The Perfect Scent - Chandler Burr

A riot. Funny and fascinating. Chandler Burr describes a year in the development of two scents: Coty's Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely and Hermes's Un Jardin Sur Le Nil. He is a great guide, dissecting what is PR and what is not and laying out the interactions between creative directors and perfumers.

Every five or ten pages he descends into purple prose. On the first page of the introduction he writes: "In the deep-cobalt summer sky, the cloud of aerosolized filth from the Paris traffic hovered in the blue air", and I almost closed the book. I'm glad I didn't, but, seriously, I've never seen a deep cobalt sky. Maybe this over-done writing is an occupational hazard of writing about perfume. You're trying to describe something so ethereal. And Burr is lyrical about perfume, both the good and the bad. On the Olsen twins' perfumes: "two scents that smell like car exhaust on Tenth Avenue, scents with no persistance, no sillage, no beauty, and no reference to anything expect its creative team's attempting to ride some vapid pop cultural pulse." On Hugo Boss Elements: "A cologne most appropriately worn by electrical appliances. It should be called Eau de Refrigerator Condenser Coil." And on the positive side, on Rose Poivree by The Different Company: "the perfume Satan's wife would wear in hell (it is an exquisite scent, a combination of rose and smokey fire."

What I liked best is 1) learning about the perfume industry and 2) learning about the real art behind perfumes. I don't wear any perfume - almost all scents give me a headache. I once made a boyfriend wash his head under a tap at a gas station bathroom on the New York Thruway because I couldn't stand the smell of the Flex Conditioner he had used. But I want to take this book to the department store and smell every single perfume he talks about.

I have also read, and highly recommend, Chandler Burr's previous book: The Emperor of Scent, about a maverick scientist named Luca Turin. Also, I recommend Luca Turin's book: The Secret of Scent, which discusses his theory of olfaction. And I'm looking forward to rading Luca Turin's book of perfume reviews, Perfumes: The Guide.

The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York
Chandler Burr
2008
Available from Amazon