The Museum of Scent: Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance

Description

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 Times , Vogue , Goop , O: 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. Review: Celebrating the scented legacy of a luminary who belongs on its pages. - Mandy Aftel has created yet another masterpiece with her latest book, The Museum of Scent. What is especially striking about Mandy is her profound way of birthing one work of art after another while cocooning each one in a patina all its own. Mandy is one of the true originals in this world…an original artist, an original thinker, simply an original…and her creations reflect that. From the natural materials she curates from searching the world over to the perfumes she makes with them. From the classes she composes like a legendary scented symphony to the books she pours from her soul, Mandy is one of a kind. The Museum of Scent is a true gift to the world, as it reflects the culmination of Mandy’s life’s work. To open the book is to step into another world and through time. Her soulful words and her impeccable illustrations transport you through time and place to both a lost world and the natural world that is just within reach for us all. Through her pilgrimage of collecting rare, historical books and researching everything there is about perfume and anything that has or is related to natural scent, she shares her knowledge, experience, and passion like an offering. A sacred offering for everyone, reflecting her generosity of spirit…another rarity in today’s world. Mandy is a seasoned, skilled writer and still captures awe and wonder as if she were bringing her scented universe forward for the first time. I feel enormously fortunate to study with Mandy and to continually visit her otherworldly museum in Berkeley, for which this book is an homage, and I can attest to the absolutely magical way she has captured the essence of it on each page. The collection of photos from her actual museum usher you through the door of the beautiful sanctuary she created…one piece of wood and stained-glass pane after another…as though you are standing before each exceptional artifact before you. Her hand-painted illustrations lead your imagination to places only seen before in dreams, and her ability to lift scents off the pages is an unmatched artistry. Indeed, Mandy Aftel is as much a part of the history of the natural fragrance world as each of the botanicals, books, perfumes, and long-lost treasures celebrated inside the book itself. Review: If you’re a perfume lover, you won’t want to miss this! - This beautiful coffee table book is filled with historical photographs, illustrations of fragrance plants, maps of routes used to procure and transport perfume ingredients. It’s full of both curious histories and solid information. I enjoy all of Mandy Aftel’s books. This one is the book version of her museum, the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents. It includes a naturally scented bookmark, so you don’t miss out on something to smell!