Perfumes: The A-Z Guide

This book is a great reference work, and was very enlightening. Very glad I bought it, if you are a perfumista you will find it to be very useful. I didn't agree with all of the reviews but they have definitely encouraged me to try perfumes that are outside my usual comfort zone. I would highly recommend picking up this volume.

Five stars for the writing. I cannot remember a book that gave me more pleasure. It's a great read, rich with fascinating details about scents I've never tried. I'm not a perfumista, don't read the myriad perfume blogs, and frankly, don't even know why I like the perfumes I like. Besides reading this book for fun - especially the hilarious one-star reviews -- I'm using it to learn. It's a road map to hundreds of perfumes to try. I spray those little sniff strips, later seal each in a plastic snack bag so I can re-evaluate it for days and attempt to understand the experts' points of view. Then I sleep with one strip on my pillow for one night, hoping for wonderful dreams. Aromatics Elixir produced technicolor giggles. Had I not read this book, I would never have looked to Clinique for a fabulous perfume. Another discovery is good ole (manly) Stetson, described here as "a crisp classical feminine oriental...gorgeous, as rugged and masculine as the lingerie level at Saks..." Who knew? I'm now using this wonderful el cheapo as air spray in my musty book lined office.

I've admired Luca since stumbling upon Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent at the library (and still like vibrations better than molecules), then read his Secrets of Scent, at least the civilian-friendly first half, and ordered my the store copy of this guidebook months ago. Who wouldn't gravitate toward a scientist who, as Burr reported, was scrambling for a Nobel Prize on one hand and on the other describing an iconic perfume as something that should be hanging in a Moscow taxi.

Luca has major creds, but who is this Tanya person? She won me over on page 12, describing how people get interested in perfume. For me, it's the Tabu factor: Mumsy always wore it and from my earliest days I thought the world smelled of (the old) Tabu, Lucky Strikes, martinis and snowflake-sprinkled fur. And then of the wonderful old greasy green Replique, Joy, Zizanie and Ma Griffe my father brought home from Paris and my first purchase, Jolie Madame. What was not to love? I appropriated the Replique and wore it to grade school and on into adulthood, miss it still, and have no idea what it was I loved about it. As Tanya said, all perfume lovers have long, fond memories. It's sad that so many older perfumes have been discontinued or reformulated beyond recognition and I agree with an earlier reviewer that critiques of some discontinued classics would have been welcome.

I may not understand the structure of perfume, but I do know about the structure of books. This is reasonably good but another few months of work might have produced a masterpiece. I wish the publisher's production people had thought harder about a few things: First, the white cover may be striking but it's impractical for a book designed to be schlepped back and forth to the store. Ditto the page size. I'd prefer a wider page with room to make notes. Actually, a trade paperback with a binding that lies flat would have been ideal. The 12-page star index is jammed and nearly unreadable. I miss having a real index. Eliminating some inconsequential perfumes that garnered only a one-sentence critique would have freed up space for an index, an opportunity to list by type, by company, and by designer.

But that's technical stuff. I love this book enough to give it five stars anyway.. It contributes color, wit, and delight to an increasingly unrecognizable world where control freaks nail "fragrance free zone" signs on far too many doors and wearing perfume is considered as undesirable as smoking. In my city, anyway. Thanks to this book, perfume sales surely will increase.

This book is great, much better written than I had anticipated. However, it didn't come in as good condition as I was led to expect from the seller. It was stamped that it was an out of circulation library book, in a manner that could not be removed. Also, it had large stickers accross the back and front covers, as well as the spine that were very difficult to remove, and left residue that could not be taken off. Oterwise, a wonderful read, but I was wanting to give it as a gift, and couldn't in this condition. Because I addressed this with the seller, they refunded my purchase & shipping charge, and they were wonderful to deal with. They should divulge the condition of the book so you know what you're getting.

I bought this book after reading a review commenting about the evocative writing. I agree with it all. This book is positively orchestral in the way it describes perfumes. If you are searching for away to understand perfume options without having to be sprayed by all of the possibilities, take a look at this book. I went out and bought small samples of 12 new perfumes after reading this book, and each one was a new experience heightened by what I had learned. My only concern, and the reason I didn't give the book 5 stars, was that it occasionally assumed a level of perfume knowledge at times that I don't have, and I could have used a more basic introduction to terms and concepts.

Entertaining to say the least.. Many of the fragrances that people have considered popular, by some of the best houses in the world are given bad reviews by this author. If the consumer wants objective reviews based on wearers experience check out Fragnatica.com or Basenotes. This book in my opinion is a pass with no longevity or silage.

Finally, perfume criticism is coming into its own. With this bracing, educational, and witty guide, Turin and Sanchez blow away the empurpled PR prose and provide a much-needed reality check. And, fortunately for us, they do it with style and verve. Their respective writing styles turn the book into a page-turner. Luca in particular manages to describe how something smells with a lapidary precision that occasionally takes the breath away.

Of course I didn't agree with some of their reviews; so what? I'm just thrilled somebody finally had the chutzpah to say "Hey, this stinks" as well as the more usual glowing praise. Candid and opinionated discussion can only be good for the perfume industry in the end.

Who knew perfume reviews could be this much fun?

Yes, perfume is subjective. Sure, you won't agree with all the reviews. But does that make reading about it any less enjoyable? No! If you love perfume, you need this book. So many reviews are like a feast for the senses. You'll find yourself drawn to the perfume counter (or your own perfume collection) with book in hand, testing out your own nose, wondering if you can smell the heliotrope or the oakmoss. It's a fun challenge! Even if you don't love perfume, you still need this book. It will inspire you to delve into the world of delicious, provocative and mysterious scents that have been enchanting people since the beginning of time.

I really enjoyed the way this book was organized. It's very easy to navigate and very logical in its approach. I also appreciate the fact that, even though the authors are clearly experts in the field of fragrance, the book is written for the layperson. It's not at all dry, scientific or pompous in tone--like some writings about perfume can be--although there are snippets of chemistry speak here and there. It's very easy to understand and peppered with funny and very unpretentious and relatable observations. A great reference guide for buying, analyzing or just reading about perfumes.

This is ridiculous. I wanted this in Kindle format rather than as a bulky book to carry with me when shopping or traveling. I can't look up specific perfumes, and I'm not likely to read through the entire book in alphabetical order! I would have bought the hard copy, had I known, but I'm not going to buy it twice. What a waste.

ETA: This book could not be searched on my Paperwhite, to my great disappointment, but could be searched when I downloaded it to the Kindle app on my phone.

Despite his professed dislike of Nabokov, Mr. Turin shares with him a particular talent for scintillating, veracious appraisal, as well as definitive dismissal. One can have worn and loved Acqua di Parma's "Colonia" for years and understand that Mr. Turin is right on in his lukewarm appraisal of it. The author of Lolita held that "Style and structure are the essence of a book, great ideas are hogwash." Turin and Sanchez save their highest praise for perfumes that are artistic and original and consistently poke holes in creations that are middling and bland, yet pleasant. A perfume like "Terre d'Hermes" that many find strikingly original is simply "harmless". This is a book that will truly make you think about what you smell. Perfect.

This book is a perfume guide with very creative entries. The book "Emperor of Scent" and "The Secret of Scent" each set the stage for this guide by Lucas Turin and Tania Sanchez. This is a good guide on its own, but reading the other books will make it great!

Acerbic, bitchy, biting, absurdist, sharp, gentle, romantic, insightful, knowledgable. The adjective keep coming. So do the perfumes. From the heights of sublimity to the lightless depths of marketing-department dregs, the world of perfumes is presented to us for our enjoyment by two beautifully erudite and seemingly uninhibited writers. You will love it.

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.

I thought this book would name the top, middle and base notes of each fragrance reviewed. Instead it pointed out the leading fragrance notes without further explanation, and a little blurb about how the author(s) "rated" the fragrance. Obviously, their opinions are their own, since fragrance is so uniquely viewed by each individual. The book was more their "15 minutes of fame" instead of enlightening at all. The authors come across as fragrance snobs.

The book is 620 pages long. The actual reading ends on the page 60, after that I see highly opinionated reviews, marked with stars and dollar sign.
While the first 60 pages probably worth the price they charge, the rest is not so much.
I'd rather read fragrantica, which led me to this book anyway.
The authors are highly critical of the authors they don't like.
Here it goes, they like Shalimar, and I don't, so Shamilar hets marked in purple and praised about it.
If you are hoping to get some insight into fragrance, forget it, it is just an opinion, great, good, bad, blehhhh.
Author would compare perfume to the water in the toilet, or urine, and the fantasy goes on and on.
I am OK with the first 60 pages, but the rest, again, IMHO is garbage.
I would love to have some notes mentioned in the book advertising itself as a perfume review guide. They did not raise to my level of expecations. It is not Paula with her don't go to comsetic counter without me, where she meticulously lists all the ingridinets, it is not perfume librabry, it is an opnion of two people that would not necessarily match your own, really. 3 stars, may be 2.5 for the first 60 pages.

Turin argues in his earlier book, _The Secret of Scent_, that smell is not so much about memory and biology, as is widely believed, as it is about beauty and imagination. He believes, furthermore, that one of the highest achievements in perfumery is what he terms "abstraction," that is to say, the creation of olfactory accords that, while perhaps alluding to natural smells, are novel and resistant to definition. These aesthetic axioms (which he presumably shares with co-author/wife Tania Sanchez) are the basis of the evaluations in this book, and we, as readers, have no choice but to take them or leave them. These axioms lead the authors to prefer complex fragrances over simple ones, fragrances that develop over time to linear ones, original and/or unique fragrances over skillful executions of old ideas, "interesting" (even if vaguely unpleasant) fragrances over boring (even if pleasant) ones, etc. In a nutshell, they apply the same standards to perfume that other critics usually apply to other arts. They want perfumery to be taken seriously as an art form, and say as much.

This is a legitimate view, and one to which I am highly sympathetic. That said, I think the authors overlook (or deliberately ignore) some of the factors that render the purely aesthetic appreciation of perfume difficult at best. First of all, perfumes are made to be worn. The final aesthetic effect of a fragrance is inseparable from the time, place, and person(s) involved. Of course this "framing" or contextualization effect is at work in all art forms, but it is arguably more important for perfumery than for others. Given the fact that perfumes are mixtures of chemicals, factors such as temperature, humidity, skin pH, decomposition, underlying body odor, age-related hyposmia, differing olfactory thresholds, etc., make this state-dependence even more crucial. And, regardless of what Turin might say, it is simply impossible to separate a fragrance from the associations (read: memories) it may evoke. Perhaps it's possible to "see" the Platonic form of a perfume behind all of these contingencies, but I highly doubt it. Our reactions to smells are visceral before they're intellectual or aesthetic, no doubt because our sense of smell is our primary sentinel against many toxins and pathogens. Individual differences in sensitivity to certain aromatic chemicals are highly significant and render any kind of objective discussion of fragrances impossible. We're not even working with the same equipment--it's like a society of people who are all partially blind to different colors trying to discuss color coordination. The fundamental variability of our olfactory apparatus, even before differences in taste are taken into account, makes the arrogance of some of the pronouncements in this book a bit galling.

People *wear* fragrances (as opposed to sniffing them on strips--decidedly a minority pastime) for a variety of reasons: to make a statement, to find comfort or stimulation, to complement a particular ensemble, to seduce (and here the tastes of the quarry count far more than Apollonian meditations on beauty), and even, in some parts of the world, to mask the fact that they haven't bathed (it's no wonder that perfumery reached its pinnacle in Europe, where people didn't--and sometimes still don't--bathe regularly). Most people simply want a fragrance to make the day a little more pleasant for themselves and for those around them, not because they want to wear a work of "art" whose complexity and depth are going to make heads turn or spark a discussion about the relative merits of gourmand chypres and aromatic fougeres. Hence the incomprehension and hurt feelings that have greeted some of the harsher reviews in this book.

Assuming that one buys into the premise that perfume is a pure art, the authors, in general, seem to have excellent (i.e., informed, refined, and considered) taste--except when it comes to reviewing the work of their friends. Turin, for example, rates Calice Becker's Beyond Paradise Men as one of the top ten masculines currently in production. Since it isn't very expensive I decided to take a chance and buy it blind on his recommendation. The highly synthetic headache-in-a-bottle I got stuck with isn't terrible, I suppose, but if it's one of the top ten masculines that money can buy in early 2008, then I'm Jacques Guerlain. In a different part of the book I discovered that Turin is good friends with Becker. Ah ha... I don't mean to suggest that Turin was cynically shilling for a friend, but rare is the man who is immune to the tender, insidious persuasions of friendship. I'm certain no one else on the planet would rate that fragrance quite so highly. Such are the dangers inherent in taking the word of a consummate industry insider without a huge grain of salt. Turin also awards points for historical importance to fragrances he can't even stand to be around--Opium, for example. This, I think, is taking the "perfume as art" shtick a little too far. When reviewing fragrances that knock their socks off (especially a fragrance saturated with some deep personal significance) both authors (but Sanchez in particular) tend to wax poetic and come off the rails in terms of actually describing the fragrance. Some of this lyricism is quite affecting, but alas too much of it sounds like an exercise for a creative writing workshop, and the straining for effect turns tiresome. The humor, too, is witty in spots but tends consistently towards juvenile mockery and inane plays on perfumes' names.

All of these caveats aside, this is a very informative and often entertaining book. If you love fragrances, it is clearly a must-buy because it offers an excellent idea of which to sample next. If it educates consumers to stop buying and chides producers to stop making the cheap and and often hideous potions flooding the market, it will have done its job. I've learned a lot from the book and am grateful to the authors for having written it, but in the end it's more trustworthy as a Baedeker than as a Michelin.

I love this book unequivocally. Turin and Sanchez are a fantastic writing team and comparisons with Nabokov and other masters of verbal pyrotechnics are not off the mark. This book is a perfect antidote to the anodyne 21st century refusal to discern between grades of excellence.

Let me start with an example not related to perfume: have you ever met produces "just as good" music as that of Beethoven? Have you ever tried to argue the case that Shakespeare is not better than any teenaged poetaster? Yes, we are all equally of one genius! Not!

Turin and Sanchez combine their penetrating noses with pungent prose and almost supernaturally divine lyricism to examine the world of perfume. If you read this book with some care (and I've spent many hours on it already) it can be an education for your own nose. Get your perfume collection and try two or three a day. If you don't have a perfume collection, go to the department store and try two or three. If you want a perfume collection, slowly procure some of the ones that they recommend.

I learned a couple of things already: not to avoid "Lovely" because it's associated with a fairly main-stream celebrity and to give "Tommy Girl" a try. I don't think I've ever given TG a sniff because the names seems so--well, Charlie's Angels or something. I need to get over that. I also have a long list of things I want to try.

Each perfume reviewed gets a two word snappy description, such as "fruity barbershop", "cheap shampoo", and "carnation booze". Of course there are many superlatives as well. Then a lengthier review follows.

I especially enjoyed the discussions of perfumes that are rated "recommended" or "masterpiece". Many reviews are really educations in themselves such as the reviews for "Bandit," "Derby," "No. 5," "Pleasures," "White Linen" and many others. These are comprised of beautifully crafted sentences that manage to pull off a hat-trick of being lyrically poetical, scientifically informative, and intensely beautiful and witty.

Some of the shorter reviews are more sardonic, even cruel, but accurate. Just because J. Lo. signs off on a perfume does not make it pantheonistic and her reps should learn that. I think that the darker reviews seem correct, insofar as my familiarity goes, which (to be honest) is about as far as Muncie, Indiana, but we don't all get to Paris as much as we'd like.

I love the writing; I love the information; I think that the list is fairly well-inclusive but here's where I part ways a bit: too much time is spent on celebrities: why not mention the ones that are outstanding. Don't even give Paris Hilton a line. Why include Britney Spears if you omit Alan Cumming?

Some newer, smaller houses get short shrift--if this book is revised, I'd suggest looking at only a couple of Bond No. 9's and adding some more of the smaller houses. Better still why not a history of great houses or almost great houses? Perhaps an idea for a new books? Houses ranging from the old and venerable to the new. I did love it that Andy Tauer got his props; I would have loved a more thorough study of more recent "houses" or "niche houses". What Turin and Sanchez do with some venerable names such as Caron, Guerlain, Creed, Chanel, Lauder, etc. is wonderful.

Make certain that you read the first 49 pages--it's an education; almost a full-blown college course for the price of one book! And this guide should not merely be an encyclopedic reference but something worth reading from beginning to end; something worth dipping into at random and something to keep by your bedside table along with a good volume of poetry.

We've got Wordsworth and Coleridge; we have Astaire and Rogers, we have Lennon and McCartney, and now we have Turin and Sanchez amongst the great collaborators of art.

Perfume is the "unknown art", very expensive, and very mysterious.
People want to buy it, and to use it, but are not really interested
in what goes on back stage. This is an excellent introduction to that
world, but of greatest value in giving a kind of "buyer's guide" to
the range of both men's and women's fragrances.

After reading "The Emperor of Scent", I was curious about Turin's fabled fragrance reviews. Having at one time compounded, if not invented fragrance mixtures for a major candle maker, I still have a fascination for the scents that capture peoples emotions in a timeless way. I purchased this book at the first mention of it's pre-publication status, and it does not disappoint! I have only glanced at a few pages, and it delivers as promised. If you ever wondered what the difference was in the overwhelming plethora of fragrances, whether classic or pop, this book will quickly allow you to develop a knowledgeable nose for the fragrance counter, and if cocktail hour expertise is your forte, this will add to your arsenal of quips in short order. Bravo! Turin and Sanchez!

I enjoyed this book very much, but of course immediately looked for the ones that I wear, and couldn't find Armani's "Gio" nor "Acqua di Gio" (although I did find "Acqua di Gio pour Homme".
It would be nice if the authors could bring out an small annual "Update" volume, for those of us who have bought the original book.

I enjoyed this book very much, but of course immediately looked for the ones that I wear, and couldn't find Armani's "Gio" nor "Acqua di Gio" (although I did find "Acqua di Gio pour Homme".
It would be nice if the authors could bring out an small annual "Update" volume, for those of us who have bought the original book.

I had a terrific time reading this book. Mr. Turin's descriptions of fragrances were a joy to read. While I disagreed with some of his opinions on popular scents, I nevertheless learned a lot about how fragrances are judged by experts. This book blows the Fabulous Fragrances (Moran) books away. This IS the ultimate guide to fragrances.

This is an encyclopedia of perfumes, but it's fun to read. I have a small collection of perfumes and can vouch for the accuracy of the reviews. Fun to browse through and find all the stuff you've been using all along!

I bought this book originally thinking that it would be more like a reference for perfumes/colognes. However, it's more like a book about known perfumes/cologne that the authors rate and critique. In my opinion when you title a book "Perfumes: The Guide" you expect it to be a guide - a reference for all the perfumery sales personnel who work at the stores, boutiques, etc, and to the perfumes lovers/collectors. I was hoping that it would be more like "if you like perfume A, you would also enjoy perfume B". This guide doesn't mention top, middle, base notes of the perfumes mentioned nor does it have pictures - so you don't even know what you are looking at. Some of the reviews by the authors I agree with, but the majority of the reviews I don't agree with. In general, I feel like this is a terrible "guide" because it is very biased and completely based off the authors' experiences with the products.
Next time a guide on perfumes/cologne is made I wish that these things are covered, especially the ingredient notes of the cologne and also pictures. Also, I don't feel like a "review" of a cologne/perfume is based on one's personal critique - not everyone noses and personalities are alike.

Review for the hardcover version

I wouldn't bother buying this book. Of the 384 disappointing pages, 1-49 are the only ones relevant to learning anything, and even then, what you find in this short read is easily found online in various fragrance communities or a quick google search away.The remainder of this frivolous book consist of reviews. Everyone has their own opinion on a fragrance and how it wears on you, their opinions don't really matter.

Absolutely ridiculous and ignorant writing - waste of your time and money. I agree with previous reviewers on this being "just somebody's personal perception and opinion", but excuse me - this book should not be named "Perfumes: the A-Z guide" in that case. Believe me, it's not an encyclopedia. Let's look at this example from the book describing Dior's Midnight Poison:
"The poison series has given two masterpieces, the original and Hypnotic; two passable fragrances, Pure and Tendre; and now a Midnight dud that makes it clear why the bottle was shaped like a pumpkin all along. Composed by Olivier Cresp and Jacques Cavallier, this is a confused, skimpy, trivial, borderline-insulting confection, clearly predicated on the notion that the intended buyer has already donated her brain to science. I pray it flops."
No, dear authors, I think it's your book that is insulting indeed. If I am reading a "guide", I want facts, I want notes, I don't want just your personal opinions written on a bad day. Some of the perfumes are just given one useless three words sentence for description. Some fantastic perfume brands are not included just based on the fact that they didn't care to send their samples to those two "experts". It is a joke. Please stay away no matter how much interest in perfumes you have.

This book has a couple of interesting chapters in the beginning but the bulk of it is just perfume reviews. I can go online and find thousands of perfume reviews for free by people who love and wear perfume so I don't see the point in paying for the opinions of 1 or 2 people. But I suppose if you want to know what the authors think of your favorite scent you might like this. Although your favorite scent might not even be in the book.

Tentoone's excellent review says it all about this book. I bought it. I read it. I should not have bothered. Go to an online perfume sales company and read the buyer reviews. It's free and more useful in judging the perfumes. This book is a collection of this married couple's personal opinions. Ho Hum.

Although informative, the reviews really leave something to be desired in this book. Perfume is so subjective, and these are just the opinions of two reviewers, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. I find that by reading a lot of perfume blogs and reviews on Fragantica and Makeupalley that I get a much more well rounded idea of how I might like a fragrance and whether I want to get a sample. And some of Turin's five star favorites! Tommy Girl and Estee Lauder's Beyond Paradise? Really? While they dismissively sniff at Frederic Malle's En Passant and Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle. It just goes to show that as far as perfume likes and dislikes go, everyone has an opinion, but there's no single reference that's the gospel.

Turin also will base his review of a particular perfume based more on his liking for the perfumer, which is a ridiculous way to look at each perfume individually. Even master perfumers can produce duds.

I think Scent and Subversion by Barbara Herman does a much better job of being an objective source of information about perfumes, although it is limited to vintage pre-2000's perfumes. There's no snarky little throwaway reviews of any perfume. The A to Z Guide delights in including these, even though they give you no real info about the perfume other than their personal opinion and merely provide an attempt to be cute and funny.

Overall I'd say skip this and buy Scent and Subversion if you're new to perfume. At least you'll get a solid history, if not reviews of the latest releases.

Hilariously funny. The authors review a large number of commercial perfumes, arranged by alphabetical order by perfume's title. A review might include the major scents, how they combine (or do not), and authors' memories of certain perfume-related events. In the back of the book, there are a couple of top 10 lists of perfumes.

Let me just give you an example of how funny they can be:
"Very Sexy for Her (Victoria's Secret), sour metallic. I have been racking my brain, trying to understand how one of the most unpleasant fragrances ever made was developed and brought to market. It consists of a loud metallic note (which you can replicate at home by chewing a piece of aluminum foil) plus the sourest woody amber ever and a whiff of stale pizza."

"Aquawoman (Rochas), watery floral. As near nonexistence as it is possible to be while still remaining technically a fragrance".

"cK IN2U (Calvin Klein), 7Up amber. IM IN UR BOTTLE BORIN UR GF."

Overall, entertaining read. Would not necessarily recommend it for anyone trying to make perfume, it's not a how-to book.
Also, take it with a grain of salt - perfume preferences vary person by person and each perfume reacts differently with the wearer's body chemistry. And I am not just making that up because two of my most favorite scents got one-star reviews :)

Another limitation of this book - a lot of perfumes discussed here I have never heard of/ can't get a hold of/ are long time out of production. The authors review them for the purposes of having a more complete perfume "map", and not as a shopping guide.

I work in fragrance and the concensus is that this guy was bribed. For instance, he gives Estee Lauder's original Youth Dew top rating (four stars!) as one of the best out there. He says: "It smells terrific, top quality, sophisticated, and easy to wear." Don't think so! I keep trying to make myself feel that way about Youth Dew because it'd save me a lot of money, but I can't! Then I see he rates a respectable Cartier fragrance as smelling like puke. The word authority should be no where near this guy's name. I think I must just throw this book out.....

I found this book hilariously funny and capable of being re-read countless times without a touch of boredom. Perhaps it helps that I have the nose of a drug sniffing dog and I also share the taste of the authors. After reading the heady and dense prose of wine critics, (and I am as mad for wines as for perfumes, and also cursed with the genuine love for the most costly ones) it is a blessing to read a book written about the SENSES which makes sense and which is also somehow exceedingly funny. I am a person who opens and sniffs dishwashing liquid in the supermarket because I do not want to LOATHE it when I get it home. I want it to be as close to NOTHING as is possible. Thus, based on our shared agreements on a handful of perfumes, this is the only book which would cause me to try something without having smelled it first; for me, a great leap of faith.

Knowing relatively little about perfume, I found this book amazing. Before last year, I was, like many women, loyal to a few perfumes. A friend who is really into perfume was moving and gave me scores of samples. I could try a new perfume every day for months, literally. Which is what I decided to do. Since there were so many, I thought I would write a little in my journal about each one, since I could never remember all the names and what I like or disliked about each.
However, this presented me with a problem. The language I had to describe the perfumes was lacking. How often can you use the word "sophisticated" before it has no meaning? Luckily I came across this book around the same time. Of course I knew that some perfumes were florals. But reading this book was the first time I had heard of chypres, or knew which perfumes were Orientals, or the extent to which modern fragrances are synthetic.
For someone who knows little about perfume, like me, this book is a revelation. It's like being in school somewhat--you get history lessons, chemistry, psychology.
That said, if you are already knowledgable about perfume, this probably isn't useful. And it might be upsetting, inexplicable or even offensive to judge from some of the other reviews.
Over all, trust your own nose. Some of the perfumes the authors rave about here I find dreadful. Poison for example. They rate this as a masterpiece; personally, I think the only place to wear this is at home, alone. As long as you don't have any pets. If you want to expose yourself to this, fine. Exposing other living creatures to it is wrong. Wearing it in public is just sadistic and cruel.
Then there's Jicky, and Mitsouko, both of which the authors swoon over. I find the idea of Jicky (a perfume made continuously since 1889) interesting. It must be quite good if people have been willing to buy it for so long. Mitsouko is listed by both authors as the perfume they would choose if they could only wear one perfume ever again.
I obtained samples of both, expecting amazing things. I was underwhelmed and surprised at being so. Neither was horrible, but neither were the transcendant experience I expected after reading about them here.
Yes, the tone is bitchy. I find that amusing, you may not. Chacun a son gout.

So many good, critical reviews here I won't repeat their remarks.

To sum it all up, the 2012 Hall of Fame FiFi award went to Issey Miyake's L'Eau d'Issey.
And, imo, well deserved.
But the authors review is an adequate rating- 3 star- and an almost complete brush off.

The book was fun to read- the snark, the vernacular, the absences (What? Where is...?) but I'm glad I got it from the library. It's not worth my bookshelf space.

An interesting read. I was thrilled to see one of my perfumes (Aromatic Elixir) rated 5 stars, but crushed when C'est la Fete, one of my favorites, was rated "loud, vulgar and moronic."
:( Hmm. I think a lot of information has been compiled in this book which I appreciate and will refer to. I want it in my library, but I'll remember Mario's mantra: "Follow your nose!"

I never really liked perfume very much, I always associated it with department store headaches. But I have always been fascinated with scent and WANTED to like perfume. The manufacturer's descriptions always sound so lovely and then they smell terrible, so its impossible to know what to look for.

I loved reading the Emperor of Scent, and after reading that book and now the Perfume guide I was able to find a couple of perfumes that are perfect for me, based on Luca and Tania's recommendations. The descriptions are so detailed it made it really easy for me to figure out which ones I'd like. Thats not to say I totally agree with all of their choices, because perfumes are still a very personal choice, but I will continue to use the book as a gift giving guide to find scents that I can afford, that fit different personalities. I appreciate that it saves me the headache of testing out all the overly marketed and expensive "duds". And reading their descriptions of the duds is just as entertaining as reading about the good ones.

This may be the only beauty-related book in print today which is not a mess of compliments designed to keep the authors' careers alive by kissing ass. It is, instead, balanced and honest and full of useful information.
I took this book with me to Sephora and was amazed at how much it helped me understand what I was smelling. I was able to draw connections between scents that before had seemed unrelated, and I began to see more subtlety in perfumes.
Tania Sanchez is a wickedly funny, modern author who should have much more material available for us to enjoy. Turin is no less wonderful, but Sanchez just glitters.

The only misstep is the number of classic and otherwise famous perfumes not listed in the book, including at least five referenced in descriptions of other scents. This is a sloppy mistake, but does little to diminish the great breadth of reference.

This is an excellent guide for perfume collectors or perfume lovers. It is written in a rather informal and light way but provides lots of scientific and historical information. Luca Turin is a leading scholar in the field of olfatory science and Tania Sanches is an expert on perfumes. Both made a review of 1500 fragrances in a very thorough manner. As I am a designer and a perfume collector ( specially vintage bottles ) this book was very helpfull to me. I sincerely recomment it.

The Guide is a likable introduction to perfume. The chapters on the basics (genres, difference male/female, bit of chemistry, etc) are informative and to the point. Most of the reviews are pretty fair, well written and, not unimportant, at times very funny. The top-10's aren't without controversy and probably should not be followed/purchased blindly. The only problem I found was that some popular, albeit older male perfumes (for instance Quorum, indeed all of Puig is absent, Drakkar Noir, Lagerfeld or YSL pour Homme) are not graded although they still are in production. Well, you obviously can't review them all. Recommended reading if you want to have an overview of the field before you walk into a store for your next fragrance.

The descriptions of perfumes in this book are AMAZING. I actually started highlighting and post-it marking different scents and have been on a mission to track them down and smell!!! There are several brief chapters in the beginning about the science of smell, the types of fragrances and the history of perfumes. And then! wonderful descriptions of perfume, some quite amusing. Jicky, Cuir de Russie, Apres l'Ondee, Lolita Lempicka, Mitsouko...names I've read over the years, but magazine reviews and scent flaps really are pitifully inadequate after reading this book. This book is probably not for the person who is content to wear the latest Britney Spears scent but for someone who is a lot more adventurous. I would recommend also "The Emperor of Scent - A True Story of Perfume and Obsession" about scientist Luca Turin and "The Perfect Scent - A Year Inside the Perfume Industry" a great story about how a perfume is actually created, both by Chandler Burr (no, I do not know him). It would have been a very nice touch to see photos/illustrations of
the perfume bottles, but still, a great book. Enjoy!

Luca Turin and his Wife Tania Sanchez do an excellent job of letting the
reader know what they like or dislike about 1500 fragrances. Use it as a guide to acquire some samples for testing yourself. I discovered a couple that I would have never even tried on my own searching. That was worth the price of the book alone. Beyond Paradise Men by Estee Lauder and Yohji Homme were the two great discoveries for me . Now go buy a copy and discover some treasures for yourself. If you need some samples of some of the more esoteric frags go to [...] - they have most everything.

My only bitch about the book is they don't rate the fragrances with sillage and longevity ratings. Longevity is important to me because I have dry skin and live in the desert. Alot of scents just don't last unless they have major sillage and longevity. A very important factor for perfume enthusiasts that didn't get addressed. Luca and Tania, will you please rate sillage and longevity on the next 1500 fragances.

Thanks,

[email protected]
Ken-from Reno, Nevada

"Perfumes: The A-Z Guide" is above all an education in writerly style. The form of the perfume review is one that the authors truly have down, blending personal anecdote and histories of perfumes and perfumiers, with their own analyses. Irrespective of whether or not you agree with them, you never feel that you are not in safe hands.

I don't know very much about perfume, unlike other reviewers, but the distortions of nepotism seem sufficiently incidental that the book's signal-to-noise ration is still extraordinary. And I'm not sure that there is a great deal to be gained by complaining that you disagree with the guide's verdicts. The point of education is to hone your powers of discrimination, not to be told that all your received ideas are valid and can be retained intact.

Though I love the concept of this book and enjoyed reading it, it leaves me a bit hollow in that many of their top picks are UNAVAILABLE--and the book is far from comprehensive. I can list ten to twenty colognes that are not in this book that I've owned over the years that were fantastic and far from obscure... Krizia, Tres Homme de Caron, DK Men, Salvatore Ferragamo, Byblos just to name a few.
But the authors have both wit and style that make the histories and reviews very fun to read.

I enjoyed learning how perfumes are 'built', but it's the humour and amazingly vivid descriptions that really wowed (ex: "vile fruity", "cheap and confident", "dirty musk" and "bad vanilla".) I never expected perfume reviews could be so clever and evocative! Difficult to pick a favourite, but L'Air de Rien is written up as "boozy kisses, stale joss sticks, rising damp, and soiled underwear" which is pretty close to laugh-out-loud perfection.

Finally real critique in an area of multibillion commerce where pussyfooting was the most negative comment one would ever read, and where non-sensical hype in press releases was the norm. For the novice: neither Georgio Armani nor David Beckham have ever mixed a perfume, no designer or celebrity most likely ever has: they lend their name (not for free, as you might guess) and perhaps a "concept" to a fragrance, and that's it. The actual toil of producing the "juice" on a most-often pitiful budget (vs. the millions that go into advertising and promotions) falls into the hands of more or less gifted "house elves", the perfumers, who until recently were entirely creatures of the shadows. And Luca and Tanya lead you into this world from the angle of an incorruptibe sense for quality and craftsmanship which form the base of great art and whose absence defines "good intention, but..." or outright trash. No holding back here: the next time you stop in the ground-level fragrance bazaar of your favorite department store, be aware that the fragrance industry is perhaps the only business that gets constantly away with blatant label fraud: if you think the "Fahrenheit" that you smelled in the bathroom after your dad took your mom to the theater, is still in the identical-looking bottle that you would buy today, think again: since Dior is now part of LVMH, which in his blog Luca called " the Microsoft of the fragrance industry", all its famous perfumes have been re-formulated under the thin disguise of conforming with new regulations, yet in truth to squeeze out the last centime of profit by often substituting original high-quality ingredients with cheap large-volume synthetics. Which is where small niche perfumers come in who sell their creations either under their own name or as part of a growing boutique business that defines its success by offering uncompromising quality. While even 15 years ago, when Luca Turin's first Perfume buying guide appeared in France (and was never translated), one would have to travel to Paris or London to buy one of those hidden treasures, with internet-commerce in full swing all this is now at your fingertips. And that's where this book really shines and becomes a great help for all of those who already love perfume and want to explore a wider realm, or especially for those who always wondered if there was more than J-LO but needed to hold on to their dollars. Many entries among the nearly 1,500 reviews refer to offerings by those very boutique houses you had never heard of, but who will define the world of fragrance from here on, by bringing quality and originality back to the longing but so far mis-informed consumer. I myself was once writing perfume-reviews for Glamor and Elle magazines and had to witness the editing-out of any trace of critical wording. Repeatedly, the editors would point out to me that they had to publish either glowing reviews or none at all, since the same issue would carry the ads for those very fragrances. And since advertising is the number one revenue generator for these rags, you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you. So, dear young reader and seeker of a scent that finally would make you feel being yourself, the next time you consider throwing in one of those magazines at the supermarket checkout, save your dollars and instead spend them on this wonderful, irreverent, entertaining, witty, and most-of-all very informative book.