The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell

(Paperback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Smell is our forgotten scense. Long neglected by science in favour of more prestigious areas of research, it's also barely understood in general life. At the core of our sense of smell lies an enigma: why do things smell the way they do How is smell written into the molecules This book is the story of the quest to solve the puzzle.


Luca Turin has been described by The Economist as 'a man with a powerful nose and a bizarre obsession with perfume.' Starting with a tour of the great perfumes and their gifted makers, he shows how few people have an idea of what perfume is or how it is made, let alone how smell works and what part it plays in other pleasures like food. But not everyone has ignored this sense. A small band of mavericks has been trying to crack the code of smell for 70 years. Building on their work, Turin thinks he has succeeded. And, like all good mysteries, the solution was all the while hidden in plain sight - in this case, right under our noses.

Reviews

"'The Secret of Scent may be a curiosity, but it is one that will have you smelling the silence of a snowy night.' Observer"

Author Bio

Luca Turin was born in 1953 and educated in France, Italy and the UK. He holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of London and was for 10 years a tenured staff member of the French CNRS. He is the author of many scientific publications as well as a much-praised perfume guide. For seven years he was Lecturer in Biophysics at University College London. He now designs scent molecules for a US startup company, Flexitral, using the scientific process described in this book. He is the subject of an award-winning BBC Horizon documentary and a biography, The Emperor of Scent.