Luca Turin has launched a new perfume blog, Perfume Notes. He explains...
Just over two years ago, the Swiss magazine NZZ Folio asked me to write a monthly 400-word column on perfume. I write it in English, and Berlin-based translator Robin Cackett turns it (brilliantly, they tell me) into German. I thought it would be fun to publish the originals in a blog. They will be updated at the same time as the Folio article, i.e. on the 6th of each month.
This month's article has been posted, and you can also read the 21 articles that preceeded it in NZZ Folio. Go and read, its fabulous.
Update: the blog is now defunct, but at the link above you can download a PDF file of all the posts & comments.
OMG! That is fabulous. I am inhaling this site. What an extra treat this morning!
Hugs R!
Thanks for posting about this blog – it's amazing! Just read a few entries, and wish I had more time to go through more, but I have to get ready for work. Loved the concept of fragrance “soup” being made from “scraps.” And the Angel analysis was wonderful. Can't wait to read more. Thanks, R!
Morning A! Yes, it is a treat. Hoping he will find time to post more than once a month.
Hi K. I loved the Guerlain articles especially, which you probably won't get to until after quitting time.
Yay! This is great news! Thanks for the heads up, R! *does a goofy lil perfumista dance* This is starting out to be a great Monday morning! (I apologize in advance for my excessive use of exclamation points… )
Yes, it would be a dreary Monday morning if all we had to look forward to was the upcoming Madonna perfume, LOL!
Ugh, I'll give her perfume the benefit of the doubt, but I have to ask: Since when did they develop “hubris” and “red string around the wrist” as notes?
oh my gosh, it's hilarious! Love the description of Angel as a drag queen…*runs back to read more*
Thanks for posting this! Who would have thought Luca Turin was so witty? I really enjoy his stream-of-consciousness ramblings.
One of the lines I like: (regarding IFRA guidelines) “you seldom hear, at a funeral, a friend of the deceased saying “what do you expect, she wore L'Heure Bleue”, no one is asking Guerlain to do this.”
It is exciting! Well, Guerlain rumour is enough to induce a panic attack! No way, it is simply blasphemous. I am going to lie down for a moment, as I am feeling ill…
LOL!
It is wonderful. When I grow up, I want to write like that.
I thought his Parfums: Le Guide was very witty — to the extent that I can pick up wittiness in French
The guy certainly never lacks for something to say, does he? Erm, “Beyond Paradise’s angelic choir” ???
Thanks a lot for this. Dear N, your blog is much more interesting to me than all the beauty columns of Allure and Vogue (American and international editions) combined. What Powerline and LGF are to Newsweek, CBS and the NY Times, your blog is to all the vacuous “style” and beauty mags on the newsstand shelves (you're faster, more accurate and uncover all the neat and disgusting stuff) and you don't even cover skin care or makeup. The idea of Luca Turin having a blog was just a dream for me and now it's real. What's next, Kenneth Tynan writing a theater blog from heaven (or purgatory or wherever he is)? Help make it come true.
V, the older articles don't show their original publication dates, but counting back in months, it looks like it might already be happening. It is too ludicrous to think about.
M, Have you tried Beyond Paradise? Have to admit I haven't. I am always so busy chasing down the hard-to-find niche scents that I miss the obvious.
This is enough to bring out my violent tendencies!
I absolutely agree with you about Luca Turin being witty. I laughed out loud several time when reading Parfums.
Thank you so much, I am blushing! Now that even the Pope has a blog (see http://askthepope.blogspot.com/) it is hard to see what is holding Kenneth Tynan back
Hi R –
Thanks for the link. What a great column and his writing is hilarious. I just loved his commentary on the Coco M. What a hoot. Oh and damn Guerlain – they are killing me. What are they thinking??? IT would be like Chanel producing a line for H&M – oh wait a minute…
As always YOU are the place to visit for news.
I haven't. That erk was my snottily reflexive reaction to accepting someone's opinion as gospel on the basis of hero-worship … I did then — guiltily — look up the notes and saw the lead is “Eden's Mist” a water accord developed by what looks like a very adventurous utopian science community called the Eden Project in Britain. That's interesting. And now I will make it my business to actually smell the stuff so I can be well-foundedly snotty. Thanks for letting us know about his blog … he is a VERY entertaining writer.
F, LOL at Chanel producing a line for H&M! We need to stage a corporate takeover of Guerlain maybe. We'll pool funds…ha ha ha
M, do lets be “well-foundedly snotty”, LOL! I admit readily to hero worship here, although I do not always love the same fragrances.
Cool! I read nearly the whole thing on my lunchbreak. Even when I don't agree with him, he's a great companion, and he proves that opinions are always more engaging when their holder refuses to be wishy washy about them. Sometimes his prose veers intensely purple, of course, but if he didn't run that risk, he'd be a bore.
Goody, goody, goody!! I can't wait to dig in!
Hugs to you darling. Have a great week!
Thank YOU!! Fab fab fab fab fab – I am over the moon! :))
Not a bad lunchbreak then, T. Completely agree, it is way more interesting to read someone's strong opinions…LOL at my own review today of Eau d'Italie, which I've tried 3 times & can't work up to any strong feelings about either way.
Hugs to you, R! Box soon to follow
Isn't it great, N? Wish you would blog one of your perfume path tours, it would be so much fun to read!!
I look forward to receiving it.
That is a brilliant idea! Wish I had Luca's supreme knowledge and writing skills though!
xoxo
Amazing! I can't thank you enough for bringing this to us. I'm in the middle of one of perhaps the busiest weeks of my life, and I didn't need this distraction into olfaction genius, but of course, now I'm going for full eyestrain – Wow.
No kidding. No more oakmoss? It's like saying you can never put peanuts in food again because of the allergies. Oakmoss! Oakmoss! I just sat there with my jaw hanging open, trying to imagine Mitsouko without oakmoss, and it was like some kind of weird zen koan, like imagining one hand clapping or a tree falling in the forest with no auditors. I mean, really.
I firmly believe that one can, on occasion, be firmly wishy washy.
Luca Turin convinced me that I simply have no nose for perfume. Because his rave description of Paradox by Jacomo, I bought the perfume, and wondered what in the world is wrong with the man's nose. I realize that it's my nose, not his, that is lacking, but still… I hated Paradox, can't imagine how he could possibly have thought this scent had anything to do with beauty. It put me more in mind of some off-brand bathroom cleaner, something you could expect to smell when entering a train station ladies room. If he and his perceptions are the ultimate in the perfume world, then I will quietly exit the perfume world and leave it to its insect sprays and bathroom cleaners and worn undershirts.
That is so funny — Paradox was the first scent I bought after reading Parfums: Le Guide. Luckily I only bought a mini, because I don't “get it” either. I take out my mini every so often and am puzzled all over again.
I would say his perceptions (and his writing) are the ultimate, but there is still such a thing as personal taste, and ours don't always mesh.