Essence and Alchemy: A Book of Perfume Kindle Edition

There is no doubting Mandy Aftel's nose. Its her writing that's open to question. Sorry, that's way too harsh. When Mandy waxes lyrical about perfume in general she goes all airy-fairy and loses me. But I'm glad I slogged through to the parts where she's really talking about what she really does. She gives a lot of hard-won information about the workings of each fragrance note, and how each one goes with the others. This knowledge must have taken her years to acquire and its very generous of her to share it. It'll save amateur perfumers a lot of costly errors. Even some of the jumbo-jumbo stuff about alchemy is kind of interesting.I do need to complain about the quality of the printing. The ink is grayer than black and the pages seem like they were laser printed rather than offset printed. Please upgrade this in the next printing.

In order to properly review colognes and perfumes, I had to literally educate myself regarding essential oils, Top tones, Mid tones, and Bass tones. I have read and studied several books about the history of perfumery and ingredients one needs just to START! Start up cost would be somewhere close to $300 for various essential oils, herbal fragrances, citrus fragrances, just to name a few. The book is easy to read, difficult to grasp at times. The author seems to go from one subject to another in the blink of an eye. So, if you can change your mindset easily, it is a delightful book. Readers will definitely learn from this book. You will receive a delightful history of perfumeryand the author includes beautiful illustrations.Ms. Aftel is well-known in the business of creating custom scents, and very well-versed in her craft. I would not say she is a great author, but then, neither am I. If you are wanting to start creating your own fragrances, this is a very good book for the beginner. I would recommend.

Some reviewers seem to have wanted a recipe book. This book is so much more. You'll get basic how to information, but more importantly you'll get context to understand why and how scents work. The result will be to enable you to make creative decisions on your own. I loved this book and I'm going to read it again, and return frequently to passages i highlighted the first time through.

Bought this based off of a few reviews here and on another forum and they couldn't be farther from the truth. If you are buying this to get concrete ideas on how to create essential oil perfume, you're wasting your time. If you are just a beginner and know NOTHING about perfume making, this is a marginally decent read. But overall a huge waste of my time and will provide you with stupid simple beginner recipes for a handful of generic scents/smells. Apparently the only way you can learn about actual/true perfume making is to take classes or attend a perfume school, and of course those cost an arm and a leg. So my dream of becoming a hobby perfume maker is no more. So much wasted time in this book about history of perfume making and notes used, etc. So boring and a real snoozer.

It is worth purchasing and reading for the beginning natural, artistry perfumer or kitchen witch but probably not going to be an easy read for empirically minded chemistry types.This is a book by Mandy Aftel, the artist and professional perfumer. It is about her personal "alchemy" as it relates to the art of perfumery as she sees it. This is not an alchemy or science based perfumery text. It's one artisans personal and practical philosophy on the artistry of perfume making with some perfume history and practical information to be gleaned by the eager or tolerant and patient reader.Despite the authors extensive use of hyperbole and lack of clear organization of some of the material there is a lot to be gleaned from this book for beginners who aren't ready to dive head first into expensive or hard to find archaic perfumery texts or chemistry tomes. There are some tables of useful information that clearly outline which oil combinations are historically harmonious or that she finds harmonious and offers some simple formulas, harmonies and accords for the beginning perfumer to start with - although you will need at least $200-$300 worth of materials which you might already mostly have.This book is about perfumery and how to blend perfumes from traditional "natural" materials (essential oils, absolutes, concretes, natural fixatives and animal products predominantly) for beginning perfumers. It seems like most of the material in this book is aggregated from other historical sources but then again I don't think one can write about how to make perfumes without going into the historical blending of perfumery; it seems like every book I've read so far on the subject does the same thing including the more science based books.If you are wanting to learn more about the science of perfumery from a modern or more empirical perspective filled with technical information then this is definitely NOT the right book for you. If you are wanting an "inspirational", emotive filled how-to from the perspective of a professional artisan in order to get your feet wet then you will be able to glean useful information, it all depends on your leanings and/or tenacity - I didn't find it that inspiring personally. As an artist I got a lot out of it on a materials based and intuitive process kind of way. As an empirical leaning, science based beginning perfumer I was frustrated by the meanderings, hyperbole & lack of organization. The author comes from her personal experience and philosophy as a professional perfumer and relates her experience in a way that makes it sound like her religion. She writes some philosophically based opinions into the text as though they are fact so be aware of guru-ism. It is clear that the writer feels a strong connection with perfumery's historical alchemical, guild based and apothecary roots and her insight comes from her practical knowledge and experience as both a professional and artist. Some might find her writing style inspirational due to her frequent use of metaphor and grandiosity. Despite what I found to be mostly fluff I think the author does a pretty good job of bringing the material down to a human level and makes perfumery approachable enough to start blending for most people.In case you can't tell I'm not fond of her writing style and am of the opinion that her writing style (or lack thereof) tends to cloud some of the value this book offers in the way of practical information. I'm sure she is a wonderful perfumer but a writer she is not. The alchemical aspect is not readily apparent besides the authors use of some "alchemical" terminology, exaggerations and hyping up the mysterious aspects of historical processes of perfumery, life and biology for effect. My wife reads archaic alchemy texts and couldn't get half way through this book. It seems that the alchemical reference is more for effect and marketing chaff in the same way jazz bands like to over use it. I'm sure she is well meaning and I'm sure she knows quite a bit about the history and contemplative process of alchemy, especially as it applies to her craft but it doesn't really come across in a way that is specifically related to alchemy in general for you practical or laboratory alchemy types. Instead it comes across as another marketing piece for the Aftel franchise way of doing things.

Fantastic Book! I bought this as an intro to help me as an apprentice in natural perfumery! It talks about the history of perfume in depth and also describes how to create natural perfumes using base, middle and top notes of natural essences! I was so inspired, I visited the Aftel website and went on to complete Mandy's Intro to perfume- distance learning class. Then I attended her studio class in Berkley that was absolutely amazing! Best book ever on Natural Perfumery!

Aftel’s book is a delight, to all who might be interested in perfumery, the mysteries of olfaction, and, particularly how psyche and aroma connect. Her book is far from a leaf through, light on substance pretty picture coffee table book. Instead, dense and engagingly written text, lightened and deepened by beautiful line drawings – which are actually so much more satisfying (for this reader) than the usual photographer and bottles of perfume artfully arranged number.There is something enormously pleasing about the original slow work involved in making, for example, botanical line drawings, woodcuts and the like, which are then here reproduced.Aftel is a fascinating writer, too. Originally a psychotherapist she brings that listening delight to teasing out the useful story of ‘the other’ the uncovering of hidden meaning, to the way she sees her present vocation – perfumer. And, her interest is in natural perfumes, rather than those of novel synthesised chemistry created in a lab.Those of us who are pulled, for many reasons, by perfume using plants, know that this is slow, reflective perfumery. At its best we are drawn into a realisation of the complexity of growing the plants, of extractions to yield their aromatics, of a weight of history behind themAnd Aftel brings all this along with her in her book, connecting ‘’Per fumem” to its original, sacred roots, and the making of perfume from extracting essential oils from plants to an original pairing with alchemy.Along the way as well as philosophical, psychological and historical reflections, there is much practical information for the budding kitchen perfumer, including methods, aromatic suggestions, information about what will harmoniously marry with what, and what might connect with interesting, piquant oppositions.This is a book to enjoyably read and re-read – not to mention, embark on given formulations and sail out on one’s own to assay others.The book concludes with a list of potential suppliers, though as this was originally published in 2001 I note some of the listed suppliers have long disembarked from their perfumed barges and vanished into the wild blue yonder,There is also an extensive bibliography and reference section, to take the eager reader onwards into further aromatic journeys, be these deeper into an exploration of alchemy, or neurobiology and olfaction, or, even weighty tomes exploring the history and design of perfume bottles!This is very much a deep, broad, wide read on the subject, but beckoning the lured reader on to further exploration

A informative book with a lot of facts that can be very interesting. Good basic guidance to creating accords and perfumes that I appreciated.The main problem with the book is the lack of coherence and logical order. At times it is as if the author just wrote down her streams of thought and published it without editing. One paragraph usually didn't continue the same information/story into the next and this is both disappointing and confusing. A properly edited and rewritten version of 'Essence & Alchemy' is needed.

Beautifully written and very informative

A wonderful book. Readable, densely informative and passionate about its subject. I keep dipping back into it for information, and enjoying its companionable style. You understand a little bit more about the world after reading this.

Informative but not too taxing.