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.

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.Īftel is a fascinating writer, too. 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. Her book is far from a leaf through, light on substance pretty picture coffee table book. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.Writing on perfume so fine and evocative I could smell the accords in imagination!Īftel’s book is a delight, to all who might be interested in perfumery, the mysteries of olfaction, and, particularly how psyche and aroma connect.

Along the way, she imparts instruction in the art of perfume compositions, complete with recipes, guiding the reader in a process of transformation of materials that continues to follow the alchemical dictum solve et coagula (dissolve and combine) and is itself aesthetically and spiritually transforming. Mandy Aftel tracks scent through the boudoir and the bath and into the sanctums of worship, offering insights on the relationship of scent to sex, solitude, and the soul. Essence and Alchemy resurrects the social and metaphysical legacy that is entwined with the evolution of perfumery, from the dramas of the spice trade to the quests of the alchemists to whom today's perfumers owe a philosophical as well as a practical debt. Yet, in many ways, perfumery is a lost art, its creative and sensual possibilities eclipsed by the synthetic ingredients of which contemporary perfumes are composed, which have none of the subtlety and complexity of essences derived from natural substances, nor their lush histories.

And as long as there has been perfume, there have been perfumers, or rather the priests, shamans, and apothecaries who were their predecessors. Perfume has helped them to pray, to heal, and to make love. An artisan perfumer reveals a lost art and its mysterious, sensual history.įor centuries, people have taken what seems to be an instinctive pleasure in rubbing scents into their skin.

Essence and alchemy by mandy aftel