nstperfume » perfume books

The Oregon Experiment ~ book review

Angela — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:44:36 +0000

The Oregon Experiment by Keith Scribner features a professor of anarchy newly arrived in a small town in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, his wife the perfumer, a “sensuous free spirit called Sequoia” and a complicated anarchist. The review copy came with a sample of perfume called “The Oregon Experiment” by Yosh Han.

Could there be a better book for me to review? I like to read and I like perfume. Also, I’m a Portlander and live in a neighborhood so liberal that my Gore-Lieberman lawn sign was vandalized for not touting Nader. Sequoia is one of the more subtle hippie-girl names within a five-block radius of my house, which includes the fabled Peoples Co-op. Scribner, I’ll see your anarchist and raise you a freegan.

So, I opened The Oregon Experiment with relish. The novel is beautifully written — polished to a high shine, and full of lush turns of phrase. But in the end, it’s like an intricately carved chair of satiny wood that is too high to sit in, or only has three legs…

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Of Gifts and Gratitude ~ out of the bottle

Alyssa — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:21:25 +0000

When I think about perfume, I think of gifts and gratitude. It’s difficult to make outsiders understand just how deeply giving things away is woven into the perfume world. It’s built into the industry — all those testers and samples floating around. It’s even part of perfume itself — to wear it is to share it. And when I try to explain how generous perfume people are, all my fellow decanters and swappers, I find myself talking about gardeners in zucchini season.

It’s not quite the right metaphor though, because perfume generosity isn’t just about having too much of the stuff. I’ve received packages so full they made me dizzy — a bottle where there should have been a decant, a dozen samples when I expected one. But I’ve also been bowled over by a single milliliter vial with a tiny dab of some rarity carefully transferred from a bottle no bigger than a nickel because the sender thought I might love it, or because we were talking about it, or because someone just couldn’t bear for its beauty to go unknown. We give our perfume away to share the astonishment and delight and pleasure we felt the first time we smelled it. Oh, you just have to try it. Please let me send you some.

In the days when my entire collection fit easily inside a small wooden cigar box, those gifts made me both very happy and very uncomfortable…

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Fragrances of the World 2012 by Michael Edwards ~ new perfume book

Robin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:20:44 +0000

Michael Edwards will release the latest version of his “fragrance bible”, Fragrances of the World 2012, in January. The reference book lists over 8000 fragrances grouped by fragrance family, and is used by numerous retailers to help customers find fragrances they might like based on the scent(s) they already know and enjoy…

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The way it is

Robin — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:08:03 +0000

This book was a great opportunity to show this business the way it is rather than romanticizing it to death like everybody does. It’s really very beautiful just the way it is.

— Frédéric Malle on his new book, On Perfume Making. Read more at Frédéric Malle | ‘On Perfume Making’ at the New York Times.

On Perfume Making by Frederic Malle ~ perfume books

Robin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:53:33 +0000

Frédéric Malle’s On Perfume Making will be published in Spring 2012:

Frédéric Malle was born in 1962 into the world of perfume…

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The Little Book of Perfumes ~ Q & A with Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez, part 1

Robin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:15:16 +0000

The Little Book of Perfumes: The Hundred Classics by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez is officially on sale now — if you pre-ordered, you probably already have your copy.

If you don’t know what it is, you can find the book announcement here. I’m not going to review it (nor is anyone else around here, since we haven’t got a book reviewer at the moment), but I’ll tell you a few things I noticed right away:

The snark is gone, largely because they’re only talking about fragrances they think are good. If you liked the snark, that will be a minus, but for those who were put off by the tone, this is the volume you want.

Many of you were wondering if you needed The Little Book if you already owned one of the original two versions (Perfumes: The Guide or Perfumes: The A-Z Guide). That is, of course, up to you, but there is new material, albeit not a ton of it…

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Glamour Icons: Perfume Bottle Design by Marc Rosen ~ perfume books

Robin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:59:41 +0000

Marc Rosen has released Glamour Icons: Perfume Bottle Design, a new illustrated book about his own career and the vintage bottles that inspired him:

Conceived and written by seven-time FiFi Award winner and internationally renowned packaging designer Marc Rosen…

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The Perfume Lover by Denyse Beaulieu ~ new perfume book

Robin — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:55:17 +0000

The Perfume Lover is a new book by author Denyse Beaulieu of the Grain de Musc blog. It will be published in the UK by Harper Collins in March 2012:

What if the most beautiful night in your life inspired a fragrance…

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Up for grabs: Denise Hamilton’s Damage Control

Robin — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:50:48 +0000

What is it: A copy of Denise Hamilton’s new novel, Damage Control.

How do I get it: For a chance to win, leave a comment telling me that you live in the US. Plus, tell us about the last time you read something about perfume in a novel or spotted a bottle of perfume in the movies. Or just tell us the last great book you read or movie you saw.

Be sure to use the “Post a comment” box; do not reply to another comment…

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The Little Book of Perfumes ~ perfume book announcement

Robin — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:14:41 +0000

The Little Book of Perfumes: The Hundred Classics by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez is now available for pre-order at the major online bookstores (delivery around 10/27)…

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