I have compiled various works on smell, fragrance, and perfumery for anyone seeking more in-depth information on the matter. The following are links to titles themselves or podcast episodes from the New Books Network wherein a host interviews the author of a new book whose topic relates to fragrance or scent.

Books

Internet Archive

This search pulls up works freely available on the Internet Archive with the subject "Perfume". To read many of the listed books, you need to have an account on the Internet Archive to check them out from the digital library. It is free to register! I would highly recommend making an account since it'll allow you access to so much free multimedia.

• Perfume: Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin: A Cultural History of Fragrance from 1750 to the Present by Richard Howard Stamelman
• The Artifice of Beauty: A History and Practical Guide to Perfumes and Cosmetics by Sally Pointer
• The Scent Trail: How One Woman's Quest for the Perfect Perfume Took Her Around the World by Celia Lyttelton

Other Sources

• The Perfume Lover: A Personal History of Scent by Denyse Beaulieu
• Fragrance and Wellbeing: Plant Aromatics and Their Influence on the Psyche by Jennifer Peace Rhind
• The Case Against Fragrance by Kate Grenville
• Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance by Elise Vernon Pearlstine
• Sacred Luxuries: Fragrance, Aromatherapy, and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt by Lise Manniche
• Perfumery: The Psychology and Biology of Fragrance by D. M. Stoddart, Steve Van Toller, George H. Dodd
• An Ethnography of Fragrance: The Perfumery Arts of ʿAdan/Laḥj by Dinah Jung

Academic Works

• Fundamentals of Fragrance Chemistry by Charles S. Sell
  • Great overview of fragrance as an industry
• Perspectives in Flavor and Fragrance Research by Philip Kraft and Karl A. D. Swift
  • Some neat-sounding chapters include
    • "New Woody and Ambery Notes from Cedarwood and Turpentine Oil"
    • "Pyrazines and Pyridines from Black Pepper Oil (Piper nigrum L.) and Haitian Vetiver Oil"
    • "New Alicyclic Musks: The Fourth Generation of Musk Odorants"
• Common Fragrance And Flavor Materials: Preparation, Properties And Uses by Johannes Panten and Horst Surburg
  • This work speaks on sourcing and processing of various compounds used in fragrance
• Science and Technology of Aroma, Flavor, and Fragrance in Rice by Srivastav, Prem Prakash, and Deepak Kumar Verma
  • For anyone who enjoys a good rice note. Here's a quote from the preface:

Aroma is one of the diagnostic aspects of rice quality that can determine acceptance or rejection of rice before it is tested. It is also considered as an important property of rice that indicates its preferable high quality and price in the market. An assessment of all known data reveals that more than 450 chemical compounds have been documented in various aromatic and non-aromatic rice cultivars. The primary goals were to identify the compounds responsible for the characteristics and rice aroma. Many attempts were made to search for key compounds for rice aroma, but no single compound or group of compounds could be reported that are fully responsible for rice aroma.

Multimedia Materials

Here are some results from the George Mason University Open Educational Resource Metafinder on perfume and fragrance, which will bring up multimedia on the searched topic, including photos of antique bottles, vintage ads, articles, and more. The metafinder searches from various archives, including the Digital Public Library of America, the Library of Congress (of the U.S.), and JSTOR, for materials mentioning the search term(s) in their metadata (e.g., titles, content, or tags).

Podcast (on Books)

I have found that the New Books Network podcast has a great range of episodes related to sense of smell, fragrance, spices, and other scented items, going beyond the human species' experiences of this sense. As far as the format, the episode host simply interviews the author of a new book on its subject matter.

Below are the episodes I found just by searching the network's site for "fragrance" and "perfume". The types of books below range from monographs to biographies to literature. The pages linked below include a description of the book's subject, information on the author and host, and an embedded audio player with the episode so you can listen from the web page.

Science

• The Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent by Danielle J. Whittaker, hosted by Galina Limorenko
• Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind by Ann-Sophie Barwich, hosted by Joseph Fridman
• Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race, and the Aesthetics of Feeling by Erica Fretwell, hosted by Chad Valasek

Biographies (of celebrities who had fragrance lines)

• Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography by Meryle Secrest, hosted by Oline Eaton
• On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide by Matthew Kennedy, hosted by Daniel Moran

History

• The Scent of Empire: Chanel No. 5 and Red Moscow by Karl Schlögel, hosted by Jana Byars
• Vanilla: A Global History by Rosa Abreu-Runkel, hosted by Amir Sayadabdi
• Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance by Elise Vernon Pearlstine, hosted by Miranda Melcher
• Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell by Xuelei Huang, hosted by Miranda Melcher
• The Scent of Ancient Magic by Britta K. Ager, hosted by Miranda Melcher
• Victims of Fashion: Animal Commodities in Victorian Britain by Helen Louise Cowie, hosted by Miranda Melcher
• Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World: Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000 by Anne Gerritsen and Burton Cleetus, hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
• Fragrant Frontier: Global Spice Entanglements from the Sino-Vietnamese Uplands by Annuska Derks, Jean-François Rousseau, and Sarah Turner, hosted by Julia Heinle

Literature

• Bombay Hangovers by Rochelle Potkar, hosted by Sharonee Dasgupta
• Wissen um Stimmung: Diskurs und Poetik in Robert Musils Die Verwirrungen des Zoglings Torless und Vereinigungen by Sergej Rickenbacher, hosted by Julia Stetter

anyone else a data nerd about their fragrances?

i'd love to hear what details you keep track of and how!

for me, some of the most useful data are:
- source (e.g., online platform or person's name)
- estimated fill level at time of acquisition (i often get partial bottles)
- cost/mL
- bottle's full volume
- size (sample, mini, travel, full)
- dispenser (atomizer, splash, dabber vial, applicator wand)
- date decanted
- date gifted or returned to someone
- date emptied

@fragrance

(M43)I've got quite a nice little collection of fall/winter scents because I really love leathers and tobacco.(M43)I've never really done a deep dive into freshies and springtime fragrances but last year I bought a couple of samples of Etat Libre D'orange You or someone like you and enjoyed it immensely. I also bought a full bottle of Fat Electrician, which has been my go-to fragrance this fall and winter so when I started thinking about buying a new full bottle for spring, You or someone like you was the obvious choice for me. So I just ordered it today. It should arrive in a couple of days. I'm at least as excited about getting this one as I was about Fat Electrician. Has anybody else ordered something recently that they're really excited about? Or have you started thinking about new scents for spring yet? I would also love to hear your opinion on You or someone like you if you're familiar with it 🤗

I bought the body oil a few days ago and it finally arrived yesterday. I thought I was getting the perfume oil but nope. That was my mistake, not theirs. After the disappointment at myself faded, here’s what I think. First, let me say I have never smelled the original. To me, this is the original. lol. I’m not sure what notes they use, but I smell strawberry, something woody, and caramel. I know the original has strawberry, milk, forest fruits, baby powder, and caramel. I’m sure the FBO impression is probably similar. I imagine someone wearing this when they’re having a stressful day and they need to wind down and feel confy. It gives me Christmas vibes. Not sure why, but alright. I’m not sure what, if anything, I should pair with this. I don’t have anything in my collection that would match, so I think I’d wear it alone. If you need your Melanie Martinez fix and don’t wanna spend $500 on a bottle of the original fragrance on eBay, give this a shot.

This one was probably the first or second perfume I've bought for myself, when I was just getting into trying scents. I used to drive the Caron sales attendant mad! But this was love at first sight. I hate the smell or smoke, but I love tobacco notes in perfume. This is very subtle too, a bit like if you're walking in a blooming garden and someone has been smoking a few metres away. And you're wearing a cashmere coat and the sun is shining, and it's mid afternoon on a warm day in October.

You don’t have to be rich to have a great fragrance wardrobe. You just have to learn what you like, and then budget accordingly.

There are a lot of places online that will sell decants (small samples from a larger bottle) for a small fee. This is a good way to try things that you don’t have normal exposure to without doing a ‘blind buy’ on a full size bottle. Google for decants or scent splits and have a field day!

Scentsplit, Luckyscent, Fragrancesplit, Decantx, Microperfumes and others sell samples. Many will give a coupon for x% off a full bottle purchase thereafter.

Some fragrance houses also sell sample packs of their scents or will make travel size packs for a little more, such as MFK, Killian, Zoologist, Mancerra, etc.

If you live in a large metropolitan area, you may be able to take advantage of a good size retail establishment and try on samples there for nothing but a conversation with a friendly sales agent.

Have fun out there!