Journal d'un Parfumeur: New Perfume Book by Jean Claude Ellena

The latest project of Jean Claude Ellena's, head perfumer at Hermes and acclaimed top nose in the business at least in the last decade, isn't just another fragrance for a luxe brand, based on innovative concept and rare ingredients... On the contrary, it borrows from years back as well as from the present and future and consists of a new penned book on his course as a perfumer. The book is going to be titled Journal d’un Parfumeur (editions Sabine Wespiese Editeur, Paris) and will contain Jean Claude's reflections on his art from, landmarks in his course and the smaller ~and bigger~ secrets of his craft.
The new book will be available in French from April 2011.

NB. This is a totally NEW book. It's not the one which was on pre-order on Amazon last year (Perfume, The Alchemy of Scent). That one was in English (i.e. transcription of his 2007 French one Le Parfum)

L'Art de Rene Lalique: new perfume book

The anniversary of 15o years since the birth of René Lalique, one of the most prestigious jewellers and crystal-makers of the 20th century, is marked by a new publication, penned by an expert historian on the perfume industry, Christie Mayer Lefkowith.

The new book is the end result of several years of research and includes numerous, beautiful illustrations of perfume flacons that will interest both the bottle collector and the perfume enthusiast. The most interesting element of course is the analysis of the artistic inspiration behind the creations, often combining glass-making with jewel design.
The book is issued on October 1st.

"L’art de René Lalique, flacons et boîtes à poudre", Christie Mayer Lefkowith, editions Lalique, 98€.

pic via elle.fr

Guerlain Rose communelle, new Shalimar bottle by Jade Jagger, Parfums d'Amour book by J.P.Guerlain

Two clips concerning Guerlain perfumery via Wim Janssens who is an ardent Guerlain fan:
First the journey of the perfumer to Bulgaria to pick Bulgarian rose batches for the creation of the Guerlain "rose communelle" (the term used to denote the "blend" that becomes the Guerlain signature for that note)
Wasser choosing roses in Bulgaria
The other is centered on the creation of the new Shalimar bottle designed by Jade Jagger, explaining the vision between the modern, fresh look and the traditional design of this emblematic oriental. The footage comes from the press release at the Ritz, Paris.
Jade Jagger: "I wanted something modern and fresh"
Worth a look!



Jean Paul Guerlain on the other hand is coming out with a new publication via Le Cherche Midi. The new book penned by Jean Paul Guerlain is titled "Parfums d'Amour" and will be in French. In it he highlights his eternal love for vanilla while at the same time he promises to uncover some of the 'secrets' behind the creations of Samsara, Spiritueuse Double Vanille, Nuit d'Amour, Cherry Blossom, Habit Rouge, Vetiver and Vetiver pour Elle. Along with the book a 15ml vial of Spirituese Double Vanille will be included. "Parfums d'Amour" will be available in Guerlain boutiques from October 1st, 2010 and more widely distributed from 21st October onwards. Jean Paul is also the author of another book which takes the form of journey souvenirs for his many fragrance expeditions to source fragrance materials for his family business.
And don't forget: M.Guerlain will attend an evening of book signing on 30th September at the Champs Elysées boutique!

photo from the Guerlain boutique at Le Marais (thinkretail and elisadefeudeau

A Sharp Sense for Scents: New Book

Assistant professor James McHugh, who teaches religion courses at USC College, is working on a book - one of the first of its kind - that will explain some of the mysteries behind scents and perfumes. [...]McHugh has been studying the role of scents in medieval Sanskrit texts since his undergraduate days, culminating in his 2008 doctoral dissertation at Harvard University on the subject.
“Once I started looking, there were loads of material, and no one had really touched it,” McHugh said. “People talk a lot about ritual and art, but not about incense recipes for temples. Nobody had written about how scents and our sense of smell worked in these texts.
“Perfume recipes turned out to be complicated, and recipes and text were actually poetic and words had double meanings. So I explored all different angles because no one had done it, and I was on my own.” Read more about the upcoming book on this interesting link.

Artisan Perfumery or Being Led by the Nose by Alec Lawless: book review & preview

Perfume books are diverse these days; it all depends on the axis taken when approaching the material: they can aim to be encyclopedic and easing you into being fascinated by perfumery itself (Mandy Aftel’s Essence and Alchemy), they can be fun guides jam-packed with minutiae you might or might not want to check (Susan Irvine’s, Turin’s & Sanchez’s) , they can be glossies with rare flacon collectibles and souvenirs of meetings with the masters (Roja Dove’s The Essence of Perfume), they can be exposés that reveal a heavily-veiled world (Chandler Burr’s The Perfect Scent) or they can take the witty neo-marketing route of presenting the scientific facts in an easily-digestible way (Avery Gilbert’s What the Nose Knows). The new book by Alec Lawless Artisan Perfumery or Being Led by the Nose surprisingly combines all worlds in one slim and elegant volume of no more than 100 pages, which you can slip in your Longchamp attaché for the morning commute or take to bed for an late evening read before spreading fragrant Crème Splendide on your weary skin and hitting the snooze button.

The author, a colourful personality himself ~judging by the bio included~ is a Psychology BA and trained psychotherapist who seems to have travelled the lengths and widths of the globe as well as a professional wine trained individual; points eminently apparent in his interesting writing. Co-owner of Aqua Oleum (a reputable brand I was familiar with as purveyors of quality essential oils, absolutes and aromatherapy supplies) along with his ex-wife, renowned aromatherapy author Julia Lawless, Alec Lawless has recently founded Essentialy-Me.co.uk, a company with natural fragrances spiked with a minimal quantity of synthetics based in Cotswolds, UK . He has been creating fine fragrance for the latter as an artisanal perfumer and a bespoke creator and we will return to his art at a future date.
For now, I am focusing on his book which is introduced with these words: “For more than 20 years Alec Lawless has been hand-making fine perfume following traditions handed down from antiquity. He explains the origins and use of fabled ingredients such as frankincense, ambergris and attar of roses, essential elements in the beautiful, strange and beguiling smells that haunted the court of Cleopatra and the salons of 19th-century Paris.”

The book is segmented into 8 chapters:

• Historical Overview: A brief delineation of the emergence of perfumery and fragrance with mentions ranging from the surprising (it's the moth, not the dog, that has the keenest smell of all; the notion of Attila the Hun as a heartthrob) to the predictable (the almost necessary -for a perfume book- inclusion of the Spice Route; the scent love shared by Josephine and Napoleon)

• Sourcing Natural Raw Materials: This chapter talks at length about the quality standards that need to be met when sourcing natural materials, referencing both the B.P (British Pharmacopoeia) criteria and the intricacies of handling and storage that often result –in the worst case scenario- in “wearing a topee”; the phrase is Delhi street slang for being ripped off! As a buyer of aromatherapy and perfumery supplies, Lawless has been painfully familiar with such cases and recounts them with self-depreciation and wit.

• Sandalwood: Beyond the title, this chapter aims to offer a glimpse into the richness of any single material, taking the prized scented wood oil as a starting point of our own itinerary. Listing the main geographical sources of sandalwood oil (And Alec includes the Caledonia varieties into this as well, as he explains the tampering of Santalum Album oil supplies with the rather differently scented Eucaria Spicata from down under is more frequent and prevalent than we’d guess). The chapter is highly interesting to the perfume lover who has been hearing about the depletion of sandalwood forests in Mysore, India, the subsequent restrictions to its use, the poaching and frauds ensuing.

• Natural and Synthetic: The fourth chapter deals with the naturals vs. synthetics debate in a surprisingly level-headed approach which explains the potential pitfalls, as well as a brief explanation of the 4 most popular animal notes of classic perfumery (musk, ambergris, civet and castoreum).

• Cultivation, Taste and Consultations: This highly illuminating chapter is incorporating the Jean Carles methodology of creating accords into an easily understandable “building” process that follows Alec's own consultations with clients. It is also the chapter most immersed in his wine appraisal expertise which highlights beautifully some frequent thorny issues: Taking the impact on the market of famous wine critic Robert Parker who favours a specific style of drink (intense in taste and high in alcoholic count, a trait that produces a naturally sweeter and brisker bouquet), Lawless asks how much fragrance criticism in print and online will influence the fragrance industry in the end (Now there’s a question for you!) The issue of mental de-coupling from established mental pathways ~especially for the seasoned perfumophiliac~ is also aptly treated in comparison to wine: “Thomas refers to another experiment (Osterbauer et al.2005), which involved adding odourless, red dye to white wine. This fooled even Masters of wine into describing “the nose”[of said wine] in terms usually reserved for describing red wines”! Imagine!

• A word about blending: Alec goes on into describing the process of blending his fragrant materials with some useful footnotes into maturing and rounding perfumer’s alcohol, giving specific examples of his creations.

• Using Natural Raw Materials: The 7th champter is the briefest containing some practical info on the natural state of raw materials (liquid, solid etc) and the percentages of essence in relation to finished product (eau de toilette, eau de parfum etc). Nothing you haven’t read elsewhere, but really a minimal part of the book.

• The A List: Finishing it off in grand style, Lawless goes into listing several natural raw materials grouped in olfactive family profiles (citrus, woody, balsamic, herbaceous etc) giving to the point, concise info on their production method, geographical origin (he stresses this is not conclusive), use in perfumery, as well as safety concerns and intriguing comments -when applicable- to each one of them. Perhaps the most encyclopedic chapter and one that might serve as a counterpoint to Mandy Aftel’s guidelines for fledging artisanal perfumers.

Last but not least, Artisan Perfumery must be the first book that contains a spread sheet of an actual gas chromatography and the way to “read” it: an explanation of trace, report and certificate of Rose Maroc Gas Liquid Chromatography (GLC) Trace, showcasing the emerging odouriferous materials in the rose absolute of Rosa Damascena from the Bulgarian state authorities.

The slim tome is easily paced, a fun read with a few select pictures mainly from India and Southern France (the cover reprises the detail of Perfume Mandala artwork by Fiona Owen which was commissioned by Lawless) and should provide an interesting read for both the amateur perfume enthusiast as well as the artisanal perfumer in need of a few ideas.

Printed by Remus Limited, retail price is £9.99. For our readers, Alec is offering a discount of £10.00 on “Artisan Perfumery or Being Led by the Nose" if you buy a copy of the book and ten perfume samples for a total of £19.99. Purchased online together or seperately on Essentially Me only.

Related reading on Perfume Shrine: perfume book reviews

Raw materials pic via konwill.com

Patricia de Nicolai sur mesure and Jean Claude Ellena new book: news

The much anticipated book by master perfumer Jean Claude Ellena "Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent" (comprising 168 pages in English)
will be officially released on 4 June 2009. You can pre-order yours for just £10.49 (25% off the RRP) on Amazon UK by following this link.
(ISBN-10: 1559709111
ISBN-13: 978-1559709118)
*And please disregard the glitch that has messed with the book's description and editorial credits on the site.

Patricia de Nicolai on the other hand had a brilliant idea: offer a custom perfume that would be composed with her direction by the individual him/herself! The service is called Ateliers Haute Parfumerie and is aimed at people who will be in Paris, also profiting by a nice shot of Nespresso (can't recommend it highly enough!) and Ladurée macaroons at Les jardins du Palais-Royal (yup, right where Lutens's seraglio is around the corner!). Individuals will be able to dabble with rare and precious ingredients and create 250ml of their own custom-made fragrance to which they will have access at any time, as the formula is kept and production can be undertaken within 15 days should they want to. The course is addressed to both novices and people who have followed a previous atelier, so there is something for everyone, and the groups will contain between 2 and 50 people according to the specifications discussed.
Info: Nicolaï Créateur de Parfums - 28, rue de Richelieu 75001 Paris - Tél.: +33 01 44 55 02 02 / Fax: +33 01 44 55 08 69

Christmas '08 Gifts Ideas part 2

We're just one week away from Christmas (how time flies!), so this is your last-minute guide to shop for gifts at the nick of time for those loved ones we want to see have a smile on their faces as they unwrap their packages or look into their stockings on the fireplace or even ourselves. (USPS guarantees that orders submitted today will make it on Christmas' Eve).
Since we have already posted ideas on perfumed gifts as well as a guide to help you through wading the shelves in stores in search of a fragrance gift. I thought today I might include some alterative ideas that do not focus on specific fragrances but do relate to olfaction and the pleasures of the nose.

Perfume books should be high on any perfumista's wishlist, so here are my two best recs: The Essence of Perfume by fragrance connoisseur Roja Dove; a coffee-table-sized book with lots of basic and not so basic info and luscious photographs to make you swoon. And Avery Gilbert's What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life; A scientific and fun exploration on how our sense of smell works, how we're being fooled and the unknown facts around olfaction you wished you knew when you started this hobby! You can read my review of Roja Dove's book and Avery Gilbert's book clicking the links.

Pampering for the body never hurt anyone and the holiday season presents its own stresses anyway. So this is the perfect time for a little mssage oil applied with long strokes (preferably by someone special): Weleda is an excellent German brand of high quality skincare products that are distributed through pharmacies. Their Wild Rose Body Oil is especially fragrant and luxurious, using the aromatheurapeutical properties of wild rose, the scent is fit for both sexes and the price is right. The ritual of powdering is a forgotten practice, but it's worth resurecting to embrace your inner Hollywood diva during the holiday season. It's also more economical than splurging for a new bottle of fragrance. Ladies, this classic Maja dusting powder by Spanish brand Mururgia is calling your name, while Coty Wild Musk powder is such a wonderful, inviting smell I wonder why it sits at the lower end of the market! Gentlemen will feel like their feet are featherlight by putting a little powder in Taylor of Old Bond Street Sandalwood before slipping on their socks.

What about a little flavourful something to help make something wonderful in the kitchen these holiday season or to offer when invited to a guest house? This Taste of Italy gift basket by Wine Country Gift Baskets won't break the bank and looks luscious: "Bring the tastes of Italy to any home or office with this hearty basket; contains everything needed for a great Italian meal. Start off with extra virgin gourmet olive oil, bread dipping herbs, roasted garlic bread mix, mozzarella crackers, mixed green and black olives, twice-baked roasted garlic crackers, cheese knife set and a bread dipping bowl. Rigatoni pasta and garlic pasta seasoning make up the main course while Lanzetti fruit candy and vanilla biscotti complete this authentic basket". I can't help thinking that the comparable Breakfast in Bed basket is especially indulgent for this holiday season when my weary self will need a little pampering...
If the History of Saffron article has raised your curiosity on this golden spice, might I suggest you get some for your cooking! Princesa de Minaya Saffron (Azafran) by LaTienda is whole stigmata of pure saffron to add to your rice pilaf or fish or to infuse as an aromatic beverage by itself or mixed with tea. Touch of India Saffron Spices mixes paprika, turmeric, coriander, red pepper, black pepper, cardamom, and saffron for dishes that promise to being an exotic flavour to your table this Christmas. There is a price level for every budget.
If cost is generally your concern (and whose isn't these days), yet you want the elusive luxury that truffles, those odorous mushrooms bring to your dishes, yet can't fork out the cash for it, do try a little truffle-aromatized oil instead: This Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil is infused with white truffle to be used as a finishing touch on delicate dishes that demand an earthy touch and is just 12$! Take it as a gift to a host who loves to cook and you will have their heart (and invitations to subsequent dinners) for ever after.
And because culinary escapades on Perfume Shrine couldn't finish without quality chocolate and a touch of Greece, please take a look at this glorious Greek-founded chocolaterie, Leonidas, who produces Belgian-style chocolates in various flavours and shapes, filled with whatever your fancy desires. 1lb will set you back 34$ and several thousand calories behind your scheduled ratio, but it's sooooo worth it!

Have fun choosing your gifts!

Pics via Amazon.

What the Nose Knows by Avery Gilbert: book review & preview

If you have been even marginally interested in scent and that mysterious and unaccredited source of fascination, repulsion and pleasure, the nose, then you must be in the know about a pleiad of myths, quotes and cognoscible pop-culture references: Proust's madeleine bursting forth 3000 pages of spirally-tapped prose, Zola's candid olfactory descriptions, Freud casting the aspersion of the smell as a lesser sense in advanced civilizations theory, Hellen Keller being the blind and deaf genius of nasofanatics, the sex-attraction of pheromones, sniffing coffee beans between fragrant sampling and the sweet smell of death. I should know, I read this ramification almost every day as they appear by both budding and seasoned smell fanatics on the online fora where osphresiophilia is being discussed among similarly-wired minds.
Avery Gilbert's book "What the Nose Knows" manages to dispel those and countless others in pellucid style, providing solid experimental data and studies to back up every claim; even minutely tracing the published sources of popular myths to exactly nil! (like the ultra-popular "10000 odours is the number of different odors humans can distinguish"). Some of that debunking crescendo is bordering on incredible: it's not easy to accept that we're not that inferior to our dogs' capacity for odor perception (or rats' for that matter) or that said canine's ability to sniff bladder cancer ~and not just any form of cancer as erroneously surmissed~ is not that spontaneous as one might think, taking in mind the rigorous training the subjects required in order to yield those astounding results which made the round of the globe fairly recently.

Dr.Avery Gilbert is a biologist, smell scientist, sensory psychologist and fragrance-industry insider who has worked in the R&D division of several perfume companies (such as Givaudan-Roure) and is now president of Synesthetics, Inc., a provider of innovative sensory science for the development and marketing of consumer products. He has contributed chapters to various edited volumes and published scientific papers in prestigious publications such as Nature.(a selection can be downloaded here) "What the Nose Knows" is his first book. But what prompted him into fruictifying?

"A review of Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent set me on the path to my own book: I was the only reviewer to give
"Emperor" a big thumbs down. (I was also the only scientist to
review it; the Washington Post, for example, assigned it to their beauty editor.) My notice appeared in Nature Neuroscience shortly before the AChemS conference, a big annual meeting of smell and taste researchers in Sarasota, Florida. Book reviews rarely attract attention in the scientific world--you're lucky if your mom reads it. Yet colleague after colleague at AChemS came up to congratulate me and say how much
they liked the review. More than a few suggested I should write my own book".

He introduces himself with a sense of humorous acceptance: "I was among the first people to smell Eizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds, but also one of the first to sniff purified 3-methyl-2-hexenoic acid ~the aromatic essence of ripe, unwashed armpits." OK, we can stop being envious of his job at this point, I guess...

Full of interesting trivia and bypassing the cliché Napoleon's odorlagnia-laced billet doux to Joséphine (which every book on smell quotes anyway) Avery Gilbert goes instead for more treacherous waters, such as the flower idolatry of Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorn's little-publicized smell vignettes, the verse of Walt Whitman who idolised sweat and Richard Wagner's obsession with scent. Literature and the arts get their own section where the author goes into detail about shattering some of our preconceptions on literary odorphilia. Culinary enthusiasts will be excited over the crossover between food and wine aromas' comparisons and the attenuation of smell principles into a few dozen "flavor principles", as inspired by the work of Liz Rozin, will provide endless discussion. The forensically inclined will derive lots of info on how smell plays a paramount role in recognising stages of corpse decay, the astounding and gruesome realities of "New York deaths" and the not-urban-myths of corpses being hidden to rot under motels' beds; while the perversely intriguing issue of malodor gets its own fair treatment, from the scent of flatulence to the recreation of mamoth feces's aroma which is one of archaeology's dirty secrets (and boy, do I know).

A central point of the book, prompted by the Proustian rush of memories via the infamous soggy French delicacy, is the erosion of olfactory memory: “The purity and infallibility of smell memory ~an insight central to Proust’s literary conceit~ doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny.” This might give us pause for thought in our endless discussion about how fragrances change, even in placing faith into the recollections of experts who swear that batches of what they had smelled 40 years ago had a certain je ne sais quoi which is now absent or cannot be replicated. Could it be that it's all a projection of fears and desires like wet dreams and nightmares and our memory bushels the past into a more pleasing set of dimensions?

One of the most interesting chapters of the book is indeed devoted to "Spin Doctors": not con artists, but the scientists who have tried to come up with solid, measurable facts as to how the power of suggestion influences us into thinking something odoriferous is pleasant or unpleasant, potent or weak or even whether it is there at all! Like a perfume enthusiast said a propos of a similar point: "[it's like] the time when fluoride was about to be added to the water supply. Many people were horrified. This would surely kill them all! They displayed corroded pots and pans on the news, claiming that the fluoride had eaten away the metal. Indisputable proof, right? Except...Oops!....the fluoride hadn't been added to the water yet." Reading hard science data gathered via sensory experiments corroborating this somehow leaves you with the realisation that it suffices for some malignant acquaintance to fault your scent with smelling like something considered upleasant (enter any of the usual put-downs: urine, poo, bugspray, mustiness, creosote etc.) to make you believe you suddenly smell it yourself. It doesn't even matter whether the commentator really picks up the designated odour, it's enough that they proclaim it as such for your mind to conjure olfactory images of the offending attributes. This is stretched further to include M.C.S. (multiple chemical sensitivity), on which Gilbert hypothesizes that it might be a purely psychogenic illness despite his sympathy to the afflicted parties: the fear of an odor's power, as attributed by people into odors they consider fabricated, synthetic or otherwise malevolent, has the tangible potential to make them ill, manifesting actual physiological responses, as proven through university experiments and Van der Bergh's work at the University of Leuven, Belgium. And then again many might be attributed to bad associations: the case of former Playboy bunny Izabella St.James' aversion to baby oil or a WWII veteran's memory of crematories alerting him to a nearby funeral home scandal in Hesperia, northeast of Los Angeles, being two.

The reverse is also true, although on a less impressive manner, which accounts for the vividly purple prose we so often encounter through ad copy for fragrance products that promise olfactory utopia. Or even the subtle manipulation of audiences through scent, in cunningly consumerism overtones, such as the scenting of air in shops, as well as in fascinating and pioneering work such as that of Eric Berghammer, alias Odo7, a young Dutch artists touted as the world's first Aroma Jockey. Even the Hollywood use of Smell-o-Vision notoriety ~but not originality, as attested by previous paradigms dating back to the silent film era!~ through John Walters' film Polyester with Divine gets its fair share of analysis, leading to Andy Warhold "smell museum" and the hypothesis of science providing us with our own personal library of scents in the future through the human genome project, where the author is at his element.

Although the tone is light, it is not oversimplified to the point of condescending nor is it ever snarky, yet I would personally be thrilled if the author invited us into his experiences working on fragrant projects for commercial products: the whistleblower touch is always titillating to read. Additionally the attempt at humor sometimes sounds a little strained as if some sort of cathartic relief was needed after some truly gruesome facts presented: I'd like to think that we're able to handle it and if not, what were we doing reading a book on smell (as contrasted to perfume) anyway?

If nothing else, What the Nose Knows will make you never see Marcel Proust with the same eye again and if you have sat through Swann's Way into your literary pilgrimage with the inward impatient questioning "where are those promised odour landscapes?", it will provide welcome vindication. Even more encourangingly, the author proposes that there are no olfactory geniuses and the problem of correctly identifying odours (the "tip of the nose" syndrom) has to do with cognitive diffuculty more than sensory. He proposes that all one needs to be considered as such is an average sense of smell, empathy and a well-developped olfactory imagination. So there's hope for everyone it seems.

The book is published by Crown Publishers, NY and can be ordered through Amazon for $16.29 as part of a promotional offer.
Dr. Avery Gilbert maintains a site and a blog, First Nerve.

Sniffapalooza is featuring Avery Gilbert as one of their speakers at their annual Fall Ball on October 25, 2008, at New York City . He will discuss the psychology of odor perception and the enjoyment of perfume during a luncheon at the restaurant Opia, 130 E. 57th Street. The event begins at 12:30 p.m. Tickets and registration required.

Pic of book jacket through Avery Gilbert, madeleine pic through Les Ateliers du Parfum.

The Essence of Perfume by Roja Dove: book review and preview

It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that Roja Dove is the encyclopaedic resource to turn to on everything perfume-related. Even better that he is a very charming man to talk to as well. A former Cambridge medical student, Roja worked for many years for Guerlain: it all started when Robert Guerlain decided to stop his insistent questioning the company's global subsidiaries for info by harnessing this rampant enthusiasm of the 21-year-old by recruiting him and later appointing him Global Ambassador of parfums Guerlain; a title never before bestowed to non-Guerlain family members. Roja later teamed up with George Hammer (founder of the Sanctuary in Covent Garden and the one who brought Aveda to Britain) to create Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie in the Urban Retreat in Harrods. The mission stated in the brochure? "Haute Parfumerie defies the contemporary notion of "spray and pray" to bring together the finest fragrance offerings within sumptuous, lavish surroundings. Roja's personally trained experts will be on hand to help each customer find their signature fragrance." He continues to lecture audiences for prestigious establishments such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and oversees the creation of a bespoke line of exclusive fragrances for a select clientele as well as his own very special trilogy (Scandal, Enslaved, Unspoken) available at Harrods.

All this experience and passion has been distilled into Roja's newest book The Essence of Perfume. A coffee-table sized volume of glossy luxury, it is beautifully illustrated with photos of rare vintage bottles, especially in the final chapter: from the Egyptian Sphinx inspired Gardez-moi by Jovay (1926) to Baccarat crystal flacons such as the jewel-hued yet tastefully spartan hip-flask shaped Ybry line (1925-27), the Art Deco malachite-green of Trois Passions by Myon from 1928 and the rococo style decorative Bertelli perfumes from 1917. The exquisite naturalistic Lalique flacons for Bouquet des Faunes for Guerlain (1925) and their poetically formed L'Effleurt for Coty (1908) and Ambre d'Orsay from 1913 are also presented in all their glory. Bottles from Roja's private collection such as the Guerlain Bouquet de Victoria, Prince Albert's Bouquet and Bouquet de Napoléon (III) from the 1850-70s make a unique appearence as does the only known complete Chanel box containing No.5 and the never commercially released No.2 and No.11

But the book is not primarily aimed at the bottle collector. The Essence of Perfume strives to be a tome comprising information on various aspects of perfumery starting with a brief consice history of fragrance creation and use from antiquity through the birth of modern perfumery in the 19th century: I find little known facts that delight my historian soul such as the Appolonius' quote "perfumes are sweetest when the scent comes from the wrist" or who the first Grasse company to use solvent exctraction invented by the Robert clan (them of great perfumers' fame) is. The chapters then follow the course of introducing the perfume lover into the methodology of perfumery: explaining the methods of aromatics extraction (steam distillation, solvent extraction, expression, enfleurage and tincturing) with the aid of diagrams; a description of raw materials of natural origin accompanied by photographs and a two-word descriptor of their odour facet as well as a very brief guide to aroma-synthetics (not strictly non occuring in nature, such as natural isolates, lab reconstitutions, novel synthesized molecules and aldehydes), useful to the budding perfumephile who is questioning what is that long series of ingredients listed in their new box's allergens list. Roja then goes into detail explaining how the composition of a fragrance is constructed in the classic pyramidal style, the basic fragrance families (floral, chypré, oriental, fougère) and the fragrance facets within those divisions (for instance the "aromatic" facet is further divided into lavender, aniseed and minty tones or the distinction between "soft", "resinous" and "powdery" balsamic) as well as the differences in concentration of compound in the finished product resulting in Eau de Toilette, Eau de Parfum, Extrait de Parfum/pure parfum and the always confusing matter of Eau de Cologne and the origin of Eau Fraîche types. Basically the seasoned perfumephile will want to leaf through these and instead focus on the delightful perusal through the great classics that follows.

From Jicky by Guerlain (1889) and L'origan (1905) by Coty all the way through to Narciso Rodriguez (2003) and Perles de Lalique (2006) Roja Dove saves the bulk of the book for the detailed exposition classified by decade of the perfumes that marked their era due to their popularity and innovation. This is accompanied by vintage ads, socio-economic commentary on the evolving mores that were expressed into the change in tastes and trends on each sub-chapter introduction and pictures of iconic style representations such as Great Garbo, Barbara Goalen in a Dior couture dress from 1947, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Andy Warhol entourage of the 70s, Lady Diana Spencer and Jennifer Lopez. Reading about them we come across facts we have encountered and shared before and others which we have not. Jacques Guerlain being touched by a previous Guerlain mention by Claude Farrere leading to using one of the author's heroines name in Mitsouko. Patou wanted "Joy to be to perfume what Roll-Royce is to cars". How naive older practices like the one used by Opium (and Caron 60 years before it) to cut short the long waiting list when the product did come in the stores to keep fueling the demand seem in our marketing-obsessed times...And how truly it resonates with poignancy about the changes in attitude towards intimate smells when Roja describes Shocking by Schiaparelli "like the interior of ladies' underwear" and its progeny Boudoir by Westwood "like Shocking wihout the knickers"!

After this mesmerising foray into anecdotes and descriptions on so many fragrances, there are alphabetized entries on each house from Coty to Carven through Robert Piguet and Christian Dior to Jean Patou and Yves Saint Laurent also illustrated with famous and not so famous pictures of the protagonists behind perfume vision and little stories about some of the myths that surround them: it is here that we find more detailed info on Coco Chanel's sobriquet being inspired by a tune sang by her in cafes with the chorus "Qui Qu'a Vu Coco" about a little dog ~dispelling the rumour that it had to do with hosting cocaine parties; that Madame Carven was behind fragrances sold aboard airplanes concept; that Patrick Alès (the buyer of the Caron house) calls Roja "Monsieur Caron" for his dedication while Anarchist was named in tribute to the revolutionary spirit of the house's founder Ernest Daltroff; and that Cacharel is named after a small migratory bird of the Camargue.

Roja Dove thinks "perfume has become debased over the past 10 to 15 years. The marketing brief is getting younger and younger: it's all for 18-25s. I don't know of any house that's creating perfumes for women over 30, and all the great perfumes are disappearing by stealth. Perfumers are frightened to take risks, but many of the great perfumes came about by mistake." and "A lot of perfumes disappeared because they were no good or were of the moment and ceased to be relevant. But these ones - all the ones in my parfumerie - are more than relevant today; they were probably just ahead of their time. When you take scents like Miss Dior or Vol de Nuit by Guerlain, you have formulas which are still avant-garde and totally wearable. Commercial perfumery is nowhere near as creative," as quoted in an interview to Alison Kerr in The Scotsman. "But a small renaissance has begun as not everyone wants to smell cheap. Consumers are waking up to the idea of individuality once more; the cognoscente is turning back on mass-marketed fragrances. There is a revival in creative perfumery; shifting the craft back to the genius of the master perfumers", Roja comments on the foreword of his new tome. A sigh of relief...

If I were to find fault with anything it would be that there is some English-ised construction in several French phrases (eau de colognes instead of eaux de cologne, Professeur de parfums instead of des parfums, fougere's for the plural fougeres on page 86), as well as the perennial but widely standardised formulas instead of the Latin plural formulae. But these are misdemeanors that can be easily sidetracked by the sheer scope of the book. If not absolutely indispensable to those who have perhaps read too much on the subject, it is still a very concise and worthy addition to a library that focuses on fine fragrance.

You can watch Roja Dove talk about his niche and classic fragrance choices here:

"When you wear a fragrance you create tomorrow's memories". Aaah!

Official issue date of The Essence of Perfume for the US is 28th October (70$) Apart from pre-ordering at Amazon, you can get a 40% discount off the retail price by contacting Jess Atkins at jess@blackdogonline.com stating "Perfume Shrine discount" in the title of your mail.

Pics through Black Dog Publishing, not to be reproduced without permission
Clip provided via handbag.com

Roja Dove's New Book at a Discount for our Readers

Roja Dove, for years "professeur des parfums" at Guerlain and mastermind of Harrod's Haute Parfumerie in London (a Mekka pilgrimage for any perfume afficionado) has written a new book, The Essence of Perfume. What is it about?
"Dove leads us on a fascinating journey through the world of scent, from Ancient Egypt, where myth has it that the fragrance Kypi induced mass surrender, through to the 1920s, when Jean Harlow's husband--maddened by his love and frustrated by his impotence--drenched himself in his wife's perfume before ending his life. We read about the bitter rivalry between Coco Chanel and "that Italian", Elsa Schiaparelli, and how this inspired some of history's most iconic scents. The Essence of Perfume is the first book by the world's only Professeur de Parfums, and it is as captivating as it is informative. Beginning with a comprehensive discussion of the sense of smell and the materials of the master perfumer, The Essence of Perfume goes on to celebrate the great classics, the makers who brought them to life and the designers who gave them shape. In an age where the methods and motivations of the original perfumers are all but forgotten, Roja Dove unfolds the gripping story of scent with all the passion and devotion of a true artist".

Like Hannah Betts of the Sunday Times said: "If there's a perfume that Roja doesn't have an anecdote about I have yet to discover it. Talking perfume with mr.Dove is as rich a pleasure as it is a priviledge."

Published by Black Dog Publishing, its official issue date is 28 October 2008.
Hardback, 288 pages, 350 b/w and colour illustrations
ISBN: 978 1 906155 49 0
UK price £40.00

However, apart from pre-ordering at Amazon, you can get a 40% discount on the retail price by contacting Jess Atkins at jess@blackdogonline.com stating "Perfume Shrine discount" in the title of your mail.

Pics through Black Dog Publishing, not to be reproduced without permission