Bear with me over the next two entries, kind readers. I’ve had a long strange night in the motel I’m at, and while the details are not relevant to this blog, they alas affect the writing because between the sleep deficit (I got two hours of sleep last night) and the turkey’s triptophane, I’m running on the edge of a hypnogogic state. Given my preference for a rational and focused writing style, I apologize to all readers and to my future more conscious self if this should veer into the territory of melting clocks.
Between the traditionally obligated overindulgence today, I read what I could of Luca Turin’s book the Secret of Scent.While certainly a charming writer (assuming it is not, as rumored, ghost written), there are bits here and there in the information that my medieval mind can parse that are outdated/inaccurate, particularly regarding Aveda’s perfumery: I’m not sure when it happened, but I can tell from looking at any Juut store selection that natural/organic material perfume design has gone by the wayside in favor of profit and convenience (not necessarily bad business decisions, but questionable in face of Aveda’s aggressive green marketing).
Much of the book is sadly over my head. It is a somewhat wandering treatise on Turin’s theories about the mechanics of smell and the chemistry behind it. Try though I might, even without my current sleep deficit, I think I would struggle to feign interest in endless diagrams of molecules. Still, with each passage is something that does strike my interest, whether it’s the way in which Turin defines smells, or his insider comments about the perfume industry.
At a time when I am more awake, there is much more food for thought hidden between these pages, particularly for me, as a self-taught perfumer whose chemistry teacher, in an attempt to put it kindly to my parents, assured them that chem lab was just “not my cup of tea,” and then later wondered at how my lab partner and I always succeeded in our experiments despite our basic inability to follow directions. Turin himself says restricting perfumery to the chemists cuts out the artists that perfumery needs to progress creatively - but we don’t exactly see eye to eye about the use of synthetics in perfumery.
Turin’s impact on perfumery has led directly to perfumery becoming an olfactory art movement. It’s important to read the science behind it, even if it’s only - very laterally - science to Turin himself.
- image by John Rohan on flickr [↩]
2 Responses to “The Secret of Scent by Luca Turin”
It’s true: the book was ghostwritten by the same person who wrote my blog :-)
*laughs* that’s awesome. And by the way, from what I can understand thus far of your book - you really are a quality creative nonfiction writer, which is in itself a rare gift.