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Collection of antique perfume bottles surrounded by old books and chunks of wood, on cover of 'The Museum of Scent, Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance', by Abbeville Press.

The Museum of Scent

Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance

By (author) Mandy Aftel

£32.99

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  • An abundantly illustrated exploration of the natural and cultural history of scent, from Mandy Aftel, bespoke perfumer to the stars 
  • Inspired by the Aftel Archive of Curious Scent, Aftel’s one-room museum in Berkeley, CA, which has been featured in the New York TimesVogueGoopO: The Oprah Magazine, and numerous other media outlets 
  • Explores the raw materials of the natural perfumer — natural botanical essences and precious substances such as oud and frankincense — which make up their own world, rich with lore 
  • Illustrated with antique botanical woodcuts hand-coloured by Aftel herself, and photographs of treasures from her museum: antique essential oil bottles, chunks of ambergris, the handwritten recipes of ancient perfumers
  • Includes a bookmark, subtly scented with a natural essence (in a sealed pouch)
  • Foreword by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estès Reyes (Women Who Run with the Wolves)
Full Description

“Now Aftel has created this beautiful book, illustrated with treasures from her museum’s collection, so that readers at home can immerse themselves in the world of scent.” — 7 x 7
“Aftel, … explores the natural and cultural history of scent in her newest book, The Museum of Scent.”Veranda
“A beautiful book about beautiful things, with a fascinating narrative told by an author who loves her subject.” Kirkus Reviews
“It is so rich in story, information, and images, you don’t just read it, you fall into it and don’t want it to end!” Ivy Ross, co-author of New York Times bestseller Your Brain on Art and VP of Hardware Design at Google

“…just leafing through Aftel’s stunning compilation of olfactory magic is like being gifted a book of secrets.” — Smithsonian
Breathe in the natural and cultural history of scent with this richly illustrated book inspired by the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents.

“This work . . . is a true original ― a rarest of rare legacy volume. This book was created by a beautiful elder who is a polymath: meaning, a highly unique person of multiple modern and old ways of knowing. . . . Mandy Aftel’s dons and talents are now resting in your hands in this magical tome that, I deeply sense and hope, will bless you time and again.” ― From the foreword by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Reyés, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves and the forthcoming La Curandera, Walking in Two Worlds

Mandy Aftel is one of the world’s preeminent natural perfumers, with a clientele ranging from the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen to Ivy Ross, head of hardware design at Google. Eschewing the synthetic molecules that dominate commercial perfumes, Aftel creates her complex and subtle fragrances using only natural essences. For her, each of these essences is a gateway to a lost world of scent, stretching back to the beginnings of human civilization and intertwined with the history of medicine, cuisine, adornment, sexuality, and spirituality. In 2017, Aftel opened a one-room museum ― the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents ― in her backyard in Berkeley, California, to help a modern audience rediscover the enchantment of this lost world. Her museum has attracted thousands of enthusiastic visitors and has been featured in the New York TimesVogueGoopO: The Oprah Magazine, and numerous other media outlets.

Now Aftel has created this beautiful book, illustrated with treasures from her museum’s collection, so that readers at home can immerse themselves in the world of scent. She guides us through the different families of botanical fragrances (including flowers, woods, leaves and grasses, and resins), depicting each plant with a hand-colored antique woodcut and revealing its olfactory notes and lore. Special chapters are devoted to the most rare and precious fragrances ― such as ambergris, formed of a rare secretion of the sperm whale ― and to antique essential oil bottles, handwritten recipe books, and other evocative artifacts. The Museum of Scent, which includes a bookmark subtly scented with a natural essence, invites us on a sensuous, imaginative journey.

About the Author

Mandy Aftel, an internationally known artisan perfumer and authority on natural fragrance, is the owner of Aftelier Perfumes and the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley, California. Her other books include Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume, which helped sparked the natural perfume renaissance and has been translated into eight languages. Aftel's work has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and numerous other major outlets.

Specifications
Publisher
Abbeville Press
ISBN
9780789214713
Published
10th Oct 2023
Binding
Hardback
Territory
World excluding USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Australia
Size
228 mm x 228 mm
Pages
264 Pages
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