This book is called Perfume: A Century of Scents, and I fully believe those two perfumes should be in this book, and it's a shame that they aren't in this book. I have been buying perfume since 2012, and since then, I have bought over 1,000 perfumes, and have smelled more than 1,500 perfumes. In my personal opinion certain perfumes should of been in this book like, Shalimar by Guerlain 1925, and Oscar De La Renta perfume from 1977. I like this book don't get me wrong, I just wish there were more perfumes in this book. I still get a thrill from sampling an unusual fragrance with a tantalising story, and it’s been so much fun bringing their stories, from the sublime to the everyday, to life through my book and my events. Since then I have hosted perfume events on themes from the scents of outer space to the history of male fragrances from Rakes to Rambo, and Perfumes and Mythology. That was meant to be a one-off but so many people came to the first event, I wanted to do more and so a regular series was born.

We asked people to describe the mystery contents of some vials we handed out, which meant a lot of wine, a lot of spills, and most crucially, laughter – not least from my nom de plume, Odette Toilette, which is much more fun than my real name, Lizzie Ostrom. I inveigled James Craven from London perfume shop Les Senteurs to co-host with me, and together we concocted a whistlestop tour through the twentieth century in perfume. Hosting it in a bar was much more inviting than going to a department store with all that pressure to buy. I wanted to create an experience which made learning about scent fun, sociable and intelligent, and that spanned pop culture to high culture. Out of nowhere I had this idea to host an event about scent.Īs someone who loves food, reading, drinking, and learning, I absolutely felt perfume fitted in with this landscape of discovery but it's often left out. In 2010, all this suddenly became useful when a friend told me about The Book Club, which was looking for live programming. Even as a teenager, in the heady days of dial-up internet, I’d drive my dad crazy, tying up the phoneline looking at perfume reviews. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, but rather than defining it as a ‘thing’, it was more of a compulsion. I was working in events PR promoting restaurants and hotels. As you might imagine, I’m a woman who, even now, have more fragrances than I could ever wear in a lifetime, keeps on buying them.įive years ago, this hobby had nothing to do with my job. If you were to go to my home and open a cupboard or drawer, you would probably find dozens of bottles of perfume waiting to fall out.

Perfume by Lizzie Ostrom