Entries Tagged 'luca turin' ↓

An Iris Problem: How to Build One

I got a most interesting mail the other day: Someone who is clearly very much a perfume lover and whom I knew before through the blog was asking me what I thought was a perfumer’s perfect way to build a masterful iris. It surprised me because I am not …

Solid Perfume Shop

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Caron Tabac Blond Parfum vs. EdT and in general

This evening I’m only wearing two perfumes. On one arm is Caron’s Tabac Blond in the EdT concentration and on the other arm is Caron’s Tabac Blond in parfum extrait concentration. I love making these sorts of comparisons. Next week I plan to get Caron’s Narcisse Noire parfum to compare with the EdT I already have. Sometimes I find there is very little difference or that I actually prefer the

Vintage Perfume Shop

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An American Blogger In Paris: Visiting The Caron Boutique

Or: Luca Turin Was RightWhile I was living in vintage heaven, something bad has happened to the house of Caron. It’s not that I was completely oblivious. I knew that the house has changed hands, I’ve heard that scents were reformulated and I read Perfu…

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Rooms With a View: Jasmine et Cigarette and Rien

Set two Etat Libre D’Orange boxes back to back, with their red and blue, semi-circle logos, and you get a bulls-eye in the middle, an interesting sight gag for a niche line whose compositions tend toward the oblique. The names, too, sidle up to you …

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The Best Laid Plans

I planned to create a blog that would be all about perfume, one of my biggest obsessions. I wanted to include loads of perfume reviews but then I was stumped, about just what else I should do with this blog. Then along came Brian. I met Brian at Per…

Antique Perfume Shop

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When a review is not a review?

I’ve been trying to work my way through ‘Perfumes: The Guide’ by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. This is happening in fits and starts, because the obvious glee with which the two of them render their opinions is thick enough to slice up like polenta, fry, and serve alongside a wilted spinach salad with [...]

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Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez- A Book Review

The amount of mental energy I’ve spent over the last three weeks deliberating if I should review the book or not, could have been spent on something far more productive or inspiring. Like catching up on email or organizing my shoes by color. At first, …

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Smell you later

Another day, another interview with Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez because of Perfumes the Guide. Kurt from studio360.org brought them to a nearby Duane Reed to unlock the mysteries of body spray, handiwipes, and crayons.
The tone is again playful, maybe…

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Perfumes - The Guide

Reading the Turin/Sanchez book is so much fun. They are opinionated and unapologetically subjective. Their personalities are so big and they give them free rein, so I find it a joy to read. Why read anything about perfume if it is not entirely idio…

Vintage Perfume Shop

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Waiting for Tommy: a tragicomedy

“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.”

Two perfume lovers, let’s call them Vladimir & Estragon (together they sound like a Russian contraceptive!), are waiting for the revelation of the sublime through a bottle of Tommy Gi…

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Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez TV and Radio Interviews

Thanks to the amazing skills and generosity of IrisLA, a truly lovely, generous lady and a reader of this venue, Perfume Shrine is in the position to offer you the clip of the interview by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez on occassion of issuing their new …

Vintage Perfume Shop

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Pulling the pieces together

Having struggled hard over the last few evenings, making concoctions that smell nothing like I want them to, a penny dropped this morning. I had been reading the Secret of Scent by Luca Turin and, in the book Mr Turin goes into great detail about the d…

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Perfumes : The Guide VS Psychology, or In Defense of What I Love

The newest book by Luca Turin and co-author Tania Sanchez has had several online perfume communities abuzz ever since it hit the bookstores. I have not participated in any of those (often) heated discussions because one, I regretfully don’t have the time to post on any fora at the moment, two I don’t actually own the Guide, and three, I am put off by some of the ugliness that is being generated

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Who is questioning the Guide?

No fragrance company has taken an official stance on “Perfumes The Guide” yet. Nevertheless, at least a handful have personally contacted me with questions on what was mentioned about their products following my review of the new guide by Luca Turin an…

Parfum Femmes Francais

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Book and Hermes Un Jardin Apres La Mousson

First, a quick perfume review from my favorite series of perfumes and perfumer, the gorgeous, brillian Jean-Claude Ellena:  Un Jardin Apres la Mousson, the newest editionin the Un Jardin series from Hermes.  Notes of cardamom, coriander, pepper, ginger and ginger flower, with a vetiver accord Ellen created.   Meant to create a monson …

Vintage Perfume Shop

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…the beauty of natural perfumery

Behold the rose, how can one even begin to captivate that beauty? How can one imitate the velvety petals, the curls and folds that embrace one another, and a scent so pure and heavenly? Rose absolute and rose otto, whether from the rose de mai, the dam…

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Perfumes the Guide by Turin and Sanchez: sneek preview and review

The perfume guide being written by odor guru Luca Turin with co-author and his newlywed Tania Sanchez was shrouded in mystery for some time. It has been 15 years since Turin had penned the original, now out-of-print Parfums, Le Guide in French. Since …

Vintage Perfume Shop

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Naturals again

Perfume Shrine has always been interested in the developments in the world of perfumery and one sector of that is the perfumers who dabble in Naturals. Much maligned in the past, yet increasingly acquited of accusations of a blinkered approach, it is r…

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Natural Perfumers Guild Perfumer Dominique Dubrana Lauded by Luca Turin

Luca Turin, perfume critic, author of the soon-to-be-released The Perfume Guide just wrote about a custom perfume he had made by Dominique Dubrana of Italy. We in the Guild know him as a Professional Perfumer who prefers to be called Salaam, a longtime…

Parfum Femmes Francais

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Unveiling a myth: Iris Gris by Jacques Fath

by guest writer Denyse Beaulieu

The day I finally smelled the peach in Mitsouko – a full-fleshed downy peach bulging through the seamless composition – was the day after I smelled the mythical Iris Gris, by Jacques Fath. As though the latter had opened up an unknown dimension in the former: the same peach note, known as undecalactone or aldehyde C-14 (though it technically isn’t an aldehyde),

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Nocturnal Demons

Have you ever lost sleep over the notion of an unattainable ideal? Have you longed and ached for that which you have not even experienced? Are you like the hero in Steppenwolf , a lone soul in search of the sublime revelation of self in the whirlwind of a crumbling civilization? Those questions might ring silly to someone who hasn’t known the pang of desire that a beautiful perfume stirs in the

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Burr-y the Hatchet

Perfume Shrine always aims to bring our readers the highlights of fragrance appreciation with objectivity and a level-headed analytical approach.
So, in the pursuit of those goals, we present you today with an interview with one of the controversial players in fragrance writing: the journalist and writer Chandler Burr.

Mr.Burr perused our site, confessed being impressed with the quality (we

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Leather Series 8: The Garçonne Leathers of the 1920s (part 2)

by guest writer Denyse BeaulieuTabac Blond was the opening salve of the garçonnes’ raid on gentlemen’s dressing tables. Its name evokes the “blonde” tobacco women had just started smoking in public (interestingly, Marlboros were launched as a …

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The origins of the olfactory theory of Shape?

If anyone is at all familiar with the theory of perfume breakdown and the notion of searching for how the sense of smell works, then that one is familiar with the conflict between the standard theory of Shape versus Luca Turin’s theory of Vibration; th…

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The Dior Chypres series ~Diorama: fragrance review

“Cabochard, Dioressence, Diorama were offerings to goddesses, not presents to women”. This is how Luca Turin addressed the masterpiece by Edmond Roudnitska that came in 1949 like a luminous cognac diamond to adorn the crown of Christian Dior parfums. H…

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Chypre series 2: ingredients

Perfume lovers are well aware of the fact that “notes” in perfume denote only the feel that certain ingredients emote and not necessarily the exact ingredients that go into the composition of the final product. Such is the case with chypre perfumes as …

Parfum Femmes Francais

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Sarrasins by Serge Lutens: perfume review

Perfume Shrine has the rare privilege today to host talented guest writer Denyse Beaulieu, aka Carmencanada, on a review of the very new and exclusive Palais Royal scent by Serge Lutens, the ink-coloured jasmine-rich Sarrasins. It is rumoured that soon…

Parfum Femmes Francais

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