Posted by Robin
on
31 March 2008

As I said on Friday, Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez is due to ship from Amazon on 4/10 (list price: $27.95, today's Amazon price: $18.45). The hardcover version is 400 pages and includes introductory material plus reviews of over 1200 fragrances. According to Penguin, the book will “do for fragrance what Robert Parker’s books have done for wine”.
Many of you have pre-ordered the book, or at least read about it (if you missed the review in the New Yorker, do take a peek), and all of you can skip to the second-to-last paragraph for instructions on how to add your questions to our group interview. Those of you who need some further introduction, read on…
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Posted by Robin
on
31 March 2008


What follows is not, properly speaking, a review of Guerlain’s Shalimar. Shalimar is so iconic that there isn’t much to be said on the subject that hasn’t already been said, and the only reason I’m writing about it today is that I’m planning to talk about the newest member of the Shalimar family, Eau de Shalimar, tomorrow, and my inner perfume geek insists that I can’t talk about Eau de Shalimar without at least mentioning its parent first.
The oft-told story about Shalimar is that perfumer Jacques Guerlain was messing around with ethyl vanillin, a then-new synthetic vanilla, and he poured some into a bottle of Jicky to see what would happen. Apocryphal or not, the anecdote neatly connects the dots between the dawn of modern perfumery with Jicky in 1889 and the classic fragrances of the 1920s and 1930s…
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Posted by Robin
on
31 March 2008
Sickly. Awful. Totally yuck.
Smells like you have your head stuck in a candyfloss machine.
— The Daily Mail on Diesel Fuel for Life for Her and Britney Spears Fantasy, respectively, from Perfumes on trial: The truth about our scent industry.
Posted by Robin
on
31 March 2008
Victoria's Secret has introduced Isle of Pink, a new limited edition fruity floral fragrance:
Head to the exclusive Isle of Pink, the latest fragrance obsession from Victoria's Secret Pink. Think Caribbean beach club and cute cabana boys, with a flirty blend of raspberry sorbet, iced tulip and vanilla bean. It's a spring break vacation, in a bottle. Comes in a Pink logo drawstring bag…
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Posted by Robin
on
31 March 2008
New at avon: Cynthia Rowley Flower & Petal.
New at nordstrom: Clarins Sunshine, Juicy Couture Dirty English, Issey Miyake Summer fragrances, Clinique Happy in Bloom.
New at sephora: Fresh Cannabis Rose.