THE PERFUME BIBLE Hardcover – 25 September 2014

I so wanted to like this book. I'm a perfume collector and trade press beauty writer, and I have about 300 fragrances, many of them vintage. But it's fairly rubbish - I only gave it two stars for the nice presentation. It took me a while to work out quite what I disliked about it - it's that it reads like an extended women's magazine, with that superficial, gutless, airheaded tone that makes me despair of anything marketed to women as if we didn't have brains. The fragrance reviews read like rewritten press releases (I know - I've done my fair share of that in my time!). The authors mix up galbanum with labdanum - a mistake no perfume aficionado would make. It unashamedly tries to draw the reader to visit their firm's website. This book works as a very basic, superficial introduction to fragrance, but you'll find far more in-depth treatments of fragrance on blogs such as Bois du Jasmin, Persolaise, Yesterday's Perfume, A Kafkaesque Blog or even Fragrantica. It's not bad as a Christmas gift because it's nicely produced, and it had one or two tips, such as applying perfume to your ankles, that I hadn't come across before, but overall, 'could try harder'. For a more in-depth look at fragrance, read anything by Chandler Burr (and ignore the awful writing style - there's real information in his books). And above all, read Luca Turin, who is marvellous.

Although you can feel the enthusiasm of the authors for their subject, it was frustrating as a perfume beginner to find so little reference material explaining the technicalities. Six pages out of nearly two hundred explain the perfume families, which could have been elaborated much further, especially given that some examples are differently classified in later chapters. Sloppily written in places, the authors wax lyrical about their favourite scents, relying a little heavily on descriptions of their favourite perfumes rather than imparting information that might be useful to a reader. Chapters such as "perfume portraits" and "collecting perfume art" feel particularly lazy.If you are after a light coffee table read, the Perfume bible fits the bill perfectly, with its lavish illustrations and gorgeous perfume descriptions. If you want to find out about perfume, there are better books.

I found the chapter "100 Perfumes to try before you die" the most fascinating and their descriptions to be really fun and engaging. Thoroughly enjoying this read

For my wife and she is very pleased with the book.

Really glad to have it.