Perfumes: The 
A-Z Guide.
Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
I experienced so many mixed feelings with this book. It started as an interesting read, full of new facts for me to learn. Along with brief history of perfume, it’s numerous ingredients, and tips on how to train your nose to recognize different notes of a fragrance, there is an extensive review of more than 1,800 perfumes.
I didn’t plan to read each and every fragrance review at first, especially because many of them I’ve never even heard of before. But when I started browsing through pages, I realized that I was hooked. Positive feedback warmed up my heart, while negative remarks seemed either funny or downright mean.
I can understand the fact that different scents trigger different reactions in people. For example, I find Light Blue by Dolce and Gabbana a pleasant, fresh citrus scent, but according to the book it is a “Lemon sorbet doused with rubbing alcohol… If you hate fragrance, you’re probably on your fourth bottle”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for expressing opinions and speaking your mind, especially when it comes to product reviews. What I don’t comprehend is willingness to insult someone else’s hard work and dissimilar taste . For example describing a fragrance as “nothing priced like something”, “plague and cholera at once”, “disaster” or “unwashed smell like the sort of person who clears out one end of the bus”. Is it just me or does this sound too much?
I don’t want to appear hypocritical, but I’m only human, and I confess having a double feeling about the reviews. When I was reading unflattering ones about perfumes I didn’t like, my anger was sleeping peacefully. It only woke up each time one of my favorites was getting a hit. After that good reviews on the fragrances I don’t quite get looked somewhat ridiculous to me, like calling Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir “a masterpiece” for example. This scent, together with Chanel No5 and Angel by Thierry Mugler I tried, but wasn’t able to understand. On the other hand, it was a complete pleasure to share the same opinion on the scents I’d never buy.
To sum it all up, some parts were fun to read and some were plain aggravating. But I have to admit that the book is ingeniously written. Although I was annoyed at times to an extent that I was ready to burn it in my fireplace, I kept coming back to it anyway. I guess controversy sells.
If you haven’t read this book and are curious to find out what impact it’ll have on you, by all means do it. It didn’t influence my taste on fragrances at all, so I’ll continue wearing scents that please my nose. To each their own.
