Perfume: A Century of Scents

Really love this book! Perfume in history and how it's affected our daily lives. I read some criticism of this that it's not about perfume in detail, the notes, the oils used, how each one was created, etc. There are so many books like that out there that go into fragrances in depth. I like this historical perspective full of interesting little anecdotes. Easy to pick up if you put it down for awhile, as each little two or three-page vignette about each perfume is very brief.

Don't expect a book about details of scents, notes and perfumes. But expect a great cultural and popular history and its links to the perfumes of the respective matching decade. There is no book quite like this and it deserves careful study if you love perfumes.

For history and perfume lovers everywhere..Fascinating tidbits of the back stories on the olfactory journey of the 20th century with wit, humor and occasionally the appropriate gravitas ;-).Enjoyed immensely and Recommend highly

Saw this book being recommended on a youtube video and wanted to check it out over the winter holiday.

very interesting history and context of each perfume

Her words are like music.

Very informative

I love perfumes. I have a variety of fragrances from Brittney Spears (whose perfumes are seriously underrated) to Coco Chanel, so I was excited to read Perfume a Century of Scents. I liked parts of this book and others I didn't, hence the 3 star rating.The author details different perfumes over the last century, including the advent of synthetic scents, bottles and marketing. She has an introduction to perfume and then she breaks down each decade with the signature scents of the ten years. I didn't always agree with all her choices as the creme de la creme of that decade (Ralph Lauren's Polo is not included and neither is Elizabeth Taylor's scents) but there are many that are still very popular today that she discusses. There is no set template for every perfume she reviews. sometimes she discusses the ingredients and sometimes she doesn't. I found myself really wanting to know what ingredients were in these scents.She tries to capture the era of the perfume like the swinging sixties. Her writing style can be a little over the top, example "anyone tempted to try Bal a Versailles must first summon the heraldic trumpeters and demand that a master of ceremonies with red sash and monocle hurry round a ballroom crying "Make way!Make way for Her Royal Excellency!'" And the author clearly loves Chanel No 5, which she believes will be worn by the first woman resettled on Mars, discovered buried by a Neo-Iron age society, well you get the point. These gushing phrases are throughout the book.What I found very interesting about this book was the history of perfumes in the last century, especially the marketing and producers of fragrances. I had no idea that Sears was into perfumes or that Baccarat crystal designers were involved in creating bottles. Some of the marketing ideas were pretty advanced and innovative for the times. Also interesting were the men's fragrances like Old Spice and Brut.

I love scents, I love Diptyque and how the brand tells stories with each scents.So I thought I'd enjoy reading about perfume- it turns out, I don't.I read a really interesting piece on Stylist magazine about how everyone wore CKOne in the 90's, why the clean Tommy girl was popular, how all the teenage girls started exploring with COTY's exclamation and how that was so ground breaking. I grew up in the 90's (so did the author) so I was drawn in to this book from a nostalgic sense.That is however a small fraction of this book and I didn't find the history of the other scents interesting at all.

Frivilious skimming over without much useful information regarding formulations, so many old well known scents not mentioned, tedious reading. Luca Turin did a much more interesting work.

I heard about this book on BbBC R4 Woman's Hour and thought I'd read it. I was surprised and delighted to find it was on Kindle. As a perfume lover - I don't leave the house without it - this book is a fascinating history of fragrances. A. Very good read and would make a lovely Christmas present for a woman, along with some perfume as well of course!

fantastic book, wonderful history facts and so well written

nice book.needs more photos