Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin, Tania Sanchez Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Perfumes: The Guide
Book Review: A Complete Waste of Time and Money...
Summary: 1 Stars
As someone who collects perfumes, appreciates the art of sniffing, and reads up on olfactive memories and emotions, I find this book a complete joke. For one thing, if `The Guide' thinks that it can get away with pithy two-lined reviews which really say nothing about the perfume at all, the authors must be dreaming. While I acknowledge that perfumery is an art form and hence subjective -- allowing the authors to write their opinions on it -- I don't understand some of these sloppily written reviews which really say nothing at all about a scent; it's structure, the notes, the history, the bottle among other things. The intention of the authors may be a wonderful one -- to get industry players to wake up, get their acts together and be more serious in the field where just anyone has a perfume to his/her name -- I wonder however if skimpy reviews like `sad shampoo' would help anyone (in the field, or perfume lovers or collectors) in any way. What is even more painful is that while the authors acknowledge that `perfume is an art', the book contradicts this entire premise. For one thing, the mocking tones don't contribute anything to anyone's pre-existing knowledge on perfumes.
This book appears to be a lame exercise in witty prose writing, more than attempting to describe a smell well. Unless your patterns of buying and collecting are based on one or two people's reviews such as these (the true aficionado tests everything and decides for himself/herself and wears anything which pleases him/her), I'd highly recommend that you put your money elsewhere.
Book Review: Lovely! (Not SJP's)
Summary: 4 Stars
Tania Sanchez and Luca Turin have written a wonderful book. The reviews themselves are great fun to read and use as a reference, but the articles/essays preceding each section are also quite good, unusual in a book of this type. I almost wish there was more of the essay-type material. Hopefully they will be able to do an updated version sometime in the near future, or another book on fragrance entirely. Both are great writers with distinct prose styles, and it's fun to have them together in a way that doesn't try to meld them into one. Highly recommended.Book Review: It's about time
Summary: 5 Stars
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?
Book Review: Hugely disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
As a lifelong afficionado and collector of scents, I was sorely disappointed in this book. Some of the recommended scents are (to me) cheap-smelling, even sickening, while some of the greats were overlooked or critiqued harshly. In the end, what matters is personal preference. I just had no idea that individuals schooled in scent would have olfactory preferences no more discerning than the rest of us. Book Review: worthless
Summary: 1 Stars
The trouble with this book is that it's like two high school girls sitting around mocking everyone. Nastiness abounds and while it is amusing for the first few pages it got on my nerves after a chapter. On top of that the reveiews aren't very good. The authors dislike a particular celebtity and give a devastating descriptiton of her perfume based not on the scent, which is actually nice though weak but on the horridness of the woman herself. That has nothing to do with perfume.