brings to mind a pouting model, hands on hips in opera gloves, wearing a hat, a Spencer jacket, and a pencil skirt, with her feet at right angles to each other as if she were going up a ski slope. Lulling and unsettling in equal measure, and truly great. has the haunting, outdoors witchiness of tall pines leaning into the night-a bitter oakmoss inkiness, a dry cedar crackle, and a low, delicious, pleading sweet amber, like the call of a faraway candy house.
Turin, also a very good writer, provides the musings of an esteemed olfactory nerd. Here he is explaining how perfumes are made up of atoms that come from “the Upper East Side of the periodic table, a nice, safe neighborhood”:Ĭiting a lack of passion for “data entry,” Turin and Sanchez forgo the lengthy lists of notes that occupy so much space in most fragrance reviews, preferring to focus on the impressions those notes create. Sanchez is whip-smart and funny-her one-liners are the best-and her descriptions of fragrances read like tiny, perfect narratives. The book comes with a sweet-as-Prada-Candy back-story: once upon a time, Tania Sanchez, prolific American fragrance blogger, left a comment on the perfume blog of Luca Turin, European scholar of smells (and the subject of Chandler Burr’s The Emperor of Scent), which led to a correspondence, which led to a working relationship (Sanchez provided Turin with editorial input on one of his earlier books, in exchange for a few rare perfumes), which led, two years later, to marriage.Īnd they’re a perfect match.
It’s an “exemplary” blend of “technical knowledge and evocative writing” ( The New Yorker said so), chock-full of erudite, passionate, and hilarious criticism.
And before you can say, “But Tracey, I am a Profound Person! I read books about war, incest, and ennui-not smells,” let me reassure you that Perfumes is no mere collection of lady mag fragrance piffle (“you’ll drive your man wild with this fruity concoction,” etc). A quick GO READ THIS from me today: go read Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez.
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