Just imagine, Eduard Routniska released only 14 fragrances in his lifetime, but Alberto Morillas has now done over 400! O tempora, o mores. Bad mainstream fragrances, Kim Kardashian, expensive niche fragrances, the 2011 EU laws that banned allergens in fragrances. Their insight is genuinely interesting for a lover of fragrances.īut then, there’s so much to moan about. (We’ll get back to this, later, too.)īut 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. That the book is “an ongoing sampling of the current state of perfumery” and that they are a “work of informed subjectivity”, for example. Tania Sanchez wrote it, and you learn a lot:

And I realized that right in the middle of the foreword. The other problem is: you have to like, admire and properly want to know Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. Perfumes The Guide 2018 review: The problem with best-worst lists His descriptions of fragrances are sharp, lovingly (exasperated in some cases) and borderline quirky. 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. So much so that there’s even a book about Turin, called “The Emperor of Scent”. In case you need a refresher, he (and his wife, Tania Sanchez), are royalties of the fragrance world, maybe the most-renowned critics.

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. “Perfumes The Guide 2018” is basically the same: a list of the worst and best frgrances Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez have tested. I’ve written about Luca Turin before, when I recommended “The little book of perfumes” of his.

Perfumes The Guide 2018 review: The problem with best-worst lists The moany reviewer The case FOR banal fragrances Sample, test and sniff: wear what you like Price & Availability

Perfumes by luca turin