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

Breathe in the natural and cultural history of scent with this richly illustrated book inspired by the Aftel Archive of Curious ScentsThis work . . . is a true originala 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 Aftels 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 Ests Reys, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves and the forthcoming La Curandera, Walking in Two WorldsMandy Aftel is one of the worlds preeminent natural perfumers, with a clientele ranging from the singersongwriter 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 oneroom museumthe Aftel Archive of Curious Scentsin 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 museums 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 handcolored antique woodcut and revealing its olfactory notes and lore. Special chapters are devoted to the most rare and precious fragrancessuch as ambergris, formed of a rare secretion of the sperm whaleand 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.