The new paperback version of Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez is now available under the name Perfumes: The A-Z Guide. The retail price is $20; Amazon has it at the moment for $13.60.
The book includes the reviews from the hardback plus the reviews from the three quarterly updates, and a handful of new reviews and a few other changes…
Perfumery, a hundred-year-old art, has taken a long time dying, but on January 1, 2010 it will be officially dead. On that date, amendment 43 by IFRA, the international fragrance association, will take effect, and all perfumes on the market, old, young, fine fragrance or shampoo, must follow its guidelines or be in breach of the law in the EU. Among the many disasters that will befall fine fragrance, let me pick an emblematic one: oakmoss. This material is essential to perfumery and especially to the chypre category, including Mitsouko and hundreds of others. From 2010 it will be replaced by things which do not smell like oakmoss.
— Luca Turin, from Duftnote -- No Benefits at NZZ Folio, found via The Non-Blonde.
Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez have released the Spring 2009 update to Perfumes: The Guide. The update includes reviews of over 200 fragrances, and is available for download for $9.99.
Here is Tania Sanchez on Guerlain’s L’Instant Magic Elixir…
Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez have released the second quarterly update to Perfumes: The Guide. The Winter 2008 update includes reviews of 129 fragrances plus a top 10 list for 2008, and is available for download for $9.99.
Tania Sanchez on Juicy Couture's Viva La Juicy: "I suspect that Firmenich keeps a swimming-pool-sized vat filled with a diabolically saccharine standard mixture of fruit flavor, vanilla, and musk, fixed with a tap, for perfumers to decant for clients who use pink in the packaging."
Luca Turin, author of Perfumes: The Guide and The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, talks about the science of scent at TedTalks. Taped in 2005. A warning to the severely science-challenged: watching the whole 16 minutes may cause your brain to burst. You can read more about the aromachemicals developed by Flexitral at their website.