Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez- A Book Review

The amount of mental energy I've spent over the last three weeks deliberating if I should review the book or not, could have been spent on something far more productive or inspiring. Like catching up on email or organizing my shoes by color. At first, even before actually buying the book, just from being aware of the concept and reading the marketing hype, I already knew (more or less) what to expect and have concluded that while I was certainly interested to read it, it was not "A definitive guide to the world of perfume" (direct quote of the back cover). It's a book of opinions about scents. How is it different than any of the major perfume blogs?

The answer to that is approximately $20. That's what you pay for the book (if you're a B&N member), while we, bloggers, give our opinion for free.

My original suspicion was correct. There's no way one could refer to this book as a definite guide to anything but the authors' tastes and preferences. While Dr. Turin is highly educated in the science and structure of perfume, and Ms. Sanchez has obviously smelled her way around the block, in the end of the day, their reviews are not a perfume encyclopedia. I had a little chat about it with Marina of Perfume Smellin' Things, where I told her that I'd just as much be happy to read a book that collected the best reviews by a bunch of bloggers. Now that I think of it, such a book could be extremely fun to read, and probably very educating, considering the different angles and perspective we all bring to the table.

Entertaining is a key word here. The book is a fun read, full of quips and at its best, razor-sharp observations. At its lower points, the snark crosses into personal insults. I'm not one of those who took offense when some of my favorite scents (Miel de Bois and Mechant Loup) got panned just as I didn't gloat or feel especially validated when scents I dislike were dismissed (save for one little moment of schadenfreude at the expense of D&G Light Blue and Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist, two bestsellers that have never worked on my skin). I would probably have been less amused had my two favorite perfumers, Andy Tauer and Vero Kern, and their creations, received a similar treatment to the one poor Mona di Orio got. But how seriously can you take a bad review from the people who wrote odes to Tommy Girl, Beyond Paradise and the barfalicious Missoni? All I can say is that MdO Carnation, which I have always liked, was just bumped several notches up in my "to buy" list. I wish the authors had remembered the difference between a big, cynical company that releases scents created by a committee and tweaked according to focus groups and the work of independent perfumers who put their hearts in their bottles. You can hate the juice, just don't take it out on the artist.

That said, I'm glad that Dr. Turin has made it a point to drag into the spotlight the problem of cheap and sloppy reformulations, like the ones that killed my beloved Lauren and brought down the mighty house of Caron. People still waste money on these perfumes and they need to be aware that the juice is not what it used to be. The companies are trying to cover up and deny, but a credible voice saying that the Emperor is not only naked, but also has a hairy back is what we all needed.

Perfumes: The Guide is available from Amazon and Amazon.uk, as well as from just about every bookseller. I bought my copy at Barnes & Noble.