Luca Turin reviewed a large batch of perfumes for the UK Times Online, and you can read them here (feminines) and here (masculines). Better yet, you can download a PDF with all the reviews as they appeared before the Times edited them.
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Thanks a lot for posting this, Robin. Great to see LT reviews of some of the stuff from the last months….
P.S. – I’m even more desperate to try the Dior Homme Ambre Nuit now… and just as Holt Renfew in Canada has apparently stopped selling the Dior Homme colognes. Drat!
Thank you so much for these reviews! They’ve whetted my appetite for the paperback version of the Guide, despite already owning a dog-eared hardback.
Quiet confession: much as I enjoy Turin’s reviews for their deep knowledge of how the perfumes are chemically constructed, as well as his wickedly amusing turns of phrase (I loved “It’s as if
Idylle were a bumper sticker in small print that says, If you can read this buy Nahema.”), I miss Tania Sanchez’s take on things. She can be as brutally scathing and unforgiving as Turin, but there’s also a warmth that comes across in her writing that I find very moving. There’s one review she did of Caron’s Troisieme Homme that literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand up — hang on, let me see if I can root around and find it. Oh yes. Got it. Here it is. She’s likening the scent’s beauty to that of
“…a disastrously beautiful boy who turns every head in the street, even if his hair is overgrown, his grubby clothes fit badly, and he’s oblivious to the attention as he goes about his ordinary life–he breaks more hearts running out innocently to buy milk than we ordinary mortals manage to bruise in a callous lifetime.”
Isn’t that stunning? It goes on, of course, but that segment just knocked my socks off. A callous lifetime. Anyway, much as I love getting my hands on Luca’s reviews, (and I do, I really do), they seem somehow incomplete without the balance of Tania’s lovely warmth and good humour.
What a wonderful thing to read! Makes up for all the times I was called Tina or Maria Sanchez or journalists attributed my best quotes to LT.
Thank you!
I call a review like that honest. Scathing, but with soul. Loved it!
I love that passage – I have seen people like that, so unaware of their effect on people as they leave a trail of swoon victims in their path. I always like Tania’s take on things, too.
Agreed. My favourite out of the whole book, I think, is Tania’s description of White Linen as ‘comfortable and well lit, like a warm spot on the floor where the cat sleeps.’ I could never, ever have arrived at an insight like that – could never have converted my impression of a smell into words with such skill – but the image is so true and perfect. I wear extra WL with extra pleasure now, and don’t grump so much having to vacuum up after my cat. So we are all happy!
I so hope they continue putting out at least some mini-updates like this. LOVED that PDF.
So interesting that he compared Artek to Heeley Cardinal. I just got a decant of the latter this weekend. I’d never smelled it before, but the resemblance is remarkable.
I’m also now more determined than ever to smell Flower Essentielle… not that I always agree with LT. I do love his turns of phrase, especially that last, brilliant line about Idylle.
I hope we’ll get more updates too, but have a feeling that given the cuts they made, we won’t see any more of them in the Times.
This is fantastic! Thank you, R darling.
Hugs!
Yes, I agreed with the reviews from LT on the perfumes I have tried in her review-Parisienne was tired, as in boring. I found Idole d’ Armani sharp in the middle as well, but a smoothness evens it out, yet it was nothing spectacular for me as well.
Good!
Looks like after I make a trip to rodeo drive to smell Ambre Nuit, Santa will have to go and buy some for me!
Im excited!!!
Hope you like it!
Sadly, it doesn’t look like they gave the brilliant Luca Turin
much room for creativity , he was pretty much reviewing
fragrances in about four lines
In the Times or in the PDF? They don’t tend to write long reviews in any case.
I really enjoyed these reviews, I’ve never really read any of the Turin/Sanchez reviews and now I’m sorely tempted to purchase a copy of the paperback version. I had a good chuckle at the Lola review, “buy for someone you don’t like,” very funny.
They’re great fun to read even when you don’t agree with the review.
I loved that comment about Idylle and Nahema as well, especially since it’s so utterly true!
Doubt it reflects what most consumers want, but yes!
3 stars for cK Free, but only two for Kenzo Power Cologne? Really? I know that I disagree with Turin fairly often, but I would have expected one star for cK Free, easily.
I did not like either, so it’s sort of like splitting hairs to me. But I did like the Kenzo better.