It’s rare that a book actually incenses me. I’m a voracious reader, and usually I’m a ‘different strokes for different people’ kind of person. This is different, though. Here’s my Perfumes The Guide 2018 review (or, a rant.)
I’ve written about Luca Turin before, when I recommended “The little book of perfumes” of his. “Perfumes The Guide 2018” is basically the same: a list of the worst and best frgrances Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez have tested. While The Little Book of Perfumes deals with the classics (No.5, Jicky, Shalimar, Fracas), this one deals with modern fragrances of the last decade.
In case you need a refresher, he (and his wife, Tania Sanchez), are royalties of the fragrance world, maybe the most-renowned critics. So much so that there’s even a book about Turin, called “The Emperor of Scent”. I’ve called him: “(…) biophysicist and perfume critic, you’ll learn that he’s slightly jaded, very witty, and regards 2011, when the EU-wide laws about allergens in fragrances were issued, as the end of the world. His descriptions of fragrances are sharp, lovingly (exasperated in some cases) and borderline quirky.
Perfumes The Guide 2018 review: The problem with best-worst lists
This is still true of the 2018 guide. There’s just one (no, rather two) problem: In writing a guide that masquerades as a “best of” list, you need to create a rather sharp dichotomy between the best and the garbage. I mean, I get it. I’ve done it before in the iteration of many, many makeup collection round-ups. And it’s fun! It gives you the chance to dust of that sparkly wit you possess, and also gives you (me) the chance to feel a LOT holier than thou. Not for me that pedestrian garbage that companies churn out, oh no! (We’ll get back to this.) You’re a Connoisseur! You deserve better!
The moany reviewer
The other problem is: you have to like, admire and properly want to know Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. And let me tell you: I don’t. And I realized that right in the middle of the foreword. The foreword is actually kind of great. Tania Sanchez wrote it, and you learn a lot:
That the book is “an ongoing sampling of the current state of perfumery” and that they are a “work of informed subjectivity”, for example. (We’ll get back to this, later, too.)
But among other things, you learn a bit about the grey market for perfumes, why bigwigs Firmenich and Givaudan are both Swiss, and not German or French, that France in the 50s smelled bad, the reason why fragrances have a top and a base note, why the drydown is a thing of the past. Their insight is genuinely interesting for a lover of fragrances.
But then, there’s so much to moan about. Bad mainstream fragrances, Kim Kardashian, expensive niche fragrances, the 2011 EU laws that banned allergens in fragrances. Just imagine, Eduard Routniska released only 14 fragrances in his lifetime, but Alberto Morillas has now done over 400! O tempora, o mores. When Luca Turin answers a reader question about scent-free spaces nonchalantly with “people will always find something to worry about” I thought about all the migraine sufferers I know and realized: why should I read something so highly individual as this book when I don’t even like, nor agree with the authors?
The case FOR banal fragrances
I also think they’re wrong.
“Naturally, bad artisan perfumers, like bad amateur photographs and painters, flog the perfume equivalent of kittens, trees in winter, or arty nudes.”
Perfumes The Guide 2018
Let me make an argument for kittens, trees and arty nudes: I love perfumes. I even own some of the 5-star-rated ones in this book. But the thing is, there’s a time and place for everything, and on some days, I want to smell “nice”, or whatever the equivalent is of “just give me a comforting laundry detergent smell” or whatever. I find it very hard to rate the one better than the other.
I don’t know if I’d go so far and say that some perfumes can rival Picasso’s Guernica as Tania Sanchez does in this book, but sure, fragrances can be art. I just can’t be bothered to lug around the equivalent of the bloody Guernica every day, you know? Also, I can totally appreciate both kitten pictures AND Guernica.
Also, there’s a huge industry build around entertainment and comfort. I find it very hard to dismiss that as mindless drivel, be it comics, chick lit, Marvel movies, the nth Naked Palette or a celebrity fragrance. There’re millions of people out there who do enjoy that, and who I am to shit on their enjoyment?
Well, I know: not Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez.
Sample, test and sniff: wear what you like
And one last word about the perfumes listed in the book: first, have a look at the (randomly chosen) Le 15 from The Different Company critique:
“***, woody citrus
Perfume The Guide 2018
Civilized but somewhat bland powdery citrus with a menacing woody-amber in the drydown”
If you ever were interested in Le 15, Fragrantica will easily provide the notes for you. Do you really need to know about Le 15 that Luca Turin characterises it as civilized, menacing and bland? (Which somehow baffles me, because it seems rather contradictory?!) Will that affect your impression of the fragrance? Go out and smell it for yourself. You can be your own critic. Wear what YOU like.
Price & Availability
I got my ebook in the Kindle edition on Amazon for 8,84€. It’s also available as hardcover for 15,58€.
Please note that this post is not sponsored in any way. We buy products ourselves, with our own money, and don’t accept exchanging goods or money for reviews. We are completely independent, and our reviews reflect that.
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