The perfect scent chandler burr pdf

What does it say that I wear Chanel Allure? Dpes it say I am sophisticated, rich and well-travelled I'm one of the three, guess which! Or only that no one else ever comments on any perfume I do wear except this one? Why would I turn down a compliment even if it's for the scent not me? So I wear it and take every compliment personally. Nice light reading if you prefer non-fiction but not really an expose of the industry at all.

I've just had an ah-hah moment. SJP is supposed to be creating her own scent for Coty. I thought she was just lending her name, as celebrities do. She has been going on about hating florals wanting a dirty scent and rejecting this one and that, and it's all sounded a bit pretentious. But then, for a publicity campaign, she is out with the author and photographer and says how she used to create her own scent from a drug store musk oil - Bonne Belle the old formula , an Egyptian oil from a street vendor, mixed together with her sexy, dirty main perfume, Comme des Garcons Incense Avignon.

I can smell that blend, dirty and heavy, yes. So she has a lot more credibility than the celebrities that just sell their names to a brand. I love those strong, dry, masculine grassy scents. They smell like the Amazon did. Rainforest in a bottle. It's quite interesting in that exposes the fakery of the perfume industry, all but Chanel, quite unwittingly. The author almost worships perfume, or at least the billion-dollar fashion houses it is associated with and very thin 'perfect' women.

It seems, like electronics, like cosmetics, like high-price jeans, they are all manufactured not in-house, by manufacturers who will make for any company, and then the goods are branded. And the PR people do everything they can to persuade us that these are genuInely designed and made by the couturiers and not a fragrance company in New York.

Chanel is the exception, it has always had its own in-house parfumier. The language is a bit flowery. Some examples: ". Spraying perfume is like "a doctor administering shots".. His white shirt sleeves rolled all the way up obediently submitting to the spray.

After she did Ellena, De Breul did herself. Sarah Jessica Parker seems very involved with the design process of her perfume, Lovely, but she doesn't seem to be quite all there. I'm interested in the creation of a scent, but also in the input that Sarah Jessica Parker actually had to her own scent. Apart from, that is, having her agents and lawyers negotiate a contract where she would be paid an obscenely large sum for letting the company name a scent after her and being in adverts 'pretending' it was her own scent.

I love scent. I wear Chanel Allure. After so many years of wearing it, I would like to branch out, but no other perfume gets the amount of comments and compliments that this one does.

It is so hard to come by now that when I found it in a shop that specialises in rare perfumes in the UAE I bought two bottles. I was impressed they arrived in just a couple of weeks to my little Caribbean island. Much as I like it though, no one ever comments when I wear it. But still, I wear it for me and it's on my pillow. View all 37 comments. Nov 27, Kelly rated it really liked it Shelves: owned , tres-francais , 21st-century.

Nice to meet you. Thankfully, somebody clearly knew this about me. And about the thousands of other people like me who totally should read this amazing book but not in a million years would have if it was packaged and shelved the way it logically should be.

They slapped pictures of gorgeous tropical fruit and bright flowers on it, painted it a faded Tuscan tan-yellow and tucked in a picture of Somewhere-on-the-Mediterranean-Coast. Such a thing exists? And is a real job that someone gets paid for? In the 21st century? And your perfectly conceptualized cover is trying to tell me that that job is as ridiculously amazing as I would expect it to be?

Aw, cover designer. You knew I could not resist such a thing. But you know what? Suck it! One in particular: Well done… Meryl Sussman Levavi. That book that no longer looks so shiny, or perhaps you feel ashamed that you were interested in. This book overcame any lingering doubts I might have had with very little trouble at all. Okay, so let me get to the thing itself. The action focuses mostly around Paris and New York, where Burr is given the opportunity to observe the process of conceptualizing, creating and launching two rather radically different perfumes.

View all 13 comments. Nov 16, Jon rated it really liked it. I have probably worn cologne less than a handful of times in my life. I have no real interest in perfume. And yet, I was drawn to this book precisely because of my lack of interest in the subject. Perfume is something I so rarely think about that the idea that whole lives revolve around this intrigued me just as say, a book about hair care products probably would, or laundry detergent.

Burr, who covers the perfume industry for the New York Times again, another surprise--that someone on a news I have probably worn cologne less than a handful of times in my life. Burr, who covers the perfume industry for the New York Times again, another surprise--that someone on a newspaper staff actually has as his sole job to cover scents , goes into a single year in the industry, and really into the making of two particular perfumes. One is a high-end fashion perfume, Un Jardin sur le Nil, and the other is a celebrity endorsed commercial perfume, Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely.

But most fascinating of all is Burr's--and every character in the book's--attention to smell. Despite the fact that smell is supposedly the strongest sense in terms of spurring memories, I have never spent so much time thinking about it.

I can't say I even notice most smells, unless they're the stench of something rotting on the bus, something that makes me want to move away.

Here, Burr introduces a bevy of them, describing them in ways that often aren't smells at all, at least, not in the manner that I'd think of them--smells with colors, with weights, with stories. And then there are the perfumes themselves, modeled after animals or detergent or sweat or car exhaust or fruit or flowers or cement after rain.

I was so inspired at one point, I went to my medicine cabinet and pulled out the four bottles of cologne I've collected over the years--gifts I never wear--and stuck each one to my nose. Indeed, some of them do have characteristics that vaguely resemble something else. One of my scents is definitely citrus; another is vaguely like motor oil. The other two, however, as one not versed in the signification of smell, I could not really discern as anything other than simply perfume--a particular kind of alcohol.

But I'm tempted, now, to walk into the mall and play among the spray bottles, testing what it is the perfumer has attempted to do. I feel like a whole other world has opened to me. It's quite likely that anyone with a fanatical perfume hobby, such as me, will eat up this book. I certainly did. It covered some territory I already knew, but on the whole it was quite the eye-opener about the strange and magical and illogical world of modern perfumery. Burr's assorted opinions on various fragrances are at times hilarious he compares certain popular scents to weed killer and nerve gas , and always evocative "the scent of a European man removing his underwear in August"--okay, It's quite likely that anyone with a fanatical perfume hobby, such as me, will eat up this book.

Burr's assorted opinions on various fragrances are at times hilarious he compares certain popular scents to weed killer and nerve gas , and always evocative "the scent of a European man removing his underwear in August"--okay, I need to smell that one [Yatagan] again.

Reading it spurred me to head over to The Perfumed Court and LuckyScent and order a couple boxes of new samples to sniff. Glad I did. This is a delightful hobby. And Burr obviously understands the appeal behind it. I'll be interested to read 'The Emperor of Scent' and others by him. Mar 27, Melody rated it really liked it.

I enjoyed this immensely. It's one of those books one carries around reading aloud from. Burr's scathing, off-the-cuff assessments of current perfumes are hilarious, as are his other asides.

Here's a favorite quote: "Perfumers are deeply strange people simply because their sensorial perception of the world is so highly trained.

The educated olfactory capacity makes spending time with them not u I enjoyed this immensely. The educated olfactory capacity makes spending time with them not unlike spending time with talking Labradors. View all 8 comments. Mar 11, Kate rated it it was ok Shelves: foodwriting. I picked at it, and liked a lot of it, but I don't think I'll finish it. It reminds me of food writing, in the way it makes you think about a sensory experience. What goes into creating the scent of a perfume a lot!

But the book is kind of ponderous and I'm losing interest. Also, the author clearly has a crush on Sarah Jessica Parker he follows her around as she's developing her perfumes I picked at it, and liked a lot of it, but I don't think I'll finish it. Also, the author clearly has a crush on Sarah Jessica Parker he follows her around as she's developing her perfumes and it's getting tiresome.

Mar 04, Jane rated it it was ok. This was a bit of a let-down after having just read Chandler Burr's previous book. Details about industry and the celebrity stuff didn't grab me.

Turns out he wrote this at an outdoor cafe in Rome. Not a surprise - you can tell his priorities were elsewhere. Jan 04, Jennifer rated it really liked it. I am slightly anosmic so I'm very curious about what it's like to experience perfumes. Chandler Burr writes about perfumes using evocative images from your other senses so that I can kind of experience the perfume.

Here is an example: "Lovely" is the lightest olfactory party dress of powder and sweet, the scent equivalent of the terrific wrap of soft floating mesh fabric I saw one summer enveloping the shoulders of a young woman, a physical cloud she wore elegantly through the East Village street I am slightly anosmic so I'm very curious about what it's like to experience perfumes.

Here is an example: "Lovely" is the lightest olfactory party dress of powder and sweet, the scent equivalent of the terrific wrap of soft floating mesh fabric I saw one summer enveloping the shoulders of a young woman, a physical cloud she wore elegantly through the East Village streets.

One notices that lovely wrap. But "Lovely" is modernest school in behavior. The perfume melts into you, and there is a point in its development when the other person will stop seeing the wrap--where the scent stops behaving like a coat--and sees only the wearer, who is somehow prettier, more delicate--enhanced--in an indefinable way.

The perfume, as "the perfume", has disappeared, leaving only you. View 1 comment. I was thinking about you and the floods. Sounds very unpleasant and hope it all passes soon. I liked the perfume parts of The Perfume Lover; the personal stuff not so much. She seems to have stopped writing her blog which is too bad. It was the highlight of that season for me. Loved both! I enjoy both natural and synthetic notes it seems and really think both are necessary from what little I understand.

Here in Colorado we are waiting for the second big snowfall in the past week, this is spring for us in the Rocky Mountains! Do you enjoy snow-related activities? I read that book many years ago and remember enjoying it.

My wisteria is going great guns, it is almost in full flower here in southern California. The red lilies are looking great too. Summer is coming!! We will be buying a new house this summer and very much looking forward to having a real garden after living in a flat with a tiny balcony for many years.

I am hoping the wisteria takes off. Burr worked my last nerve, alas, and I allowed myself to be swayed enough that I gave his writing short shrift. That was a mistake. I should reinvestigate. I think it would be worth trying again with Burr. Please log in again.

The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page. Who We Are Drop us a Note! So, have you read TPS and if yes what did you think? And did you mark the equinox?

Perfume Love for Everyone! Dina C. March 22, at am. New York Times scent critic Chandler Burr spent a year behind the scenes of the perfume industry -- one of the most secretive, glamorous, and lucrative in all the realm of luxury goods. New York : Random House. Bradley, M. New York : Routledge. Burr, C. New York : Henry Holt and Company. New York : Columbia University Press, Picador, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Paris : Presses Universitaires de France , Abescat, Bruno, La Saga des Bettencourt Belloc, Hilaire.

Berents, Dirk Arend, J. No journalist has ever been allowed into the ultrasecretive, highly pressured process of originating a perfume. But Chandler Burr, the New York Times perfume critic, spent a year behind the scenes observing the creation of two major fragrances.

Now, writing with wit and elegance, he juxtaposes the stories of the perfumes -- one created by a Frenchman in Paris for an exclusive luxury-goods house, the other made in New York by actress Sarah Jessica Parker and Coty, Inc. We follow Coty's mating of star power to the marketing of perfume, watching Sex and the City's Parker heading a hugely expensive campaign to launch a scent into the overcrowded celebrity market. Will she match the success of Jennifer Lopez?

Does she have the international fan base to drive worldwide sales? The result is a remarkable work of reporting on both art and business, a nuanced portrait of two dissimilar people, Jean-Claude Ellena and Sarah Jessica Parker, who had one thing in common: their quest to create the perfect scent.

Ellena was hired by Hermes in Paris to create a fragrance that will rival Chanel No. In New York, Coty enlists Parker, a star and style icon, to create a celebrity perfume. Perfumes have the power to evoke treasured memories, make us feel fabulous and help us express our best self.

But with so many out there, how do you choose something new?