Fragrance: The Story of Perfume from Cleopatra to Chanel
I have recently read a ton of books, and so I was faced with a dilemma - which would my kindly readers prefer to hear about - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or Fragrance? I chose the latter because
Harry Potter reviews already abound.
This text,
Fragrance by Edwin T. Morris, is mostly a history of fragrance use and manufacture throughout the ages. It has enough instructive description in it to head one in the right direction should one wish to start creating their own fragrance.
There are descriptions of discovering the various scent extraction techniques from still
distilling to
enfleurage, detailed enough for you to try yourself. This book also attempts to follow the tracks of the different 'spices' (what the scent sources were called) through the world and how they were "discovered".
There is a good deal of information on the history of
Grasse, a current center of the world for perfumers. There are histories of some of the early influential perfumers including
Thomas Yardley (lavendars),
Jean-Marie Farina, and
Pierre Francois Guerlain.
I give this book a hearty thumbs up.
Labels: grasse, perfume, scent
Crystals and Crystal Growing
This book by Alan Holden and Phylis Singer is part of the Order in Nature: Science Study Series (1960 version). I love this book because it brings me back to
high school chemistry, when we did some of the same(relatively) simple and fun experiments with crystals.
What I usually do with this book is pick it up, read a bit, and do an experiment or two. This time I read about the Symmetry of Crystals. The book's explanations are so much fun to read - everything is explained at least two different ways so that at least one of the ways will be clear to most.
I got hooked into growing a crystal with
Rochelle salt (
Potassium Sodium Tartrate Tetrahydrate) because I know I can get large crystals quickly.
Now I want
this microscope so that I can examine smaller crystaline forms. Please feel free to purchase it and sent it to me. I will thank you.
I will update with pictures as my crystal grows.
This book gets a thumbs up.
Wedding Cakes You Can Make
I am back! Took a long break from this blog, but happy to return.
This instruction book by
Dede Wilson comes with lots of inspiring pictures of great cakes that are not too difficult to render in your own home. A friend is getting married in a few months and he asked me to think about making their wedding cake.
There are a lot of
supplies that the book suggests potential cake bakers purchase beforehand. The instructions are pretty straight forward and the recipe I made (
nutella cake - yum) actually was pretty tasty and not terribly ugly.
This book gets a thumbs up.
