Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

Was happy to include this book in “Spring 2022’s Best Style Books,” my latest round-up for Zoomer magazine, highlighting seasonal fashion and design titles of interest (see mini-review at link).

One of the more successful volumes in the wonderful Object Lessons series, and one that I really enjoyed. In this wide-ranging and digressive essay, Megan Volpert explores perfume, fragrances and the sense of smell in all their varied manifestations – the science, the art, the chemistry, business and marketing, industry secrets and individual response. Volpert herself has experimented with making perfume so can speak knowledgeably and intelligently about the subject and successfully weaves in her own feelings and experience into the more objective aspects of her examination, making this an entertaining and engaging read, as well as an informative one.

An interesting book about perfume, and this is one that I felt was quite in-depth for a short book.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

I have never read any of the Object Lessons books, and I was curious to see what PERFUME held for me. Volpert is a good writer, but she jumps around from subject to subject and it is a bit disconcerting. However, she knows her stuff and each chapter is part autobiographical, part science of smell. There are 8 chapters, with titles such as Time, Science, Technology, and Performance. I ended up ignoring the titles, since each chapter contained a multitude of information, not necessarily matching up with the name the chapter was given.
As I constantly mention, each book that spurs me to Google something I’ve read is always satisfying. I looked up vetiver, Giorgio Beverly Hills (which I subsequently bought), Germaine Cellier, Bang by Marc Jacobs, the Monell Center in Philadelphia, and the ship of Theseus. Each search entertained and educated, and I grew more satisfied with each Google.
If you are looking for a book with detailed descriptions on how to create a scent, you may not be entirely happy with this book. But you will learn a bit about creation, top and bottom notes, names of ingredients that go into a scent, and the gestalt of 80’s perfume (I felt so nostalgic as I read and recalled that decade, my favorite).
One of the scientific paragraphs that grabbed my attention was the following, taken from the chapter Time, discussing perfume formulas:
Perhaps a formula has 50 elements and the lab tech not only doles out all 50 with exactitude, but also the variations the master perfumer has requested to contemplate, such as a set of 10 options where one molecule is increased by a quarter of a percent each time and a second set of five options for each of those ten where the ratio of two other molecules is reduced proportionally alongside the quarter-percent increase of the other. And all the results may smell like garbage.

I had no idea of the depth of work required to create a fragrance, much less the tweaking that is sometimes done, such as CK One evolving into the variation of other CK perfumes. CK One was truly the scent of a generation, and the author handles this little tidbit with aplomb.
Overall, I was happy with this little book. As I read it, I absorbed its contents without knowing that I would think of this book again and again. After a few days separation I realized that I enjoyed it more than I originally thought. Once you get into the flow of the author’s quirky prose, the contents flow smoothly by until you reach the end, and are left wanting more. I do recommend PERFUME as a quick, enjoyable read. Volpert manages to bring literature, philosophy, and science together, culminating in a compact masterpiece.

An interesting personal essay. It is written like a stream of consciousness, sometimes not so easy to follow, but rewarding if you focus. There are so many fascinating facts here, about the process of making the perfume, about human senses and sources of famous scents - in many ways it is almost a popular science book. Worth reading.

The book is a part of an interesting series, Object Lessons, about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury Academic, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

There are 2 ways:
- you can be disappointed because this book is not what you believe a perfume book should be about
- you can enjoy the journey it presents.

Having read the description and other reviews and feeling seen at times in the authors experience - and let's face it - gorging every perfume name to search it on fragrantica and taking notes of every piece of precious info, I chose the second way.

This is a small book revolving around pefume.
But a very modern take on it. And a very personal one.

It is not the history of perfume, it doesn't feature only information about ingredients and sourcing, great perfumers, etc.

To understand this book you must know where its author comes from.
So, naturally, you will find a lot of information regarding the many facets of perfume, how it connects with philosophy, how it's a big part of the queer territory and how it reflects in the pop culture of our recent years.

This is the modern take that I loved, so rich in findings of olfactive artists and olfactive happenings, ways in which artists and readers and perfumers (so happy to find Laudamiel's ideas mentioned here) take on perfume and its many, many aspects.

Among snippets about ingredients, provenience and molecules, it touches a lot of the questions a lot of perfume aficionados have asked themselves - from synthetique ingredients, to flankers, bottles, etc.

And then there is the personal touch. I loved how the author took us through her perfume stages, her relationship covered in perfume details. And the gift! If anything, I recommend reading the last chapter just to see how deep the meaning of a perfume can run, how its components and their meaning relate to us and how much "humaness" is in this magical liquid. And how thoughtful the act of offering a perfume can be when done right.

My 5th stars is missing because at times I felt the book was stitched for the sake of connecting ideas. But in all its facets I liked it for the trove of information it gave me, for the queer vision of it that I wouldn't have had access to otherwise, and for the feeling that I, somebody who spends way too much money on samples, dreams too much on her excell shopping list full of perfumes and wastes too much time on fragrantica, have gotten it right about perfume. Because it's an integral part of our life and it's enriching greatly our human experience.

I received a copy of this in order to offer my honest view on it.

A factual book with enough narrative to make it reradable, this is insightful with some fascinating passages about the impact of scent (or lack of it), which is especially pertinent in a post COVID world. Not only looking at the mix of biology and chemistry that creates the sense of smell as received by the brain, the sociological impact of scent on the human experience was especially interesting. A great read for any amateur fragrance connoisseur.

This turned out to be very different from what i expected so I struggled to get into it but it is definitely insightful.

I'd say this is good for perfume enthusiasts only (and by that i mean someone who is interested in all aspects, the science, history, anecdotes)

There's one section about perfume/scent in literature and personally that was the most interesting for me. I did struggle through it but it is a definitely a quality book, just more suited to people with much more interest in the topic or learning about new things in depth.

Not exactly what I expected when I first started to read the book. Even if it describes some interesting facts about personalities from the perfume industry and some actualities of what the odor of perfume can symbolize for different persons, the book is also a memoir of the author. I enjoyed seeing how the entire author’s life was intertwined with the story of fragrances.
It was a nice read, however I was a little disappointed since I went blindly reading the book without a previous research.

I didn't love the writing style of this book - lots of use of the word "one" and overall a bit pretentious. That being said, the content itself was quite interesting. I like this series of books simply because they are short and focused on one subject, many times subjects I personally would not have thought to look too hard at or perhaps wouldn't want to read a long volume about. In that regard, Perfume succeeds quite well. The author delves into scent, how perfume is viewed and portrayed in media, and also reflects on her own relationship with perfume and personal scent. The personal ties Volpert brings to the narrative are beautifully written, especially the ending story about finding the perfect scent for her mother-in-law. All in all, I would recommend this title to anyone who wants to learn more about the subject without spending too much time on it.

Having read a few of the Object Lessons series, I was excited to see this one about Perfume. I have been fascinated by fragrances since I was quite small, and seem to have been on a constant search for "the perfect fragrance" most of my adult life. Reading Megan Volpert's thoughts was fun and educational which I believe is the whole point of the Object Lessons series.

The Object Lessons series of books are “… about the hidden lives of ordinary things.” Megan Volpert’s Perfume is the first one of the series that I’ve read. It’s short, as the Object Lessons books are intended to be – eight chapters comprising just over 130 pages in total for this book.

I have really mixed feelings about this book. On the first page, Wolpert states that perfume “[…] is a gift to me and it structures my own giftedness as a spooky punk.” I assume the sentence means something to her but I don’t understand “structures my own giftedness”. Later in the Introduction, we have “[…] the presence of some answers in no way suggests the absence of many further questions.” To me, that’s pretentious twaddle but if you enjoy that style of writing, here’s a whole book of it, including “One thinks at the level of the molecule but less quantitatively than that”.

There are some twaddle-free sections that are really informative, such as the explanation that violets are too delicate to undergo a scent removal process but that (I summarise) C13H20O (beta-ionone) offers the same smell. That’s in the chapter on Science, along with a bunch of other good stuff about the brain and the sense of smell. There are further chapters entitled:
- Literature
- Space
- Time
- Technology
- Performance
- Self
- Other
I was pleased to see hat the book is not a rant against the use of manufactured ingredients in perfume. To those who claim that natural ingredients are good and manufactured ones are evil, I suggest they try rubbing poison ivy on their skin and consider whether they’d want to ingest deadly nightshade or foxglove? We are all nothing but chemicals. Everything in the world is a combination of chemicals – some combinations occur naturally and some are created by humans. In both cases, some are beneficial and some are bad for us – but it’s the specific chemical formula that determines the outcome, not the fact it’s a chemical.

Would I read this book again? Not the whole book, but I might refer to some of the more factual, less purple, passages.
#Perfume #NetGalley

*Thank you to the author, publisher, and netgalley for a free arc in return for an honest review*

I went into this expecting a quick guide on perfumes, scents and tips for my newfound love of smells- but I won something far more profound and heart-warming that made me laugh or brought me to tears at near every turn.

Spoilers and quotes inbound, because I truly cannot express what this book made me feel without them.

"All women who love perfume learn to embrace the facets of their identity that are for better and for worse characterised as witchy." About 4 years ago now, on the dawn of my journey down a spiritual path I started to take a specialised interest in scents. Gone was the child-like curled nose at peppercorns and spice on a woman, and the teen-riddles insecurities about smelling like anything other than fresh linen. I realised very quickly that being confident in both ones dress, beliefs and aroma were all something unknown to my peers. I was the outsider, who wore black and burnt incense. And somewhere along the way being unapologetic about taking up space with my body and layers of perfume, I realised people tended to categorise it all together, regardless of meaning. Strange. Eccentric. Witch. Something within me reading this stuck me so soundly, and I was surprised about how my interest in scents also aligned with the time I stopped fitting into what others expected from me.

Mere pages later, I was thrust further back in time, 6 years ago at the height of my teen-drama and right into a mindset and person I have long outgrown. "Already by age fifteen, I was a profoundly wounded person- cut down by poverty, by the failures of my parents [...] by a world that wants to take everything from a girl, by social isolation and the consequence-laden oppression of my fledging queerness. The things that steadied me were banned books, punk rock, [...] and the unnerving conviction that someday my giftedness would set me free. My pen mouth was a knife edge, my attitude oozed out from every pore. And on top of this all, I swam in a cloud of Warm Vanilla sugar." // "It centred, warmed and comforted me so that I could focus on staying alive." // "It lingered in a room long after I departed, catching everyone in my wide blast radius. It announced me. It was persistent" // It was my business card, my trademark."" // "the irony seems clear: during all my youthful perseverance, Warm Vanilla Sugar was an anchor to humanity I could not otherwise afford to show." ...

I didn't expect to cry, didn't even realise what was making me feel so emotional and restless about memories of my own struggling adolescence until I looked up to my windowsill and saw the bottle of vanilla body mist. I had been fond of it in my youth, dousing it on morning noon and night. Always a bottle with me, so much so it lingered even after a shower. I had bought a bottle recently, after growing out of it some years ago because I had seen it sitting on a shelf, harkening to some bygone era. Tears sliding down my face and turning my kindle's screen into a swimming pool, I realised that was my Warm Vanilla Sugar.

I felt watched, emotional, and called out. My childhood and adolescence was not a happy one. No memories escaped without some dark cloud or lingering wound that tears anew every time it is uncovered. I didn't expect to have such a profound experience, one I didn't even realise it until I read it, summed up so blatantly.

For everything I was in my youth, unattractive, unhappy, queer, desperate for a life raft in the unending tsunami that was and is my life, I saw myself in Volpert. I don't know if she meant to connect with the reader, how she could have known. But I cried so hard I had to put my kindle down. I cried for the grief I felt everyday in that time, and for the safety blanket that basic vanilla perfume had been. Tears ran for who I was, and who I have become. I didn't realise that perfume has such a place in my heart and life. Didn't know it was still so deeply rooted in the sparse memories I have. I wish I could say thank you, envelop the author into a bear hug I wish I could have given my child-self and ask her for scent recommendations. I have never felt so seen by someone I have never met, and who was never met me before either.

Although I didn't cry again, I cherished the time it took me to finish the book. Closer to the end I stumbled across another gem, which stuck a chord within me so deep I had to stand up, cross my room and spray myself with the knock-off pomegranate noir and baccarat rouge perfumes I bought on my own, new-born quest into scent, "To hunt for a grail fragrance is to go on a spiritual expedition in search of an enigmatic object of healing that may be more mythical than real."

What this line made me feel, I may not ever be able to describe, just like the two sampler replications also evoke within me.

Perhaps I don't know why I am searching so hard for something I cannot perceive- but I know what it will be when I find it. Something that embodies me, and everything I wish to be, everything I fear and may become.

Perfume is more than just an accessory, it holds great meaning of memory and personal accomplishment. I like to think I am something more than that girl who wore vanilla body mist like battle armour, but even if I am not- I'm simply grateful that my collection holds a greater selection now.

This book hit me where I didn't know I hurt, but I'm grateful for it, and the introspection it has given.

This ever-varying series, uniformly delving into looks at routine, everyday subjects through the medium of ever-varying levels of autobiography, pretentiousness and woke academic nonsense, hits the titular subject with certainly some awkward diversions, but can manage to stick on topic at times. At least the autobiography is tempered down, partly through the use of Nietzsche instead – and when it comes, in a look at what the author and her wife's combined marriage anniversary scent would be, it hits the right notes topic-wise. So there is some pretentiousness, but also fine looks at the gender balance of fragrances and their marketing messages. (Even if nothing explains why all those perfume TV ads we're bludgeoned with every December are exceedingly pretentious tripe.)

As interesting as this got, it didn't really feel I had gained an 'in' to the territory of smelly stuffs. No, like the terroir of wine and coffees, and olives, I will quite assuredly die knowing what I like and dislike, and not the why or anything else. It will not be me who does as this book suggests, and spend an hour to know and select the perfume you're trying to gift someone – the minutiae of both liquid and recipient are key, apparently. I will "listen" to a perfume, as the Japanese apparently do, in very small soundbites only. And I don't know if I really when it comes down to it expected this slender volume to change any of that, but it should be on record that such an expectation is a bit ridiculous. This meditation fully fits in the series, mind – a look at what one academic thinks passes as a scan of her topic, in a most un-definitive way.

I’ve read a couple of previous books in the “Object Lessons” series - the bizarre “Spacecraft” and the excellent “Football” - so any new titles always pique my interest. These are short but intelligent books on various subjects and they are almost always extremely interesting and thought-provoking.
In this respect, the latest “Object Lessons” book by Megan Volpert certainly succeeds; this concise study of the history and science of perfume is both deep and accessible.
Volpert manages to take a deep dive into the science of perfume whilst maintaining its sense of mystery, exploring how it works and, most importantly, how it works on humans and animals, and our undying fascination with it.