When Perfumes: The A – Z Guide was released in 2008, it was a sweeping review of the perfume world to date. Perfumes: The Guide 2018 focuses on fragrances released in the decade since. Both guides share similar features: a 5-star rating system followed by a two-word description of each perfume and a review, it’s terrific writing that’s sometimes poetic, often cranky, and rarely pulls punches, a fanboy treatment of a few noses, and entertaining, with educational digressions.
As with the original guide, you’ll want to keep this one on your nightstand to dig into at random. Will you agree with every review? No. But they’re useful bases for exploration. The Guide 2018 differs from the original in that it contains many more reviews by Turin than Sanchez, and also – since it covers only the past decade – niche houses receive the most attention among the more than 1,200 fragrances reviewed. The two essays opening the guide, one each by Sanchez and Turin, are must-reads for insight on changes in the perfume world.
Perfumes: The Guide 2018, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, Perfüümista ÖÜ, 2018, 336 pages, $16.99
This review has been published in Nez, the olfactory magazine – #06 – Body and Mind. This issue is available on www.nez-editions.us for North America and on the Auparfum Shop for other countries.
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