Pickleloaf.com : Books : Perfumes: The Guide


Books : Perfumes: The Guide In association with Amazon.com Rating: - Crash course in perfumery This book is a fascinating view into the world of perfume. While cursorily interested in fragrance, I had never before been overly concerned with the art of notes, accords, and blends. Now I'm eager to go about and smell perfumes with a fresh new understanding and appreciation. Caveat - be prepared to have your favorites slaughtered or mercilessly derided by the authors. This didn't bother me at all, but sensitive souls (read: the easily offended) may want to avoid. Rating: - A learning experience Having loved perfume my whole life I found this book fascinating. Yes, there are many negative comments but it's the first time I ever read a review of perfumes that actually expressed anything but over the top compliments for every fragrance and manufacturer. I honestly learned a lot about what it takes to create a good fragrance and I've been trying some of the ones they recommended, especially the classics that I never considered buying before. So far I've been pleased with every choice (Shalimar, Angel, several Estee Lauder scents) and have enjoyed the experience. Rating: - Equal parts Carl Sagan, Paul Fussell, and Pauline Kael I expected a light, dumb read. What I got was the most hilarious and thought-provoking book I've read in the last five years. They explain the technicalities of the subject as directly and patiently as your favorite high school teacher, but the reviews are acidic and laugh-out-loud funny (My friends are sick to death of me calling them to read them passages.). When you consider how intimately scent is linked to both attraction and memory, it's amazing that so little attention is paid to it. It amazes me how little attention I'VE paid to it. I bought this book less than two months ago and I've read it twice and refer to it almost daily. I've read in a couple places that they might be starting a newsletter or magazine of some sort. It would be a shame if they didn't. Rating: - Perfume Guide fun, fascinating, and bewildering I have voraciously plowed through the Luca Turin/ Tania Sanchez Guide. What fun it is to read these witty and acerbic remarks on perfume, written by people who obviously know a lot about the subject. However, I find their choices of perfumes to review strange, at times: How is it that Boucheron's original scent is not reviewed (but is mentioned admiringly in their review of the Legere version of Boucheron), while a whole set of Art of Perfumery fragrances are skewered with singe star reviews? In other words, why devote all that space to bad scents, and not review a classic at all? (Are they just being mean?) I also find strangely absent the entire line of Fresh fragrances, including the Sugars and Index scents. . . . Is this a snub? An oversight? Politics of the industry? In addition to the above criticism of the work, I find using the Guide difficult if you aren't in the mood to read it straight through. Scents are listed by name of the perfume, not by brand. If you don't know how to spell a fragrance name exactly, or if you only remember part of the name, you could be in for a heck of a search (or you will need to cross reference the full, correct name on a site like fragrancenet.com or Sephora.com). Anyway, mostly fun reading, even on the occasions when (especially when?) I strongly disagree with their assessment. Rating: - Only a scratch-n-sniff section could have made this book better... Isn't the first movement of Brahm's 2nd Symphony in D Major the most melodic symphony ever written? Or would it be the Friar Lorenzo movement of Prokofieff's Romeo and Juliet? Or Tschaikowsky's 1st Piano Concerto? To the naive listener, a music critic's judgement and description would be helpful. To the urbane listener, such critique is interesting. Often critics will discern something that the casual listener has missed. It is why we need thoughtful, experienced, educated critics. Not because we always agree with them, but because they inform the debate. And so it is with "Perfumes - The Guide". The authors perform a stupendous service in reviewing hundreds of scents in lively detail. For the reader who is new to perfume (or has simply used what his parents used), this book is a must for the reference shelf. Eventually, the reader will have a significant other and run out of gift ideas: have this book at hand. There is no other similar compendium available. And while the authors have strong biases (good for them!), they are, at least. their own norm. The book is called a "guide"; it is not called "the RULES". All such compendia have biases, if only what is included and what is left out. The brief descriptions and ratings of perfumes are extremely helpful, but only perhaps if you have some experience with some of the scents. Fortunately, expense is not one of the authors' biases. I have used Tabac for years and it is very cheap. Dr. Turin rates is highly (4 out of 5). And I must confess, that I agreed with most of his choices for men's colognes (Eau Savage, Guerlain's Imperiale, Homme Dior), so perhaps I am favorably inclined toward this book. But, like the authors, I have been sampling scents for over 40 years, so I was able to conjure up the smells as they described them. This would be a distinct advantage in reading this book. If you have never been to a symphony hall, you will not recognize the description of the music when reading the review in the morning paper. Similarly, if you are new to perfumes, it will be difficult to understand some of the terminology. That noted, the rating guide serves as a good filter to avoid expensive mistakes. If you just noted the 4 and 5 star perfumes and made a point to experiment with them, you will connect the terms to the scents pretty quickly. A middle C on a timpani and a piano are the same note, but reading about them does not demonstrate the difference in sounds. And so it is with scents. This book will help guide you through the amazing variety of them.