Short description
Turin, a renowned scientist, and Sanchez, a longtime perfume critic, review more than 1,200 fragrances, separating the divine from the good and the monumentally awful.
Long description
The first book of its kind: a definitive guide to the world of perfume Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez are experts in the world of scent. Turin, a renowned scientist, and Sanchez, a longtime perfume critic, have spent years sniffing the worldas most elegant and beautifulaas well as some truly terribleaperfumes. In Perfumes: The Guide, they combine their talents and experience to review more than twelve hundred fragrances, separating the divine from the good from the monumentally awful. Through witty, irreverent, and illuminating prose, the reviews in Perfumes not only provide consumers with an essential guide to shopping for fragrance, but also make for a unique reading experience. Perfumes features introductions to womenas and menas fragrances and an informative afrequently asked questionsa section including: a What is the difference between eau de toilette and perfume? a How long can I keep perfume before it goes bad? a Whatas better: splash bottles or spray atomizers? a What are perfumes made of? a Should I change my fragrance each season? Perfumes: The Guide is an authoritative, one-of-a-kind book that will do for fragrance what Robert Parkeras books have done for wine. Beautifully designed and elegantly illustrated, this book will be the perfect gift for collectors and anyone whoas ever had an interest in the fascinating subject of perfume.
Review
aWhile the authors embrace point systems and science, they also offer vivid, funny, evocative descriptions of the smells they write abouta]To enjoy Perfumes, you donat need to know, or even to like, perfumes, such is the brio of Turinas and Sanchezas prosea]This is fun to read a and a rare pleasure, tooa]The joy of Turin and Sanchezas book, however, is their ability to write about smell in a way that manages to combine the science of the subject with the vocabulary of scent in witty, vivid descriptions of what these smells are like. Their work is, quite simply, ravishingly entertaining, and it passes the high test that their praise is even more compelling than their criticisma]Its blend of technical knowledge and evocative writing is exemplary in the strict sense: people who write about smell and taste in any context should use it as an example.a
- The New Yorker
aThis comprehensive book is unfailingly entertaininga]Their passion for a few scents and their outrage at the othersa failings make for entry after entry of hilarious, catty comments interspersed with occasional erudite, eloquent disquisitionsa]This will be a must-have for anyone who already loves perfumesa]and those who arenat utterly perfume-obsessed will still appreciate the opening essays on olfactory science, the history of perfume, general types of fragrances and how to choose perfumes.a
- Publishers Weekly, starred review
aAfter spending the better part of a weekend reading a galley a often aloud to anyone willing to listen a I'm convinced Turin and Sanchez offer some of the most stylish, erudite and hilarious criticism in any subject field.a
- Dallas Morning News