When Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez launched The Guide in 2008, I'm certain neither had any cognisance of how it would serve to split the perfume world in two. There were those who sought and found gospel between it's pages, and others who found disenchantment. The Guide - a book of 1,800 different perfume reviews, was hailed as conclusive fact by some, and self-indulgent fiction by others. With one swift swish of the pen, Turin and Sanchez memorialised the perfumes that they preferred, and damned those they didn't. As an active member of a 50,000-strong online fragrance community, I saw first-hand how the opinions of this pair influenced the global psyche, and had a surprising knock-on effect at the cash register.
Who could predict the polarising impact this book was to have on perfume aficionados the world over? Such is the incredibly personal nature of perfume!
Three years on, Turin and Sanchez are set to launch "The Little Book of Perfumes - The Hundred Classics", a petite compendium of their 96 most-adored scents already appearing in The Guide, plus 4 new reviews.
Many might ask: why publish a book where 96% of its material was already examined in 2008... and to be honest, this very question teeters on my tongue too. A quick scan of the blurb reveals that this time round, Luca and Tania have added new notes expressing their continuing fondness or swift dissatisfaction with each scent, particularly in light of tightening IFRA restrictions and the impact they have on the use of raw materials found in perfume formulas. And it is true... their insights in the additional notes are interesting to read as the pair tend to confirm or deny the innermost fears of every perfumista whose beloved scent just doesn't quite "seem right" these days.
This being said, one tiny criticism, however, would be that only 40% of reviews have included new information specific to 2011.
In the years since the release of The Guide, Turin and Sanchez have recognised the wisdom in the old adage "if you've nothing good to say, then don't say anything at all", which - to me at least - is a blessing.
To my mind,"The Little Book of Perfumes" is perhaps what The Guide ought to have been. It is a concise and fascinating collection of subjective insights and positive recommendations that one can use as a basic blueprint to navigate their way around their local perfume hall. It will prove a very handy reference for fledgling aficionados, but one wonders if it's few additional insights will make it of value to owners of The Guide and staunch perfume loyalists.
"The Little Book of Perfumes: The Hundred Classics" is on sale at a RRP of $18 on October 31st, 2011.
Trick or treat!
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7 comments:
"if you've nothing good to say, then don't say anything at all"
Absolutely, how I couldn't agree more. Some of the very bad reviews in the guide are fun in their absolutism, but I don't read them for any kind of truth and I could do fine without, since I find that they often say more about the writers than the perfumes. Thanks for the very informative review and a great blog.
Thank you Asali. :) Please drop by again.
Thanks for your review, but I'd like to extend the point raised by Asali. Do you really feel that TS and LT should have avoided writing negative reviews? Or are you saying that you wish they'd written them in a different way?
Hi Persolaise, thanks for dropping by. :)
I maintain that this reference is more insightful IMO. Positive reviews will encourage someone to try something, whilst negative reviews will often influence people to give it a miss. This translates into a missed opportunity for someone to experience something new and form one's own opinion of it.
Sorcery of Scent occasionally comes under fire because some readers argue "why aren't there any negative reviews"? The simple answer is that I really only write about the scents that move me, intrigue me, or affect me in a positive way. 9 times out of 10, I'll let others form their own opinions of those that do not.
If the truth be known, and in direct answer to your question - yes, I think they *could* have approached their negative reviews in a different way. Dismissive and flippant one-liners did not make for insightful reading. To my mind, of course. :)
Debate about the effect of negative criticism - in the reviewing of books, theatre, music, art, food - is as old as Adam. One bad review by a leading critic and a restaurant goes out of business, or a play closes, and what is there to be gained by that, we might ask. I guess the hope is that over all, negative criticism contributes to keeping standards high.
Whether that has an influence in the perfume industry is another question.
I think there was a place for what TS and LT were doing in 2007 when the first edition came out. I was glad they found a commercial publisher to back what they were doing. Perfume coverage in magazines was (and of course still is) dominated by spreads which lead off 'We love ...' or 'Vogue loves ... ' and then splash a few words and pictures around describing the latest releases that some perfume and cosmetic companies have paid to have featured. There is no 'love' involved, just money.
There is still plenty of that sort of coverage, but in recent times perfume bloggers have been getting themselves into mainstream newspapers and magazines. Editors must be realising that perfume is a subject that can be taken seriously, and there is a readership out there for serious, critical writing on it. Surely the Turin/Sanchez book did a lot to encourage that feeling. You had to buy the book - so hopefully editors now realise that people will pay money to read perfume criticism.
The book also brought out into the opening the whole subject of perfume reformulations. Perfume companies rarely admit to reformulations but Turin & Sanchez confirmed people's suspicions that something is wrong. And maybe - hopefully - a message gets back to the perfume houses that people are WATCHING what they are doing. We KNOW when something does not smell right, so let's not pretend.
Readers of The Guide could have been put off trying a perfume they might have liked because of a sour review, but if they read enough of the book they might have read negative reviews of perfumes they already know and like, and not take Turin or Sanchez's personal opinions as gospel. As far as I know the authors always made it clear that they were only ever expressing their personal views.
Just my thoughts.
Hi annemarie,
Thanks for your comments.
I think the distinction you speak of is the difference between editorial and advertorial. Magazines like 'Vogue' et al tend to regurgitate press kit content (as do, unfortunately, a number of so-called bloggers). There is no denying that such 'prose' is valueless.
Indeed negative criticism serves (in part) to keep standards high, but I feel much of it depends greatly on the delivery. If a food critic wrote of a restaurant: "Tasteless, like the person who dines here", then this is not illuminating reading. In fact, its a backhanded insult.
I feel, one's *approach* to writing a critique is the yardstick against which the reviewer himself, can be measured.
It seems in 2011, LT & TS might have also recognised there is perhaps more value in focusing on the positive, and foregoing the caustic commentary. The "Little Book of Perfumes" is a compilation of reviews which benefits from their insights when the pair are at their very best.
I'm Bigsly on basenotes.net. My view is that one can think of fragrances in terms of "art" or personal within the boundaries of what one is seeking. You can do both, but it's important to disclose this distinction. LT and TS didn't do this in the 2008 "Perfumes: The Guide" book, but instead their reviews, taken as a whole, tended to blur this distinction, and I think this is where much of the "problem" with their book lies. For example, LT points out that he wore PdN's New York for many years. Did he do this because he liked it personally or because he thought it was an olfactory masterpiece? In other reviews he talks about fragrances being difficult to actually wear, but gave them good reviews otherwise.
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