Suppose you want it all: a comprehensive read on the history of perfume, biographies on the greatest noses of the past, insights in the creation of fragrances and fragrance bottles, a smart guide with addresses and perfume classifications, and perhaps even some tips on how to create your own fragrance wardrobe. Is there a single book that covers all these things exhaustively? The answer is no. But The Book of Perfume by Elisabeth Barillé and Catherine Laroze comes very close.
This lavishly illustrated work combines all the ingredients to capture the attention of any fragrance enthusiast, from the curious novice to the dyed-in-the-wool perfume adept…
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Posted by Robin
on
12 August 2005
Elisabeth Barille’s Guerlain is a thin volume, with 15 pages of text and about 50 pages of photographs. The text provides background on the history of the Guerlain family and their illustrious perfume house, but a die-hard perfume fanatic may find it too brief and general to be of much interest. There is a chronology at the end, but it lacks a complete list of the Guerlain fragrances, and some of the picture selections are rather odd. There are pictures, for instance, of Marlene Dietrich, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Catherine Deneuve — all of which tie in to the story in one way or another, but given the abbreviated length, I would have preferred to see more pictures of Guerlain family members, perfume bottles, or vintage Guerlain advertising…
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