There is something both inclusive and exclusive about scent reviewing. In full disclosure, while I have amassed an impressive collection of scents that could fill a kiddy pool, I never read or listen to reviews. That said I realize the importance reviewers might be to the landscape of perfume and consumers. I like that, unlike art reviewing in 2024 where you need to have a PhD in Boringly Obvious Ideas Made Confusing So You Can Impress Readership degrees, in scent reviewing you can have an audience and be anyone from a chaotic white suited middle-aged man appealing to youngsters’ absent prefrontal cortex brains, to a well-read and humorous biophysicist, to review a fragrance.
Luca Turin, biophysicist by training and a beloved reviewer of traditional fragrances, indie fragrances and beyond originally fell on my radar when I naively sent him samples of my nano-niche fragrance collection “On Forgetting” that was tied deeply to my art project and practice and the farthest thing from commercial perfumery. I was over joyed when I received a “positive” review for my Forgetting 5 Years ago, though a clear message in the review was to keep the scent apart from the art project. I appreciated his candor and dutifully confused myself to this day on where my fragrances should land (to art or not to art).
I purchased Luca’s book of reviews “Perfumes: The A-Z Guide” completed with his partner Tania Sanchez (published in 2008 and 2018). I enjoy it like I do some French and Chinese dictionaries I own where I open at random on the rare occasion and enjoy the playful pull of words, sounds, perceptions and trajectories. They published two guides, then fell into a period of giving up in 2023* – a common theme in fragrance given the boring juggernaughts that commandeer the landscape and the uninspired juice coming out on all levels.
*“Dear friends and followers, I will not think or write about perfume in the foreseeable future. I have lost interest in it, get little pleasure from smelling new creations, and am finally ready to close a 40-year chapter of my life. Onwards and upwards!” – May 2023 tweet by Luca Turin
Thankfully, almost a year later he is back to his reviewing. Most recently I was generously gifted by a friend a trial subscription to Luca’s substack, where I see he continues to showcase his deep knowledge of perfume resonance and lore coupled with his sense of humor, and some curious AI compilations he is clearly having fun creating.
I’m sharing here some words I gave gleaned from his writings in the past few months. Some of the words are larger frag-land speak that may have likely been around for years, that I am just learning. In other words they may not be Luca Turin specific, he just uses the words in a way that I find interesting and useful (and some made me laugh). Thanks Luca Turin for your continual honesty, curiosity and joy you bring to the fragrance reviewscape! Please keep going despite the very present frag-tigue you may encounter, and of course the haters that come in the landscape too that get to be so loud given the “algorithm” – keep going!!!!!!! Lastly, if I didn’t define these correctly, anyone please send your corrections my way.
STONKERS – perfumes that are aggressive, loud and non collaborative. In his words:
“Stonkers like Amarige, Poison and Angel do occur occasionally, but things usually quickly revert to the mean. Beyond that, the skill of perfumery is to build surprising accords, literally 1+1=3, and that simply doesn’t work with components that don’t play well with each other.”
FLANKER – when perfume houses / makers large and small create a new fragrance that is really a tweak of their crowd pleaser du jour ostensibly because the buying public won’t tell the difference. in his words:
“Laurent’s handling of citrus, which made Shalimar Eau Légère so much more than a flanker, is in evidence here. I hope she will forgive me for saying so, but this feels like the Lost City of Guerlain.”
FRUITCHOULI – A fragrance accord marrying patchouli and fruit. Apparently overused and a staple in the industry. In my research I uncovered this video from 2016 of Andy Taur’s “Fruitchouli Flash”. In the video reveals a “staying power” or “beast” of said mix. ASIDE: I am forever flummoxed on why consumers insist on days long staying power. In Luca’s words in 2024 on fruitchouli:
“The bad news is that it is a fruitchouli, probably the most overdone thing in mainstream perfumery.”
ACTION-AT-A-DISTANCE FRAGRANCE – a scent that has a specific trajectory – different than a general sillage implying there is a “target”. In his words:
“…action-at-a-distance fragrance, a ballistic device that sends a widening smoke ring of perfume travelling out across the room to its intended target. Both are best judged at ten paces and can feel coarse up close.”
MONCLIN – An ultra special device Luca experienced then researched and apparently uses when doing fragrant reviews. Seems an excellent and much needed tool for shops and other scent consuming arenas so as not to mix the smells of other fragrances.
“I’ve had to use the Monclin glasses when smelling these Heures, trying to decide which matters more: their time evolution on a strip or sum total in the Monclin….Henry de Monclin suggested crystal bowls. That was ditched because the entire Patou staff would have spent the day at the dishwasher…..Then Monclin had a brainwave: don’t spray the perfume, just insert the smelling strip. The result was spectacular even to a perfumer. Duriez explained to me that this was the closest approximation to the sillage, the trail of fragrance a person leaves behind, that he had ever come across. The device was christened a Monclin and the design registered.Trying to appear calm, I asked whether they sold them. The answer was No, Monclins were hand-blown in Murano for the Patou Boutique and none had ever been given away, much less sold.”
Parting line:
Odorbet 
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