Perfumes: The A-Z Guide Paperback – International Edition, October 27, 2009

This is a comment I made to another review that I decided to post as a review as well.This is a brilliant, original, funny, thought provoking and informative book. At the time it was written there was nothing like it, and nothing surpasses it.I have learned far more from this book about scent, combinations of scent and the appreciation of them than I have from anything else I've encountered. It delighted me, and also instructed me on new and helpful ways to approach sensory evaluation in my work (wine). I absorbed more about approaching and categorizing sensory evaluation and bringing life, interest, precision and structure to it than I have from any number of oenology texts and professional articles. Not that most of those books or articles were bad, but that this book is that good.Yes, this is high level criticism from people who rank somewhere beyond "enthusiast" in their interest in the subject. What fascinates them, like what fascinates or delights most devotees of anything, goes well beyond what the majority of people would wish or need to know about the subject. Their encyclopedic knowledge, incisive writing and vast passion for the subject mean much more to me, however, than a paragraph of disclaimers about heat index, humidity, skin pH, age, the fact that you woke up grumpy and some sort of contrived "grading rubric" would.Also, I find them hilarious. Their positive reviews are rhapsodic, their negative ones, blistering - passion combined with piercing discernment.Honestly, I don't care what the mainstream world thinks of most perfumes. Give me the obsessive interests, strong opinions and vaulting enthusiasms of Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez over what some other reviewers seem to want - the po-faced seriousness and studied middle-of-the-road dullness and strained objectivity of a Consumer Reports article about perfume. If you're looking for The Consumer Reports Guide to Perfume and Fragrance, and little gray bubbles in columns, this isn't it.But how can a regular person benefit from such a work? Let's take an example nearly every American over a certain age knows. Siskel and Ebert. I think they were so successful at critiquing film for mainstream audiences because it was easy to get a sense of each critic's approach. You learned that you could trust their opinions, sometimes in a negative way. But they weren't just mainstream, they saw everything. They were film obsessives. That obsession sometimes helped some obscure movies find a wider audience, and encouraged millions of people to try some things they might have avoided otherwise, or to go watch an older masterpiece at home. This is the case for me with this book. It's pretty easy to spot where you and the reviewers will agree or disagree after a trip to the perfume counter, and then the book is more valuable still.Some critiques seem to suggest this book is for elitists, or the pretentious. I couldn't disagree more. Turin and Sanchez clearly believe perfume is a form of high art accessible to almost anybody. So if you're looking for something agreeable, solid, mainstream, and affordable they identify such products quite well. They heap praise on Old Spice, Stetson and Tommy Girl for example- that's pretty much the opposite of pretension to me. They mainly insist that whatever you wear, at any price point, be good. And they suggest, time and again, that price and enjoyability are rarely linked, except in the necessary expense of certain natural components. And they tell you who spends the money for "the good stuff" and who doesn't.Pretty much every technical criticism leveled against the book concerning both the subjective qualities and chemical difficulties of perfume analysis is acknowledged by the authors, by the way. In the end, you simply can't account for everything, for everyone, but with such a vast storehouse of reviews, with consistent voices, you can find a solid shared grounds for analysis quite easily in my opinion. Which is sort of the point of expert analysis and critique, really.There is also a line of criticism here that runs along the lines of "But I can just read stuff on the internet about this, it's the same. It's just like, someone's opinion, man." So, art criticism has an element of subjectivity to it. Who knew?That criticism entirely misses the point. The point is finding true experts who voices you trust. Sure, that trusted advice certainly could come from an online community. When I need a medical diagnosis, or financial advice, I trust the random collection of experts I find on the internet. Opinions are just opinions. Why would you ask a doctor what her opinion is when you can just ask the internet? Why read a PhD who theorized an entirely new, and quite possibly correct, mechanism for scent when it's just, like, his opinion man?The main trouble to me is that dozens of new perfumes are introduced every year. The book will fall ever further behind on new releases, and things that are being aggressively marketed until there is a new edition. But that's small potatoes to me. Almost all the greats, and classics they talk about are available to try somewhere, even via an internet sampler. That's where to start anyway, to learn how this stuff works, and how to translate the words into scents.(Finally the critiques of various other critics are sort of hilarious - "How can he rate this five stars when I absolutely hated it! Worthless!" )

EXCELLENT book, biting wit, right-to-the-point 1-liners. True, not a complete list, possibly somewhat biased (read the review mentioning Beyond Paradise by Estee Lauder), but there is no substitute for it out there... Read Turin's and Sanchez' words as a rough guide to inform your neocortex, but filter as much as you can (or care, or should I say wear?) through your own ofactory experience. You should only wear what you like, not what any one guru says is worth its while (but be mindful that others need to stand it also).His star ratings are a good guide for what's what: hyped dross (*), flat/boring blah (**), good/wearable (***), excellent/exquisite (****), unique/the ultimate (***** MIND YOU: not necessarily wearable).For those among you who are unsure/confused/need help/etc: most of the stuff you might want to wear is marked *** or ****. Tread lightly among the ***** rated, always test your "candidate fragrance" on a paper strip AND your own skin before plunking down serious money. Go to Neiman Marcus' or Saks' or Nordstrom's fragrance counters and ask for a few spritzed strips. Let them dry, then seal them inside (separate!) ziploc bags before putting them in your pocket, then walk away. Sniff "them" strips half-a-day or a day later, to see if you want to test them on your skin. Then go back. It's worth the trouble, 'cause it's gonna save you from making some very expensive mistakes...Yes, the listing is incomplete, Turin's views are it's highly idiosyncratic and sometimes "wrong" (as his co-author TS says somewhere in the book), but always pithy and witty with a dry sarcastic edge, thus highly entertaining. (What better concisely worded characterization for Equipage by Hermès than scent of a "crumpled gentleman farmer"? And so on, and on, and on... I'm not sure, though, why he flames Santos by Cartier, though. It's just as subtle and close-to-skin in its dry-down as Equipage... Well, I quess he's totally not free from fads, his own words sy it: "...in a style that has aged badly... If you like this stuff, get Yatagan." Well, I do wear Yatagan, and it smells quite differently from Santos!)For the ofactorily impaired or those whose sensibilities are (rather childishly) offended: you can read the lists of top-middle-bottom notes for 90+% of the existing perfumes on the [...] site for example (or on many of the Internet sites that sell perfumes). You can also read the various perfume blogs ad nauseam, often written by self-appointed "scent gurus" (is "gurette" the feminine for "teacher" in Hindi?). At most, you will get only a vague idea on how the various perfumes smell and very likely become REALLY CONFUSED, if you spend enough (actually: too much) time reading those reviews. There is no better telling about the esthetic experience elicited by the various perfumes than Turin's brief descriptions. Sample some perfumes that you're not familiar with, then read Turin's description, to get your own book-to-sensory-experience mapping (or key on how to decipher his critiques). Mind you, practicing (synthetic) chemists use their shnozolas as their first-line rough-and-ready alarm system as well as analytical tool, so Turin really knows what he is talking about. That said, "de gustibus et colorem non est disputandum" and that which you like might not necessarily have his blessing or be to his liking, but that's OK. After all, you use a perfume for causing you, and hopefully those around you, pleasure. Which also means: beware of loud, "foghorn" scents, out of deference for other people's personal space, if for nothing else. If you don't like someone to step on your toes, why should someone else enjoy having their nose "stepped on" by your fragrance?If you are interested in what's popular, go to [...] for a bunch of user reviews. Although, mind you, this is a self-selected set and therefore biased sample, but if you rather have a popular vote (vox populis) than an informed professional opinion, that's as close as you can get, since the "silent majority" is just that, silent on the subject. (But not necessarily fragrance/stench free!)