The perfumista chorus constantly chants “Enough Oud!” “Stop Oud!”** and all of a sudden I’m beginning to feel protective of oud perfumes. True, the market is flooded with oud fragrances but it’s also flooded with sport and gourmand and jasmine colognes. The perennial pet of the perfume world, orange blossom, gets to star in fragrance after fragrance without complaints from the “perfume gallery.” Oud is like any other ingredient; it can be placed in an unimaginative setting, or showcased with ingenuity.

Recently I’ve come across several oud fragrances that deserve respect; Humiecki & Graef Blask is one of them. You can read the convoluted “backstory” of Blask here. I’ll just say it was created by the perfume team of Christoph Hornetz and Christophe Laudamiel and has fragrance notes of bay laurel, “red wine,” walnut wood, floral notes and agarwood/oud.

Blask opens with a warm, rich bay leaf aroma…

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Hairstylist Serge Normant will launch Avah, his debut perfume, in June…

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Niche line Keiko Mecheri will launch Un Jour d’Été, a new summer fragrance, in late May or early June…

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New at first-in-fragrance (Germany): Reminiscence Crazy Rem.

New at harrods (UK): Annick Goutal Nuit Etoilee.

New at nordstrom: Agent Provocateur Eau Provocateur series.

British boyband JLS has launched Kiss, their debut fragrance…

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Today, brief reviews of two white florals: Michael Kors Suede and Keiko Mecheri Soussanne.

Michael Kors Suede

It often puzzles me why perfume brands choose the names they do. At the very least, they seem to assume that consumers are paying very close attention — an assumption that seems entirely unwarranted given the number of new fragrance releases every year. So, if you assumed, reasonably enough, that the new Suede by Michael Kors was a soft leather fragrance, sorry, you were quite off base. If you knew enough to recognize the bottle design (see below), and figured based on the bottle that it was a flanker to the brand’s signature fragrance from 2000, Michael by Michael Kors, you were closer to the mark, and if you guessed further that it was a softer, lighter, more summery version, with no relationship to “suede” other than being soft, ding ding ding: you win the prize…

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Giorgio Armani has launched Armani Code Sport Athlete, a limited edition flanker to last year’s Armani Code Sport, which was a flanker to 2004′s Armani Code. The new fragrance for men celebrates the Olympic year and pays homage to “sporting heroes”…

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New at dillards: Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue Dreaming in Portofino & Living Stromboli.

New at harveynichols (UK): Robert Piguet Mademoiselle Piguet.

New at macys: Selena Gomez Eau de Parfum.

New at selfridges (UK): Cartier Eau de Cartier Essence de Bois.

New at sephora: Carolina Herrera 212 Glam.