced it with cozy gourmand notes of toasted almond and “crème brulée” over creamy sandalwood. Neither side of this spectrum would work alone, but together the result is incredible! A little olfactive alchemy and you’ve got creamy spiced woods woven with traces of peony. Perfectly wearable with a fascinating something that surprises you, catches your interest, and keeps you coming back.

Notes fluctuate but none of them take over or fade away completely. Generally the more resinous elements stand out in the opening, and softer gourmand side sets the tone hours later. Bond No.9’s eau de parfum formulations are even richer than the average edp, so the longevity’s wonderful, lasts 8 to 10 hours easily. Sillage is moderate on cooler days, but in warm weather that spice can fill the whole room. It’s hard to test due to Bond No.9’s limited distribution, but if you find Lexington Avenue, just close your eyes, pretend you didn’t see the hideously kitsch shoes all over the bottle, spritz, and experience … transcendence.

But enough reminiscing.  Dirty English opens in a very unusual way, in that it blends sweet citrus notes with spicy cypress and caraway seed.  Let me take a step back and say how much I enjoy the addition of spice notes to fragrances, and what a difference they can make.  The black pepper note in Ralph Lauren Romance Silver saves it, it gives character and strength to Burberry London, it turns the entire composition on it’s ear in Cereus No. 7, it…well, you see where I’m going.  The maneuver is a good one, and it’s a very distinct spicy opening.  The edges of the sweetness and spice fade, and the drydown is much like the opening, but with the growing presence of moss and leather to esconce it firmly in the masculine category.  Where it really shines for me, though, is body interaction.  The hotter the temperature, and the more I sweat, the better and better this thing gets.  It is my go-to summer scent, despite not strictly meeting the criteria.  It’s entirely because of skin interaction; Gucci Pour Homme is a close cousin to Dirty English but I rarely wear it in the hot months because it doesn’t do anything interesting on my skin.  I seem to share, overall, the most interesting dynamic with Dirty English out of anything in my collection. Projection is above average, longevity varies with temperature, lasting longer in warmer weather on me.

One other thing I enjoy about Dirty English is that it acts as a crossroads on a journey of cedar exploration.  It’s well rounded and centered, and examples of extremes can be found in every direction, towards Virginia Cedar in Gucci Pour Homme (or, Pencil Shavings Pour Homme), towards Atlas Cedar in L’Occitane Notre Flore Cedre, towards cypress in CdG Monocle Scent One: Hinoki, and other close cousins can be found in creatures like Parfums 06130 Cedre and CdG Series 2 Sequoia.  They’re all distinct and different, and it really demonstrates how much utility one note can have.  Hopefully some of you that passed up Dirty English because of the Juicy Couture name will remember this and give it a wearing the next time you see it on display.  To skip it is to miss a very unique cedar creation, and the most underrated fragrance of 2008.

I’m not gonna lie, I think Ivan Moody, their lead singer, makes the band.  This guy will have work in the industry for as long as he chooses to rock, and in this album he does get to try some new situations, and while the talent’s there in his growls and screams, he needs to work on control when he has the opportunity to sing cleanly, I was cringing all the way through “Far From Home,” if he can improve his sense of pitch in clean sections it’s going to do wonders for their sound and versatility.

Viewing the album as a whole, I’ll call it an acceptable effort by some genuinely talented men, but if they can focus on the aggressive style that they do so well without even being aware of it, they could probably produce something incredible. I will say, though, that their cover of “Bad Company” is worth the price of admission and is not to be missed! Would I spend the $9.99 on the album?  I don’t think so.  I listened to it on Napster, 5 downloads and unlimited streaming for 5 bucks a month makes it pretty much the best 5 bucks you can spend any given month.

Tone/Overall Sound: 15/20 pts
Melody/Harmony: 14/20 pts
Rhythm/Syncopation: 18/20 pts
Mixing/Production: 14/20 pts
Theme/Concept: 6/10 pts
Presentation: 9/10 pts

Total: 76/100

(More info on my grading criteria here.)

Originality, exceptional execution, and innovation are all rewarded heavily.

You may be wondering, then, why I’m writing this if nobody is supposed to see it for a while. This one’s for those of you that receive me via Facebook, as that shouldn’t be affected at all.

More updates when I’ve got news.

Well, I really don’t remember but I think it was December,
And each trippy drug cast its own walrus ‘cross the kitchen floor.
Cleverly I tried to steal from my uncle’s stash a meal,
Of pop tarts and potato peels that he purchased from the store.
Oreos and big cheese wheels that he purchased from the store.
Ninety-nine cents at the store.

And when the hungry hungry hippos flicked their golden shiny Zippos,
I was filled with terror that no man had ever felt before.
So that now, to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating
“Tis some wigger dude entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some bling-blingin’ dude entreating entrance at my chamber door.
Just a wigger, nothing more.”

• 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 it, Cedre seems slightly softer.
• CdG Red Sequoia: This stuff is very, very good. I was predisposed to like it as a concept, but the execution is just as good. I’m consistently amazed at how many unique variations there are in the men’s woody category. Less sweet and more spicy compared to Palisander. Looking forward to it, not disappointed in the least.
• L’Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu: Very interesting, very green and earthy. I’m also getting a great deal of fruit, maybe a mango note a la Un Jardin Sur Le Nil? This thing is exceeding my expectations so far, I’m actually much more curious about it now than I was before.
• Keiko Mecheri Bois De Santal: Sandalwood counterpointed with white osmanthus makes for a very interesting composition. I think this one leans only slightly towards the feminine side of unisex, but I won’t have any reservations in applying it. Quite lovely stuff, I like this note more than I did the one in the Ormonde Jayne creation.
• Andy Tauer Une Rose Chypree: Altogether different from what I was expecting. Rose as a complement to a camphorous tea leaf that’s stealing the show, and a dash of cinnamon to break down any gender barriers. It’s unlike anything else I’ve smelled. Beautiful, simply beautiful.
• Parfums de Nicolai New York: About all I can get is a strong sicilian lemon note, so this one’s revealing no secrets before I wear it. The note pyramid is quite intriguing, so I’ll forgive it and wait until it’s turn comes around in the review queue.

Look for the first of these twelve reviews later this week!

• CdG Incense Avignon: Very nice woody incense, I was on the fence about Kyoto but this one’s a different creature, it seems lighter and sweeter. Warm, spicy and pleasant. Feeling optimistic about wearing it.
• Le Labo Rose 31: My first experience with Le Labo and this thing is impressive! Rose and a black pepper note dominate the composition, this feels to me more rugged, more wearable for me than Czech and Speake No. 88.
• Dominico Caraceni 1913: Been curious about this one almost from the beginning. It’s nothing like I anticipated, the rose note is much more prominent than I expected, and the cypress seems to carry the base. Not getting much olibanum as is listed. Very puzzling, going to be an interesting one to wear.
• Montale Red Vetyver: I’ve not had great luck with Montale but they’ve all been oud-centric creations in the past. RV is an altogether different creature from those. The Terre d’Hermes comparison is spot on, it came to mind immediately, but there’s also a hay note. Not a barnyard, just damp hay. Interesting, will probably give it a side-by-side wear with TdH.
• Mazzolari Lui: The note pyramid for this one sounded divine. Very rich-smelling but there’s an overpowering animalic note, the ambergris is over-the-top. I’m hoping the story will be different once I get it on my skin but right now I’m holding out much less hope than 10 minutes ago.
• Andy Tauer Lonestar Memories: Sweet Virginia cedar and myrrh vibes, I’m reminded of the “candy shop” opening of Chanel Pour Monsieur Concentree. I think the progression on this one will be quite interesting.

I made it about this far before my nose conked out and I don’t really want to have preconceptions that are wrong from something as simple as olfactory fatigue. In Part Two later tonight I’ll cover Parfums de Nicolai New York, CdG Red Sequoia, L’Artisan Timbuktu, Andy Tauer Une Rose Chypree, 06130 Cedre, and Keiko Mecheri Bois de Santal.