Nowadays, perfume reviewers are hardly a novelty. It needed the efforts of people like Turin and Sanchez to legitimise it and place it within the wider context of the work of creators and retailers. Ten years ago, the world of perfume criticism was a very different place. But that’s precisely why this release should be welcomed with scented arms. And of course, in the middle, hundreds of juicy reviews of new and new-ish fragrance releases. At the end: a glossary, indices and some Top Tens. At the beginning: a few excellent essays – including a characteristically thought-provoking appraisal of the current state of the industry – followed by FAQs. The structure of this particular tome is not a departure from what has come before. Those attributes come to the fore in Perfumes The Guide 2018, their most far-reaching release since their rightly lauded and influential guide from 2009. In this case: the quality and honesty of Turin and Sanchez’s fragrance assessments. When you pick up a new book by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez and you discover that a review of a gardenia perfume begins with that familiar refrain of ‘Not gardenia’, you find yourself heaving a mightily stress-banishing sigh of relief, because you realise that, no matter how insane the world around you may seem, at least a few things can be relied upon to remain the same.

Luca turin reviews