English speakers, don’t click away! Although this book’s full title is Sentir, ressentir. Parfumeurs, odeurs et émotions, every article is in both French and English. If fragrance interests you — if you want to know more about how perfumers work, what inspires them, how fragrance intersects with emotion, and a lot more — you’ll want to read this book…
Nez, the biannual olfactory magazine, has published Volume 6. "The sixth edition of Nez focuses on the ways in which fragrances impact our physical and mental well-being in a special feature entitled Mind & Body with contributors ranging from Dephine de Swardt to Denyse Beaulieu examining everything from the nose’s ability to detect disease, the burgeoning field of aromachology (the study of how odors influence the mind) and how our taste in perfume can provide a window into our subconscious desires." Plus, our own Angela has an article on niche line Neela Vermeire Créations. $24 at Fumerie or Luckyscent.
In updating the historical story, this six-part season also gets a detective show twist, with a group of investigators looking into the death of a singer. What they find is a group of one-time school friends, at least one of whom stumbled into the practice of using human scents as the basis for making a one-of-a-kind fragrance. An unexplained death quickly turns into a psychological dive down the rabbit hole of an obsessive killer.
— The new version of Perfume opens on Netflix in late December. Read more (and watch the trailer) at ‘Perfume’ Trailer: Human Scent Murder Mystery Gets Netflix German TV Treatment at Indiewire. You can read our review of the 2006 movie here, or of Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume here.
Are you crafty? Me, neither. But I love talking to people who make things. Once I happily spent half an hour listening to a stranger explain how to transform a thrift store needlepoint canvas into a tote bag, and now I have an adorable vintage needlepoint of a cat and a bird, half a yard of upholstery velvet, and pagoda-printed fabric waiting to be made into that perfect bag. Will it happen? I doubt it.
Similarly, as much as I love perfume, I’ve never had the yen to make my own fragrances. It’s fun to learn about, though, and exploring the fine points of techniques such as enfleurage and distillation gives me a keener appreciation for the perfume I wear. If I ever were to tackle a tincture, Homemade Perfume by pioneering natural perfumer Anya McCoy of Anya’s Garden is where I’d start…
Perfumes The Guide 2018, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, promises over 1200 new perfume reviews: "Ten years later they bring their inimitably passionate, erudite perspective back to the hugely changed world of fragrance, to sort out which of over 1,200 new individual perfumes deserves celebration (and which condemnation)." Available at Amazon in Kindle ($9.20) or Paperback ($16.99).