Perfumes: The A-Z Guide

Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez "Perfumes The Guide" is a very modest title for an extraordinary achievement. Perfume is something I have never bought, never thought about but this book gives a captivating insight into this world and the hundreds of perfumes reviewed in this book. The breath and context brought to describing each one is mind boggling. The reading itself is very entertaining. Each entry is a unique and the descriptions evoke a good sense of what the perfume is like, as good as you can with text. The entries also give an interesting insight into the personalities and businesses behind them, as well as the science. So thank you Luca, Tania, those who helped you and Viking.

I'm older now, and I have a little more disposable income (and a lot more self-confidence), so I have had great fun using this book's witty reviews to guide me in trying and purchasing perfumes. I never had more than one or two bottles of perfume on my vanity table before. Now I have several dozen because this book has made me see perfume in a whole new way. Yes, the book is a delight to read, but I have found it much more fun to actually use. Interestingly, I discovered just how interactive this book can be because I am a book lover. I was intrigued by the book's description of a perfume by L'Artisan Parfumeur called Dzing! The authors likened the perfume's scent to a "secondhand bookstore." I purchased a bottle on a whim when I happened across it on a trip to New York. It was only when I was browsing at my favorite used bookstore days later that it struck me. The vanilla overtones in this fabulous scent do indeed evoke the wonderful aroma of old paper. I smelled my wrist, I sniffed the terrific, familiar book-laden air around me, I felt a happy sense of discovery and I was hooked. Since reading this book, I have stuck it into my tote whenever I plan to be in a major department store. The book's vignettes ignite my curiosity and imagination. Take, for example, Thierry Mugler's Angel. The authors deem this scent a masterpiece. They tell the reader the history behind the scent -- that it started as a joke which combined the elements of a masculine and a feminine fragrance, but that in making that joke the perfumer came up with a truly new kind of scent. The authors point out that Angel exists in a "high energy state of contradiction. Many perfumes are beautiful or pleasant, but how many are exciting?" Then the authors deliver the zinger, which gives me a mental image for placing the perfume into my own life context. They say that Angel evokes that " woman in a film who seethes "He's so annoying!" and marries him in the end." I got that! I could then smell the contradiction and the attraction in the scent. I purchased a bottle because the scent now "speaks" to me in a way it never could have before I read this book. Is perfume necessary to my existence? No. When my children were small and we had meager time, money or energy, perfume was simply that handy bottle of Chanel No. 5 my mother had sent me for Christmas which I sprayed on to feel pretty on those infrequent dinner/movie dates with my husband (when we could get a babysitter.) Do I agree with everything the authors say about the various perfumes? No, but that's part of the fun. This book has opened a pleasant door for me. Perfume has become a fascinating foray into sensual exploration. I enjoy reading the metaphors and similes, the creative adjectives and backstories describing these perfumes, and then experimenting with the truth of them for myself. The authors have done something wonderful with this book. They have taken the mystique which advertisin

This book would be important even if it weren't great. But it is! Most of us who wear fragrance make choices in an information wasteland, absent, until now, consumer reports. Perfume lovers, perfume likers and "who me, perfume?" people, read it and rise to the next level. Those who enjoy the visual and performance arts, couture, wines and other pleasures take for granted that critical reviews anchor our understanding and increase our enjoyment of the art. A good movie will get raves and a bad one will be panned. Turin and Sanchez transform the industry by talking straight about specific scents. Unlike the women's beauty magazine articles that promote a list of scents, all equally wonderful - just choose one based on your sexy, romantic or sporty personality - these authors tell you What It Smells Like. It is a relief not to be the manufacturer of scents earning these distinctions: "short-lived sugary fruity blah in a hilariously cheap blinged-out bottle that looks like a toy designed for a six-year old and made in China...like getting lemon juice in a paper cut...synthetic citrus, green-herbal, and woody-amber horror...rubbing alcohol mixed with Palmolive dishwashing liquid...death by jasmine...like chewing tinfoil while staring at a welding arc...wear it at home exclusively, and tape the windows shut...mercifully, doesn't last." Praise is more detailed and effusive than the bashings, however, and this is where Turin and Sanchez shine. My complaints are few in number. I waited too long for this book, having followed Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez in perfume blogs for years and loving Turin's French, and much shorter version of the guide published in 1994. Searching the guide for certain scents I've loved, hated or wondered about, I found them not. Hopefully, Perfumes, The Guide Volume Two is not far behind. Are they snobs? Yes and no. All talk of subjective perception and interpretation aside, these two know that there is such a thing as "good." Quality exists, whence the one to five star ratings. They recognize a place for Elvis on Velvet, but want better for you. Despite occasionally savage criticism - some sins of perfumery are unforgivable to Turin and Sanchez - the playful spirit prevails in the end. Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez are brilliant, both masters of the notes and the meaning of scent. They serve up a reader-friendly meal of chemistry, fashion, culture and language with a generous helping of mischief.

This is actually the second guide to perfume written by Luca Turin. It is updated and contains his assessments of such recent fragrances as Lush's Karma and Paris Hilton's "work". The essays are excellent, the assessments of the perfumes are spot-on (whether by Sanchez or Turin). It is indeed wonderful to have your memories of the original Arpege stirred up, or to be reminded that we live in a world where Chanel #5 still exists in proper form. I laughed at some of the barbs stuck in a few deserving effluvia, and sighed at Turin's assessment of old favorites which are not so nice any more. The only thing baffling is the star rating which seems to have very little to do with whether the authors liked the perfume; so you can get **** and a bad write up, or ** and a surprisingly merciful one. I don't consider that a big flaw, just a small eccentricity. The writing and points are so well made and this book has zoomed to the top of my charts, and I hope he comes out with an update/addendum sometime in the future where he and Sanchez talk about ones they may have overlooked like Bulgari's The Vert. First class thought, fun, and wisdom.

Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez have done what no one else has dared do in print---speak openly and critically of over one thousand fragrances. Jan Moran's Fabulous Fragrances 2 is a wonderful must-have, but Moran does not look at fragrances critically. The Perfume Guide by Susan Irvine, also a must-have, includes critiques of a number of fragrances and gives credit to the various perfumers, yet the scope of the book is limited by space and format. What Luca and Tania have done is to present the consumer with a handy, highly readable and informative guide to the vastly expanding world of fragrance. The introduction to the book covers almost 50 pages and has something for everyone, from the fragrance newbie to those of us who have been around the fragrance counter a few times. Both LT and TS are very talented at what they do. Luca has the talent of kissing prose into poetry. His satisflyingly erudite allusions run the gamut from classical music to Horace's Odes to the Silver Screen (The Big Sleep, Michael Curtiz., e.g.) to Piltdown Man, and so on; if you're as long in the tooth as I am, these references are immediately understood and appreciated. Tania is no less talented and many of her reviews are vivid and beautiful; reading them is like being at a show by a young painter whose work is of such depth that it moves you in an ineffable way. As pointed out in earlier reviews, this book is important because it is not only written for the consumer but functions also as a wake-up call and a challenge to the fragrance industry---"you're being watched and observed, and the changes being foisted rampantly upon some of the great classics are not un-noticed." One hopes that this book will bring about some badly needed change in an industry which operates mostly on the smoke and mirror concept (read: HYPE); sadly, the lover of fragrance is the loser when bean counters rule the day. My distinct impression is that the authors' biting criticism of some perfumes is not directed at the wearer but instead directed at whoever is mandating either A) all these cheap smelling clones of Angel, Pleasures, Cool Water, Tommy Girl; or B) changes in the great classics. Thus, their criticism is designed for a purpose, and that purpose is not to hurt feelings but to effect change. Luca and Tania aren't afraid to call a spade a spade. Kudos to them for that. Perfumes: The Guide is not only informative but downright hilarious at times. Some reviews are laugh out loud funny. It's refreshing to see someone call a real stinker a real stinker without having the reader plow through a lot of superfluous language to get to the point. This book is a great read and a must-have for perfume lovers both inside and outside the industry.