How We Wrote the Book, Part 2, by Tania Sanchez

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Here's how it went. We requested fresh samples, because perfumes are often reformulated, sometimes nightmarishly. We considered it abdication of duty to go on memory and old bottles. Most companies were happy to send—some, not. Many promised and never delivered. (Comme des Garçons, why?) Some were so rude I wanted to slap their parents. (DelRae Roth, were you having a bad hair year?) Anyone too French, too Italian, or too impervious to my particular charms was phoned by Luca. At the end, we took field trips to test ones we missed. In total, we reviewed about 1,500 scents, 300 more than promised, and we still get emails scolding, "You forgot ____!" (Send suggestions to mail@perfumestheguide.com.)

We both find luxury and exclusivity tawdry and tiresome, so we were gleefully immune to packaging and press releases, except in a few cases. (Mona di Orio called herself a "great beauty" and a "living Modigliani" on her own website where she boasted of being "Edmund" Roudnitska's student, and who were we to deny her the trouble she asked for?) We believe strongly in testing on paper first. Good scents can improve on skin, horrible scents never, and they don't wash off: not with soap, hot water, bleach, though I haven't tried fire or amputation. We put scents that passed the paper test on skin, smelled them over hours, argued across the table about what to call them, Winston Churchill or Amy Winehouse, neighborly or vicious, diva or wallflower, neurotic or sane, confused or coherent, delicious or disgusting, spills in the laundry aisle. Our position on skin chemistry is controversial, since we judge the perfumer's art, not whether you ate a hell of a lot of garlic last night, though no one should buy fragrances without personal testing. Yet, despite Luca smelling like a classic buttery European and me like an odorless East Asian, we noticed no tremendous differences in scent development, and we used the paper test as a control. Still, I hear some people sweat vinegar and have trouble.

We did not believe that all old perfumes were good and all new perfumes were bad, the delusional nostalgic view. Having smelled hundreds of older perfumes, we know the copycat tendency is as old as time. We came looking for beauty, surprise, new ideas, craft, proportion, finish, personality, integrity. We operated from the principle that perfume should give pleasure and should not bore. Above all, we wrote the sort of book we would like to read. I always thought Last Tango in Paris was an awful flick, but I loved Pauline Kael telling me why she loved it. I never thought the Mekons were really better than the Beatles, but I loved Lester Bangs insisting it was so. Anton Ego in Ratatouille was too contrite: the work of a critic is not easy, most of all when writing about things one loves. For how can one do them justice? They are monuments whether we say so or not. The catch is that if you don't buy these perfumes, they will vanish from the shelves. So we wrote in the hopes you would love them too, and the beauty we favor would persist in the world a while longer. Selfish? Yes. But our aim is true.

Tania Sanchez, Luca Turin, Perfumes, guide, scent, fashion, smell, expert, Penguin Books, books