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The Scent Trail
When Celia Lyttelton visited a bespoke perfumers, she realized a long-held ambition: to have a scent created solely for her. Entering this heady, exotic world of oils and essences, she was transported from a leafy London square to a place of long-forgotten memories and sensory experiences. And once drawn into this world, she felt compelled to trace the origins, history and culture of the many ingredients that made up her unique perfume...
And so began a magical journey of the senses that took Celia from Grasse, the cradle of perfume, to Morocco; from the rose-growing region of Isparta in Turkey, to the Tuscan hills where the iris grows wild. And after journeying to Sri Lanka, the home of the heavenly scented jasmine, Celia ventured to India, the Yemen and finally to the 'Island of Bliss', Socotra. Here she traced the rarest and most mysterious agent in perfumery, ambergris, which is found in the bellies of whales and is said to have powerful aphrodisiac qualities.
From the peasants and farmers growing their own crops, and the traders who sell to the great perfume houses, to the 'noses' who create the scents and the marketing kings who rule this powerful billion-dollar industry, Celia Lyttelton paints a mystical, sensual landscape of sights, sounds and aromas as she recalls the extraordinary people and places she encountered on her unique Scent Trail.
And so began a magical journey of the senses that took Celia from Grasse, the cradle of perfume, to Morocco; from the rose-growing region of Isparta in Turkey, to the Tuscan hills where the iris grows wild. And after journeying to Sri Lanka, the home of the heavenly scented jasmine, Celia ventured to India, the Yemen and finally to the 'Island of Bliss', Socotra. Here she traced the rarest and most mysterious agent in perfumery, ambergris, which is found in the bellies of whales and is said to have powerful aphrodisiac qualities.
From the peasants and farmers growing their own crops, and the traders who sell to the great perfume houses, to the 'noses' who create the scents and the marketing kings who rule this powerful billion-dollar industry, Celia Lyttelton paints a mystical, sensual landscape of sights, sounds and aromas as she recalls the extraordinary people and places she encountered on her unique Scent Trail.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published July 2, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
March 5, 2009
The book reminds me of a Victorian travel narrative, although the quality of the prose would be somewhat better in a real Victorian travel narrative. Celia doggedly sniffs out the scents she wishes to include in her bespoke perfume by travelling to those exotic places where natural scents such as jasmine, nutmeg, and myrrh are produced. Along the way, she connects scents to memories to explain her selections. She also includes a number of boxed essays on particular scents or related topics. The work is entertaining, informative, and rather effective as a bedtime book.
April 12, 2012
I very much enjoyed this book about the author's journey in search of the sources of a 'bespoke perfume' she has created. The fantasy element (wouldn't it be wonderful to have a perfume crafted just for you!) was lovely and her search through place and memory was delightful. She travels to Turkey for the Rose harvest, Italy for Orris Roots, India for jasmine and all through the middle east for saffron, myrrh, frankincense and ambergris. Lush, romantic, indulgent the story was fascinating... my only qualm was that reading some reviews it appears that many of Lyttleton's facts were... wrong. I didn't pick up on any (I'm not a perfumier) but... it is unsettling to read non-fiction and know it is untrustworthy.
July 29, 2012
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I loved hearing about her travels to far flung places in search of a signature custom perfume. I loved reading about the Damask Roses,Dragons Blood globules and many other mysterious things.I had to google the damask roses of Turkey and the Dragonsblood trees in Socotra. Reading about ambergris and civet and their disgusting origins yet their aphrodisiac effects, and the origins of many other scents. Though the authors desire to travel for 2 years in search of this custom perfume was a little decadent, it made for a very fascinating and interesting story. I found myself on the computer several times looking up pictures and places she visited, enjoying a vicarious journey, and being the student.
March 16, 2011
One woman's journey to find her bespoken fragrance and aah what a journey it was. She is on the search for rare and local ingredients to produce her signature scent/perfume. Her travels brought her to Europe, for example to Grasse, France and then she took a more exotic turn through Morocco and Yemen. Her stories are fun and full of adventure. She also discusses a brief history of each ingredient, flower, spice, it's filled with facts and knowledge. While I was watching Jeopardy, I was able to answer a question based on the simple fact that I read the book and remembered one of the additives in her book. Fun read.
April 16, 2011
This wasn't a story so much as her erroneous "facts" gathered on vacation. I felt her to be a bit conceited, and self-righteous (I'm thinking in particular about how she went on and on about how she discovered her choices were all "high" flowers, and how she was too kind to the environment use synthetic musk. *eye roll*)
It's hard to have any interest in a bespoke perfume for a stranger, particularly when they don't bother to really give you a good picture of who they are for you to try to understand and connect with.
She just totally missed the mark in my mind, and this was extremely difficult to finish.
It's hard to have any interest in a bespoke perfume for a stranger, particularly when they don't bother to really give you a good picture of who they are for you to try to understand and connect with.
She just totally missed the mark in my mind, and this was extremely difficult to finish.
September 26, 2021
Sight and sound are physical senses, but smell and taste are chemical: when you breathe in the smell of a pine forest, or your mother’s skin, you are taking molecules right inside your body, and that makes smell a very intimate sense.
From birth to death our eyesight and other senses deteriorate, but our sense of smell never weakens because the cells regenerate every twentyfour days.
Ambergris is still—occasionally—extracted naturally because, unlike civet and musk, its extraction does not harm the sperm whales that produce it. When the whale swallows, say, a squid, secretions from its stomach form a protective coating around the indigestible parts of the prey and, every so often, when the whale vomits up an undigested squid, the squid floats like a gelatinous honeycomb on the surface of the sea and is eventually washed ashore and collected. Ambergris is made from the secretion from the whale’s stomach which has enveloped the undigested matter. It is aged in alcohol over several years before it can be used; like a vintage wine, it mellows with age, whereas musk can be used straightaway.
The musk trade was ruled illegal because, even though the process of removing musk pods from male deer doesn’t harm the animal, the deer were often trapped in the process and so died before the trappers arrived to remove their musk pods. I have smelled real musk in the Middle East; compared with synthetic musk, the real thing is far more potent, but, apart from the fact that I didn’t want anything that was the result of cruelty to an animal in my bespoke scent, I thought the synthetic musk quite strong enough!
in her drawing room in South Kensington
A really good scent is a palimpsest and the layers are made up of what, in the trade, they call “notes.” The top notes, of citrus, “float”; the middle notes are floral and longer lasting; the base notes are usually woody and the most enduring.
it takes 100 kilograms of petals to yield just 1 liter of essential oil.
narcotic properties (if taken in large quantities nutmeg makes people hallucinate)
MY BESPOKE SCENT
The Pyramid Formula
THE TOP NOTES
Citron petitgrain: aromatic, zingy and slightly bitter
Zambac jasmine: erotic, exotic, warm, fruity and rich
MIDDLE (HEART) NOTES
Mimosa: earthy, powdery and spicily floral Damask rose: musky and floral Iris: warm and richly rooty—as the air smells after a summer shower—with aromatic fennel-like overtones Nutmeg: spicy, musky and masculine BASE NOTES Vetivert aromatic: earthy, damp and cooling Frankincense: pine and lemon notes at first, then heady, spicy and sweet Myrrh: redolent of the forest floor; honeyed with hints of lemon and rosemary Ambergris: breezy, euphoric, redolent of warm suntanned skin
good perfumes open the doors to our memories
I asked Frédéric about pheromones, the new buzzword in the science of smell. He said that the idea that you can make a fragrance that turns everyone on was hardly serious.
And I knew that scientists had long known about the affinity between scent and the sex drive. They know that certain odors stimulate the sex drive and that scent is a refined and subtle instrument of seduction. But you can’t smell pheromones. In 1956 the pheromone was first identified as a sexual attractant in the silkworm moth; Lyall Watson devoted several chapters to the subject in his book Jacobson’s Organ (2000); and in her book A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Diane Ackerman wrote that pheromones were “the packhorses of desire.”
THE WORLD’S MOST SPECIALIZED SCENT SCHOOLS ARE IN GRASSE. UNTIL recently trainee perfumers took up to ten years to learn their trade, but now the length of training has been reduced to three years and many of the schools have closed down. One of the most famous schools is still in Grasse, however. It is the GivaudanRoure school. if they smell patchouli they think of damp leaves by a lake, or they might associate pine essence with holidays by the sea. Trainees keep personal association notebooks.
there are certain accords or harmonies that coexist between them. For example, an accord might consist of lemons, which contrast with and enhance sandalwood; sandalwood, which contrasts with clove; and clove, which contrasts with orange
eight kilograms of rose petals can be picked in one hour by two rose pickers.
THE ANCIENT EXTRACTION PROCESS KNOWN AS ENFLEURAGE WAS first used by the Egyptians. The method used grease, or fat, instead of water, to immerse the flower heads, which were then laid out on glass frames, a bit like flower pressing.
However, in France jasmine is still extracted by enfleurage, and Robertet uses the method for the tuberose.
Leonardo da Vinci invented the process of maceration—softening the ingredient by steeping it in a liquid—and then used solvents to extract essences.
And it is as well to remember that extraction units can be dangerous places. The solvents are so flammable and so volatile that a telephone or a tape recorder can cause an explosion. A journalist once caused a blast with his camera flash in the Laboratoire Monique Rémy. Distillation units, on the other hand, use water and so are far less hazardous.
From birth to death our eyesight and other senses deteriorate, but our sense of smell never weakens because the cells regenerate every twentyfour days.
Ambergris is still—occasionally—extracted naturally because, unlike civet and musk, its extraction does not harm the sperm whales that produce it. When the whale swallows, say, a squid, secretions from its stomach form a protective coating around the indigestible parts of the prey and, every so often, when the whale vomits up an undigested squid, the squid floats like a gelatinous honeycomb on the surface of the sea and is eventually washed ashore and collected. Ambergris is made from the secretion from the whale’s stomach which has enveloped the undigested matter. It is aged in alcohol over several years before it can be used; like a vintage wine, it mellows with age, whereas musk can be used straightaway.
The musk trade was ruled illegal because, even though the process of removing musk pods from male deer doesn’t harm the animal, the deer were often trapped in the process and so died before the trappers arrived to remove their musk pods. I have smelled real musk in the Middle East; compared with synthetic musk, the real thing is far more potent, but, apart from the fact that I didn’t want anything that was the result of cruelty to an animal in my bespoke scent, I thought the synthetic musk quite strong enough!
in her drawing room in South Kensington
A really good scent is a palimpsest and the layers are made up of what, in the trade, they call “notes.” The top notes, of citrus, “float”; the middle notes are floral and longer lasting; the base notes are usually woody and the most enduring.
it takes 100 kilograms of petals to yield just 1 liter of essential oil.
narcotic properties (if taken in large quantities nutmeg makes people hallucinate)
MY BESPOKE SCENT
The Pyramid Formula
THE TOP NOTES
Citron petitgrain: aromatic, zingy and slightly bitter
Zambac jasmine: erotic, exotic, warm, fruity and rich
MIDDLE (HEART) NOTES
Mimosa: earthy, powdery and spicily floral Damask rose: musky and floral Iris: warm and richly rooty—as the air smells after a summer shower—with aromatic fennel-like overtones Nutmeg: spicy, musky and masculine BASE NOTES Vetivert aromatic: earthy, damp and cooling Frankincense: pine and lemon notes at first, then heady, spicy and sweet Myrrh: redolent of the forest floor; honeyed with hints of lemon and rosemary Ambergris: breezy, euphoric, redolent of warm suntanned skin
good perfumes open the doors to our memories
I asked Frédéric about pheromones, the new buzzword in the science of smell. He said that the idea that you can make a fragrance that turns everyone on was hardly serious.
And I knew that scientists had long known about the affinity between scent and the sex drive. They know that certain odors stimulate the sex drive and that scent is a refined and subtle instrument of seduction. But you can’t smell pheromones. In 1956 the pheromone was first identified as a sexual attractant in the silkworm moth; Lyall Watson devoted several chapters to the subject in his book Jacobson’s Organ (2000); and in her book A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Diane Ackerman wrote that pheromones were “the packhorses of desire.”
THE WORLD’S MOST SPECIALIZED SCENT SCHOOLS ARE IN GRASSE. UNTIL recently trainee perfumers took up to ten years to learn their trade, but now the length of training has been reduced to three years and many of the schools have closed down. One of the most famous schools is still in Grasse, however. It is the GivaudanRoure school. if they smell patchouli they think of damp leaves by a lake, or they might associate pine essence with holidays by the sea. Trainees keep personal association notebooks.
there are certain accords or harmonies that coexist between them. For example, an accord might consist of lemons, which contrast with and enhance sandalwood; sandalwood, which contrasts with clove; and clove, which contrasts with orange
eight kilograms of rose petals can be picked in one hour by two rose pickers.
THE ANCIENT EXTRACTION PROCESS KNOWN AS ENFLEURAGE WAS first used by the Egyptians. The method used grease, or fat, instead of water, to immerse the flower heads, which were then laid out on glass frames, a bit like flower pressing.
However, in France jasmine is still extracted by enfleurage, and Robertet uses the method for the tuberose.
Leonardo da Vinci invented the process of maceration—softening the ingredient by steeping it in a liquid—and then used solvents to extract essences.
And it is as well to remember that extraction units can be dangerous places. The solvents are so flammable and so volatile that a telephone or a tape recorder can cause an explosion. A journalist once caused a blast with his camera flash in the Laboratoire Monique Rémy. Distillation units, on the other hand, use water and so are far less hazardous.
May 30, 2009
An excellent travelogue and a thoroughly researched book about the magic of perfumes!
January 22, 2013
Loved it. An awesome journey to create her bespoke scent!
November 4, 2013
My favorite perfume book of many. Written for the beginner.
May 18, 2019
Celia has decided to get her own bespoke scent created for her (seemingly for the purpose of writing a book about it, rather than actually wanting this just for herself?). She visits someone that helps her pick out the top, middle, and base notes of her scent, including a colour consultation as colour and scent play roles together. After this, Celia sets out to find the origins of each of ingredient.
While staring this book, I wonder how Celia can keep me interested in her travels to learn about 11 different ingredients. It was interesting to learn about how these items are turned in to scents, and in some instances the massive volume of ingredient that is required to make a small volume of oil for scent. It makes you wonder how the finances work. While perfumes are not cheap, they aren't super expensive either compared to how much volume some of the ingredients require.
It's also hard to read a book on scent when you can't smell everything she's talking about. I don't recognize some of those ingredients and it would have been great to know what they smell like and what her final scent smells like. Celia tried describing what those smells were like, but many of them were unique to her like the smell of her childhood in some specific place. How can I associate with that? In general, that was my problem with this book. I couldn't connect with anything because I didn't know what the smells were and couldn't connect with her or her descriptions.
While staring this book, I wonder how Celia can keep me interested in her travels to learn about 11 different ingredients. It was interesting to learn about how these items are turned in to scents, and in some instances the massive volume of ingredient that is required to make a small volume of oil for scent. It makes you wonder how the finances work. While perfumes are not cheap, they aren't super expensive either compared to how much volume some of the ingredients require.
It's also hard to read a book on scent when you can't smell everything she's talking about. I don't recognize some of those ingredients and it would have been great to know what they smell like and what her final scent smells like. Celia tried describing what those smells were like, but many of them were unique to her like the smell of her childhood in some specific place. How can I associate with that? In general, that was my problem with this book. I couldn't connect with anything because I didn't know what the smells were and couldn't connect with her or her descriptions.
February 11, 2019
I read this book that was a library discard. Too bad! It was pretty good. A lot of information about natural perfumes and herbal essence. I do want to try frankincense and myrrh which I have seen being sold at a store in my town, the same place I get my teas at. Can you imagine going on a trip to many countries to get the ingredients to make your very own personal scent? I can never afford that but the one scent she went searching for was ambergris a by product of the sperm whale..it's basically a solidified piece of vomit which is caused by the one thing a sperm whale can't digest, the beak of a squid. This is usually barfed out and it floats on the sea and people who recognize it collect it on the shores or else fishermen do when they see it floating. It sounds really gross but not as bad as the Civet secretions they would collect. A little gross in some areas but on the whole a fascinating book. It's a lot to take in, though wonderfully organized there are a lot of side bars that go into detail about a certain aspect of the scent she is searching for. It's a wonderful travel memoir with a unique focus on finding and creating your own perfume.
October 22, 2021
Loved the country-by-country exploration of raw materials. Would have liked even more about the irigins and historic uses of them. If you love scent - and I mean real scent, not the cheap synthetic crap flooding store counters that is modern American "perfumery" - you'll savor each chapter of this.
Currently Reading
September 25, 2022I got the book at the library, all I can say is wow, it is so informative. I love distinct scents. For example, last year I found a cologne that had a spicy cola scent. The history of various scents and other trivia was delightful. I never knew violets were once consumed to aid digestion.
August 15, 2022
Love, love, loved it. I learned so much!
May 8, 2024
As someone who loves perfume, this book is both fascinating and beautiful, but it is staggeringly unrelatable. It is very difficult not to hate this woman.
January 2, 2011
First, let me say it is kind of incongruous that a smoker would be interested in perfumes, unless Celia wants to mask the tobacco smell on her. I am also surprised that smoking has not dulled her sense of smell. She waxed lyrical about the smells and different layers of perfume and I kept thinking, but you smoke, doesn’t that distort your sense of smell? Oh well, now for comments on her book.
I had hoped that while on the scent trail, this book would evoke more presence, give more description of the places visited. But it is more a book of information than a travel book. Read for the history and information of perfume and its ingredients it is fine, but as a travel book it is lacking. It gives enough to raise interest in the place visited, but then left me feeling unsatisfied. Celia pushed the associations of smells of perfume into the fantastic and the weird. “It smelt like my own suntanned skin…” R-ight!! I have read of a condition, synesthesia, where some people see a number and this brings images of certain colours into mind for them. Somehow the brain links certain numbers for these people with colours. There are also other forms. I wondered if Celia’s brain worked in a similar way, because she certainly had some fantastic associations with different smells, the suntanned skin being just one of them.
My knowledge was corrected with Bergamot. I learnt that Earl Grey tea is flavoured with Bergamot that comes from a citrus. I had always believed that the bergamot herb was used. In fact I have used this herb in tea and it does give the Earl Grey flavour.
I loved the book's pretty cover.
I had hoped that while on the scent trail, this book would evoke more presence, give more description of the places visited. But it is more a book of information than a travel book. Read for the history and information of perfume and its ingredients it is fine, but as a travel book it is lacking. It gives enough to raise interest in the place visited, but then left me feeling unsatisfied. Celia pushed the associations of smells of perfume into the fantastic and the weird. “It smelt like my own suntanned skin…” R-ight!! I have read of a condition, synesthesia, where some people see a number and this brings images of certain colours into mind for them. Somehow the brain links certain numbers for these people with colours. There are also other forms. I wondered if Celia’s brain worked in a similar way, because she certainly had some fantastic associations with different smells, the suntanned skin being just one of them.
My knowledge was corrected with Bergamot. I learnt that Earl Grey tea is flavoured with Bergamot that comes from a citrus. I had always believed that the bergamot herb was used. In fact I have used this herb in tea and it does give the Earl Grey flavour.
I loved the book's pretty cover.
April 13, 2010
"The Scent Trail" is a travelogue focused around finding the ingredients for the author's custom-created perfume. The first chapter talked about the process she went through to decide which scents to have the perfumer put into her perfume. She then traveled to France, Morocco, Turkey, Italy, Sri Lanka, India, Yemen, and Socotra to personally buy the ingredients for her perfume.
Along the way, she gave snippets of interesting history and information about the perfume trade. We also learn about the countries (especially as regards the perfume trade) and the history of the perfume ingredients: mimosa, neroli, petitgrain, damask rose, iris, nutmeg, jasmine, vetivert, frankincense, myrrh, and ambergris. She also summarized the conversations she had with several perfumers and described tours of several buildings where the ingredients are distilled or made into concentrate or absolutes for the perfume trade. While there was a lot of interesting information, she rarely went into any depth on a topic.
Her love of scents and travel came through strongly and made me want to smell the scents she described. However, I would have found some pictures helpful as I had a hard time picturing some of the places and things she described.
People who are interested in both foreign countries and perfume will probably find this memoir/travelogue interesting.
Along the way, she gave snippets of interesting history and information about the perfume trade. We also learn about the countries (especially as regards the perfume trade) and the history of the perfume ingredients: mimosa, neroli, petitgrain, damask rose, iris, nutmeg, jasmine, vetivert, frankincense, myrrh, and ambergris. She also summarized the conversations she had with several perfumers and described tours of several buildings where the ingredients are distilled or made into concentrate or absolutes for the perfume trade. While there was a lot of interesting information, she rarely went into any depth on a topic.
Her love of scents and travel came through strongly and made me want to smell the scents she described. However, I would have found some pictures helpful as I had a hard time picturing some of the places and things she described.
People who are interested in both foreign countries and perfume will probably find this memoir/travelogue interesting.
July 18, 2012
I learned about this book when the author was interviewed by Rick Steves and was intrigued by the concept -- travelogue fueled by a desire to visit the places where certain perfume ingredients came from: Tuscany, Grasse, India, an island off the coast of Yemen, etc. The premise of the book is that the author is having a custom perfume made and that she will travel across the globe to obtain the best ingredients from their sources. Certainly travel books have been written on far flimsier concepts, but I found the author to be exhaustingly unaware of how pretentious she sounded. The actual explanations of the history of various ingredients, the spice trade, the history of scents and perfumes -- were all very interesting and informative, but I felt like I had to skip over the somewhat ridiculous narrative.
And as I said before, I appreciate that there are only so many words that you can use to describe smells, but I didn't think I could take the word "unctuous" any more.
And as I said before, I appreciate that there are only so many words that you can use to describe smells, but I didn't think I could take the word "unctuous" any more.
March 24, 2015
The cover made me pick it up. A wonderful book - a travel memoir. I want everyone to read it, it is about smells and our sense of smell."According to Proust each hour of our lives is stored in a smell and a taste and when those smells and tastes are re-experienced memories are triggered." I would think book clubs would have such fun with this book, not because the discussion would be around the book but it would be about what everyone remembers when they smell a particular fragrance.
It is an easy read because the author has a way of describing the smells on her route to you that make you feel as if you where there. There are wonderful little facts that come out along the way that make you go "wow, is that really true?" And then you Google and you go back to the book more intrigued.
And at the end of the book you want to sit down and make a list of all your own special smells and you want to see an expert about making you your own special perfume.
It is an easy read because the author has a way of describing the smells on her route to you that make you feel as if you where there. There are wonderful little facts that come out along the way that make you go "wow, is that really true?" And then you Google and you go back to the book more intrigued.
And at the end of the book you want to sit down and make a list of all your own special smells and you want to see an expert about making you your own special perfume.
March 20, 2016
I had mixed feelings about this book. I thought the premise was an interesting one in terms of traveling to different countries to learn about the scents of the region and I enjoyed reading about the history, traditions, and current growing methods for producing the scents- particularly as several of the countries she visited were not the typical places you read about in travel books (Yemen, Sri Lanka, Syria). However, since this was mixed up in a personal quest for her own signature scent, which at times seemed very egotistical, and her writing style was kind of dry and long winded in places, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. An interesting read but perhaps skimming over her personal reminiscing might be best.
July 13, 2013
The factual, informative bits of this book are really interesting. Unfortunately the writing really lets it down though - Lyttelton has an extremely inflated view of herself, and also seems absolutely unaware of both this and her position of extreme privilege! It also has a tone that I've noticed in a few other books by journalists (mostly female) - a kind of lazy writing style, one that is fine for an article, but comes across as a bit stale in a whole book. They also always seem to have a tendency to describe quite minutely how everyone looks (for some reason 'bird-like' women are always abounding).
However, if you can put up with the author, it's still a book mostly worth reading.
However, if you can put up with the author, it's still a book mostly worth reading.
January 17, 2014
I had a love hate relationship with this book. I found the history of perfumes, her conversations with perfumers around the world, and her inserts of related information to be quite interesting. I found her reasons for travelling with her son and or husband to be a bit fake, like she only needed to mention them for the sake of mentioning them. I either would have liked her to leave her son out of it or to explain his reactions a bit more in depth. How did he like travelling? What was it like to leave him at home for long periods of time when he was so young? Was it worth the time away to create your own perfume?
February 14, 2009
I thought Scent Trail was going to be more of an 'eat, pray , love' type of book -self discovery through a physical and metaphysical journey. Instead, it is a well written journalistic account of a woman who searches the origins of each ingredient in her bespoke scent throughout thr globe. Reccomended for perfumistos only, but a valuable reference on the origins of the most rare natural ingredients.
September 13, 2013
The basic premise of this book is that the author decides to have a bespoke perfume made for her. This may not seem like the most inspiring of premises, however it leads to the author exploring a variety of different places and cultures as she investigates the ingredients she has chosen for the perfume: where they come from, the people who harvest them, legends surrounding them, their history etc. She looks at ingredients like neroli, ambergris, jasmine, myrrh and frankincense.
January 14, 2011
I LOVE FRAGRANCE. A scent that appeals to me will make my day. So, when I picked up this book at the library, I couldn't wait to start reading it! The descriptive blurb is so appealing. I thought, Wow! I'm going to love this! But................. I didn't! The narrative jumps all over the place. Maybe it's just me, but this scent trail is chaotic.
April 4, 2011
For it was, this book was nicely done (although it had a few really annoying editing errors). It wasn't trying to be _Eat, Pray, Love_. The author travelled the world to collect the ingredients for her bespoke scent, and then pitched her reminiscences of her trips as a book. This was a clever idea, and make for an entertaining read if you are interested in perfume.
March 1, 2014
The book (and subject) was interesting. Anyone interested in scent...and persons fond of travel will find something to enjoy in the book.
The author does come off fairly pretentious at times, which can be grating on the nerves. If one can get past that occasional "voice" reading the book can be an interesting experience.
The author does come off fairly pretentious at times, which can be grating on the nerves. If one can get past that occasional "voice" reading the book can be an interesting experience.
February 22, 2009
About a woman having a signture perfume created just for her, and her travels to all the places the ingredients for her perfume come from around the globe, Marrakech, Turkey, Italy and Azrou......scent connected to memories and emotions....
December 19, 2012
I wish there was a category that said 'tried to read but couldn't finish the book'. That's where I'd put this one. Lots and lots and lots of detail about how perfume is made. I just couldn't get through it.
March 13, 2013
I wish I had the backing to be able to travel for two years in search of the perfect scent for myself! What a privileged woman. Incredible journey. I could almost smell all the different ingredient absolutes she described. A delicious read.
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