perfumesilove

Luca Turin's perfume reviews @perfumes_ilove perfumesIlove@gmail.com

Archive for July 2016

Laboratorio Olfattivo

LO sent a neat box containing fourteen fragrances released between 2010 and 2016. The look is reassuringly, indeed soporifically hip, complete with slightly moth-eaten Courier typeface, square-format leaflet, Byredo-type bottles, lots of white space, nice photos. In short, all the perquisites of a niche firm that wishes to be carried in respectable stores, bought by young women in white Capri pants and Superga shoes, and one day be acquired for an eight-figure sum by L’Oréal. […]

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Libertine

Murphy’s Law. A long-awaited box of fragrances arrives from Canadian firm Libertine. First thing I do is break one of the bottles by opening the box too enthusiastically, manage to dip two smelling strips in what’s left and curse myself for being impatient and clumsy. That would have been Soft Woods, mopped up off the floor, its lovely smell mixed with the weird hospital waiting room smell of wet kitchen paper. On […]

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Laudamiel speaks

Christophe Laudamiel, in my opinion the greatest inventor of novel perfume structures working today, will be giving a talk at the PerfumeSchool in New York on July 27. The subject will be the Osmothèque collection of painstakingly reconstituted marvels from perfumery’s past. I’ve heard Christophe give lectures: passion, brilliance and fun in equal parts. Plus you’ll get to smell some of the oldies.   Pic credit

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Therapeutate

Some things are sent to try us in the department of open-mindedness and forbearance. The blurb for Therapeutate —awkward neologism, btw— blithely describes the company’s botanical products as  the “grass-fed option to other brands filled with petrochemicals and animal-by-products”, which would be laughable if it wasn’t sad. What is wrong with petrochemicals that isn’t also wrong with plants? If nature knows best, how come smallpox and hemlock? What animal byproducts? Does the whale […]

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Kafkaesque grade inflation

Blogger Kafkaesque expressed dismay at the fact that I was handing out four stars to fragrances which cannot stand comparison with the four stars in the Perfume Guide. Let me explain. 1- I am doing a little affirmative action here for artisan and niche perfumers who mostly do not have access to the huge technical resources of mainstream perfumery. 2- The name of my blog constrained me somewhat because I […]

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Tauer Perfumes

Andy Tauer and I go way back: I’ve loved his fragances right from the start, i.e. late in 2005 when I first smelled his Le Maroc and wrote about it in glowing terms. Then when Tania Sanchez and I wrote our perfume guide, we gave his L’Air du Désert Marocain five richly deserved stars. I like to think that we had a part in Andy quitting his day job and becoming a […]

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Hendley Perfumes

The process from a good idea to a great perfume usually goes through a stage of broad strokes followed by a long, slow and painstaking stage of refinement. This is not unlike editing a text, where you may, in a burst of activity, write a couple of thousand words in a morning, then find yourself messing with one small thing or another for weeks. Half-way through the refining, you become thoroughly […]

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