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A review by kevvvin
The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York by Chandler Burr
4.0
A very, very fun non-fiction book, which is saying something for me, a person who typically finds non-fiction books boring after 100 pages.
Burr has a great voice and style (though flowery at times), and kept me entertained through his final pages. I should say I know nothing at all about perfumery and fragrances, so most of this book served as news to me. Understanding how much the fragrance industry is worth worldwide, the cultural differences between France and the United States regarding smells, how a celebrity scent comes to fruition, the molecular, scientific details of it all — just so, so interesting.
Also, I love criticism in all forms, so seeing the ways in which (ex NYT scent critic) Burr could punch up at a major brand, like, say, Kenneth Cole ("wildly popular with middle- and lower-clsss straight guys who think they are buying the olfactory equivalent of a pair of Kenneth Cole shoe but wind up smelling like fluorocarbons") or Hugo Boss ("a fluorescent-lot polyurethane signature that is as clear as it is repellent"; he later describes one of their scents a "grout cleaner") was novel for me as someone who never critically ponders smells.
Yes, there are some points of the book I thought were less journalism and more press-forward/ shrouded in flattery, but I still loved the depth and insight brought to an otherwise invisible industry for me.
Burr has a great voice and style (though flowery at times), and kept me entertained through his final pages. I should say I know nothing at all about perfumery and fragrances, so most of this book served as news to me. Understanding how much the fragrance industry is worth worldwide, the cultural differences between France and the United States regarding smells, how a celebrity scent comes to fruition, the molecular, scientific details of it all — just so, so interesting.
Also, I love criticism in all forms, so seeing the ways in which (ex NYT scent critic) Burr could punch up at a major brand, like, say, Kenneth Cole ("wildly popular with middle- and lower-clsss straight guys who think they are buying the olfactory equivalent of a pair of Kenneth Cole shoe but wind up smelling like fluorocarbons") or Hugo Boss ("a fluorescent-lot polyurethane signature that is as clear as it is repellent"; he later describes one of their scents a "grout cleaner") was novel for me as someone who never critically ponders smells.
Yes, there are some points of the book I thought were less journalism and more press-forward/ shrouded in flattery, but I still loved the depth and insight brought to an otherwise invisible industry for me.