11 years ago
Apicius:
My "Frankenstein's Raspberry" refers to "Guerrilla 2" which is not a new release but an interesting perfume.
The two most remarkable new releases I discovered during the last 6 months to me were Divine's "L'homme Infini" and Acqua di Stresa's "Calycanthus Brumae".
For this, you don't have to buy the expensive oils... Ajmal has a 30 ml spray perfume for a moderate price: "Dahn Oudh Al Shams", and the even more intense "Dahn Oudh Al Shams Special Edition".
But beware... Natural oud can have a kind of mustiness and animalic touch that could remind you of something special. In German, we use the euphemism "gesunde Landluft" for it, which means "healthy country air". Don't be afraid of the farmer's stables!
Drseid
The only Q4 2012 release that wowed me was Tzora by Anat Fritz.
In addition to Q4, I believe LiquidNight by A Lab On Fire was released in September and I love that one.
Apicius, I read your Divine review earlier and already had that one on my list. But Aqua di Stresa? I'd never heard of the house. There's that European perspective I was counting on from you! In addition to Calycanthus Bruma I hope I can find samples of their namesake fragrance (Aqua di Stresa) and Fresh Touch. Both look interesting. Although the name, "Fresh Touch" sounds so commercially generic to my jaded American ear. Hopefully, it's just one of those quirks of language that doesn't translate poetically or its generic connotation simply wasn't a consideration in American-English.
As for the oud suggestions, I'm in the process of writing a postive review of Cuir de Russie so the prospect of eine kleine gesunde Landluft musik is not necessarily a bad thing.
Drseid, I, too, am a huge fan of Terre d'Hermes so Tzora will have to be sampled. As much as I enjoy Terre d'Hermes maybe it's time to move on. Also, for the all the fragrances I've sampled, I've only tried one offering by A Lab on Fire. Time to rectify that by trying LiquidNight.
Cryptic, the Arquiste line sounds interesting. In addition to your suggestion, AromiErotici wrote a review of Fleurs de Louis which was also released in 2012.