Coming to My Senses: A Story of Perfume, Pleasure, and an Unlikely Bride Paperback – June 25, 2013

I dearly, dearly love this book. It is far and away one of the most moving and beautifully written books I have ever read. The last time I can remember being so enchanted was while reading an Isaac Dinesen story.This is not a resource on perfume. If you are looking for such a book, look elsewhere, or, just google "now smell this new to perfume". It is also not going to give you a lot of perfume reviews and accompanying descriptions. There are perfumes in this book, of course! And they are beautifully and evocatively described, but there are very few names to go with these descriptions.No, this is not a perfume resource book. This is a book that is so much more. If you love perfume, you will love this book. If you love well written books about personal journeys, relationships, transformations, discoveries, musings, and passions, you will love this book. If you love your sense of smell, you will love this book. And, really, this book is so good, chances are you'll just love it. Full stop.I don't know exactly when it happened or why, but at some point in the last ten years my sense of smell became much, much more keen than it ever had been before (or at least since I was a child). Perhaps it was just that I started to connect or re-connect to my sense of smell, to really know it, and that it had always been there, trying to tell me things, and I had only just stopped listening. But, whatever the reason, in a perplexing and surprising fashion, I realized that I could smell things quite plainly and that often, no one else around me was noticing them. Sometimes--if I was lucky--when I pointed out a smell, others would also catch the scent. Usually, however, I found myself utterly alone in this world of sensation. And more than that. Not just alone. But different, odd, a misfit, an annoyance, or even a charlatan. In the lab where I work, we have hundreds of power supplies inside the experimental area. Once, sitting in the control room on shift, I smelled that a power supply was burning up. Burning electronics have a very distinct smell--it's hard to miss--so I called in the person who would be needed to replace a power supply and when the acting director of the lab found out that I had done this only on the basis of something I smelled (!) he was full of ridicule, asking me if I was a "blood hound". He was not impressed. But moments later a vacuum pump power supply tripped off in the ring, and--no surprise to me--was found to have an input power transformer in the process of overheating and melting down. Had it been left plugged in for much longer, it would have caught fire and set off the fire detection system. Similar scenarios have played out at least half a dozen times over the last five or six years. Fortunately, at this point, people listen to me when I say that something is burning up or that I smell something.And this new world didn't just arise now and again in unusual situations like these. It was an everyday reality, a constant companion. I began to associate people and things with smells, and to know, just from stepping into a hallway, who was in the offices beyond. Sometimes it was because the person smokes, other times because they wear perfume or cologne or aftershave or hand cream or scented deodorant. I found I could smell all sorts of things and that it was often beyond frustrating to try to match a smell to a substance or thing or phenomenon, alone, and without anyone to share the process with. Faint smells are very difficult to localize, pretty much by definition! And being able to smell them, and then to talk about them, is far from universally acceptable. (Some of the people close to me would get instantly annoyed whenever I said "what's that smell". So, of course, I mostly stopped talking about it.)When I tell these stories--and I rarely do at this point--people feel that I am bragging: "oh look at me! I have such a keen sense of smell!" But this isn't it at all. I'm not trying to brag. If I tell these stories, it's because I'm trying to share my reality, to tell my story, to feel less alone, to feel more validated and legitimate. A freak I may be but not a charlatan! But I don't think I'm a freak--I think everyone can smell if they just start smelling! And honestly, I just don't understand a certain common kind of reaction--as if smell were something akin to ESP or precognition! But that's how it often is. How do I know there are green peppers in that dish? I can smell them. Nope, not good enough, is often the reaction. No one can smell things that clearly seems to be the doctrine. Blood hounds? Yes. But humans? No.Add onto this unexpected experience of isolation a deep love of this new world of sensation--so many wonderful smells to be experienced!--so much information, so many stories that the world is telling us all through the air, so much emotion, memory, myth, allegory, and connection!--and it seems pretty clear why someone would want to share! Who wouldn't want to share this world? Who wouldn't love this world?Sadly, though, most of us who have connected with our sense of smell are alone until we find each other, until someone else says "I know exactly what you mean" and "you are not alone."This is what this book is for me, among many other things.Perhaps this is why--and I'll say now the dangerous, personal, intimate and yet plain truth about how I really feel about this book--perhaps this is why I find myself on the verge of tears and many other wonderful emotions, every time I read or re-read this book or any excerpt from it. Partly it's the relief of having words--and such good words!--put to emotions and situations I have felt and experienced. Partly it's the experience of not being alone anymore. But mostly it's because of the sheer and beautiful and courageous and vulnerable and personal story being told here. Such writing, such stories, are priceless, precious, and beautiful; things to be treasured, gifted, honored, praised, and shared.I love this book. It is so beautiful, so full of heart, and so incredibly well written, I can only imagine that you too will love it. It is a book that will make you want to personally write to the author and say "OH MY GOD! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH, ALYSSA, FOR WRITING THIS BOOK!" Or that's how it makes me feel.Below are some excerpts from the book. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you buy this book and love it even half as much as I do.*****All these stories are true, and I love telling them. But they are not the plain and delicate thing, the thing I never say (while I am falling, still falling), which is that perfume makes me happy, and that what we are talking about here is pleasure. The scent of dry summer heat shimmering above asphalt, dusty earth, and the blond grass of the foothills that surround the city of my childhood. The scent of sun-warmed wood, smooth under your wet cheek when you sprawl on the dock in the middle of the lake, the surrounding water brackish and tea-sweet. The cool blood scent of wet iron, rain on cobblestones, and a lilac bush one block away. The high, singing scent of lemons fading to the spring green of honeysuckle growing along a creek, and a bit of the muddy banks, too. The scent of night-blooming jasmine, heady and heavy with fruit and a touch of ashtray-- the lovers were smoking before they disappeared into the brush. The soft smoke blanket of incense pierced by a fretwork of spice--mace, nutmeg, clove. The lush rot of overblown roses wrapped in old velvet. The jewel-bright scent of mandarins deepened by bitter chocolate and smoothed by worn leather. The scent of peaches ripe to the point of decay, which is also the scent of soft flesh, the most luscious kiss. The thick wine scent of honey, viscous at the back of the throat, lit from within by the flowers it came from and the golden sunlight of late summer . The sweet grass scent of new hay, the horses somewhere nearby. The scent of salt, of seawater dried on skin. The acrid tang of chlorine-- seawater abstracted, metallicized-- and the scent of clean sweat, and, underneath it, the close musk of warm, sleeping bodies, of tangled sheets, of the still-warm pillow. The waxy animal-fur scent of human hair breathed in at the nape of another's neck. These are a few of my perfumes.*****We're born with curious noses, and we grow up sniffing actively, instinctively. Children love smells--even bad smells (they find them funny)-- and I suspect that many perfume people were the sort of children who loved them to excess and never got over it. We grew up bee-stung and sticky, our fingers constantly reaching out to crush a fragrant leaf or press into the sparkle of oozing tree sap. We ranked our favorite relatives by their respective auras. (My mother's mother smelled of Aqua Net hair spray and Doublemint gum.) We hung our heads out of the car window to breathe in the sweet mint of passing alfalfa fields or the salt promise of the approaching sea until our windblown families pleaded for mercy. Like everyone else, we marked the start of a new school year by the glue-and-paper scent of textbooks and the cedar dust of freshly sharpened pencils . Unlike everyone else, we grew up to be people who nip into bookstores for a quick whiff of the new hardbacks, and who can't leave a hardware store without a detour through the lumber section.But we're furtive about it. We know it makes us strange. The fact is, we all look a little odd when we sniff at things. It's an intimate gesture, bringing one's face close to something and breathing it in. It feels as though it ought to be done in private. Vision rules our world; every time we close our eyes to smell something, we upend that hierarchy. There are a few things we are culturally sanctioned to sniff--flowers, fruit, a pot of stew bubbling on the stove-- but beyond those boundaries we're sticking our noses where they don't belong, and we know it.Smell is our most ancient sense. It is preverbal, precognitive. We react to smells physically and emotionally before we can begin to name and analyze them-- a possible evolutionary advantage when it comes to danger, sex, and food. The reasons why we privelege vision over smell are difficult to tease out from their complex weave of culture and biology, but I sometimes wonder whether we find it disturbing to know that our animal selves are still so present. Compared to a dog's sense of smell, everyone seems fond of pointing out, a human's sense of smell is paltry, one might even say (though no one ever goes this far) vestigial, like the tiny tail at the end of our spines.And yet we use our sense of smell for far more than sex and food. The word perfume comes from per fumar, Latin for "through the smoke." It's a reference to burning incense, a ritual that is about spirit and connection. The fragrant smoke of incense is prayer made tangible-- a link from this world to the next. Scent links us across time, back to places and people we thought we had lost or forgotten. It links us to the changing world: We smell snow before it falls, and the warming mud of spring before a single flower blooms. And it links us to one another: Parents know the scent of their children, lovers the scent of their beloved. The scent of a passing stranger can catch our attention like a fragment of overheard conversation. Some studies suggest that when people are depressed their sense of smell is less acute. People who lose their sense of smell often feel sad and isolated and find it difficult to eat. Some become suicidal. They have fallen out of the invisible web of scents that tell us, over and over again: You are alive.

A thoroughly charming book about an intellectual middle aged woman who finds herself surprised by her growing fascination with perfume, and how her life opens up in a myriad of ways as a result. A pleasant read. Nicely written and just an all 'round "Feel Good" book.

Love this writer's style... She can describe scent and so much more. Her story is a wonderful adventure of her road to discover who she is. She writes in a way that let's you say, yeah, I know how that feels. The only negative is this book made me lose too much sleep because I didnt want to put it down.You know a book is really good when you don't want it to end and look forward to the next book the author writes.

I have always loved and used perfume; as a child pouring on Tabu and Night in Paris (remember those?). Recently became an aromatherapist, and still adoring the combination of scents, the synergies, along with the pure distillations. Clearly Alyssa Harad has a fine natural nose, and is a vibrant writer...taking me on a joyous adventure through her descriptions and well loved community of Aunties. A very fine read. I was compelled to go to one of my favorite websites: Nantucket Natural Oils and restock my small reservoir of natural perfumes. And once again Wear It! To heck with people and their allergies!

Having recently begun the perfume journey myself, I came across this book in the subject search on Amazon and got it because it sounded like a story that would get me through a long plane ride. It is competently written, well written at times when then author gets deeper into discussing fragrances and their components. There is some useful information about perfume blogs and the act of acquiring samples, which someone like me who is new to the world of perfume might not know yet. She knows her stuff there, as far as this newcomer can tell, but unfortunately the author only flashes it occasionally, a bit of victorian ankle. The rest, the story of feminist trying to find the femme in the ist is hard to slog through-it's all the "they like me, they really like me" kind of incidents the author lines up along the parade route to her wedding-they become sickly tedious. Inserting a friend's gender reassignment and hints at politico feminist past into her story comes across as self congratulatory, a vanity thing. I'd love to listen to her go on about smelling, if only she'd lay off blathering about her workouts and wedding plans and twenty doting "Aunts" who all (Gee Whiz!) want to be the one to give her a wedding shower.

I really enjoyed most of this book. I've just been getting into perfumes for a few months and so was very excited to read this. She is relatable for me when it comes to how she fell in love with perfume and acquiring them. In the back is also some websites for help, which I appreciated. Ms. Harad really knows how to write-I so enjoyed her descriptions of the feelings she had when she smelled a perfume, when she went to shop for them, and her other descriptions, throughout this book.

Reading Coming to my Sense was delightful. Just reading Alyssa Harad's descriptions of scents felt luxurious and satisfying, which are not two words that I often use in the same sentence. I relished every word, every new thoughtful indulgence. And then, upon finishing I told all the women in my life about it and suddenly I was smelling my friends' signature perfumes. I looked up an old friend whose perfume I had loved and coveted in college to ask her the name of "that perfume in the blue bottle." I went to bed at night remembering the smell of my mother. This book is so much more than a great read (and it IS that). It is also an invitation to start experiencing the world in a new and sensitive way, by smelling it. A gift that keeps on giving.

As someone who fell down the rabbit-hole into Perfumeland some 5 years or so ago, Alyssa's sotry felt somewhat like my own. It was a joy to follow her own journey which may have differed in a number of ways but so many of the feelings were the same. Even things I haven't experienced - like visiting the perfume department at Bergdorf Goodman - I enjoyed experiencing through her and could imagine doing and feeling exactly the same way.Alyssa is an ideal narrator being warm, engaging, likeable, intelligent and fun. She is also endearingly self-effacing. It was a bonus to get little insights into so many of the characters from our blogosphere such Marina from Perfume Smellin' Things and Robin from NST. She also has such a lyrical, poetic writing style, I savoured every line.I wasn't sure how much I would be able to relate to the wedding details having never been married but it really isn't the core of the story and doesn't go into unnecessary detail at all. Being enraptured by scent is at the centre of events at all times.Anyone with a love of perfume would enjoy indulging themselves in this easy to read, life-affirming and fragrant memoir.

Tout dans ce livre est parfait. Les descriptions, le suspense (eh oui même dans un livre sur le parfum), la délicatesse des mots, l'ambiance, etc. S'asseoir et lire la rencontre de l'auteur avec des commis des grands magasins de New-York dans le rayon des parfums et en avoir presque les larmes aux yeux, il faut le faire! À recommander à tous ceux qui se sentent épicuriens et aiment les émotions fortes.

If I could give this gem more than 5 stars I would. As a reader of several perfume blogs such asThe Perfumed Dandy, and Kafkaesque, I understand the world that opened to the author through the pleasureof perfume blogs and samples. A bridal shower built around perfume...yes! The many places that perfume can take you...yes!Coming to My Senses is delightful in so many ways, and not just for the perfume lovers among us.