In Search of Perfumes

A Lifetime Journey to the Source of Nature’s Scents

By: Dominique Roques

Narrated by: Jean Brassard

In this intoxicating concoction of history, travelogue, and memoir, one of the perfume industry’s leading scouts of natural ingredients tells the story of the precious ingredients needed to make our favorite fragrances.

Do you know how many flowers it takes to produce a kilo of rose oil? One million roses, each handpicked. When it comes to nature, Dominique Roques is a unique authority. He has spent the last thirty years working closely with local communities across the globe to establish a sustainable supply of natural ingredients crucial to perfume making.

From resin cultivated by traditional methods in El Salvador to rose oil distilleries in India as old as the Taj Mahal, his network reveals an elusive trade built on the fault lines of tradition and modernity. With In Search of Perfumes, Roques tells the story of seventeen of the industry’s most precious ingredients–where they come from, their cultural and historic significance, and why we love them—from Indonesian patchouli to the ""Damask rose,” interweaving his own recollections and reflections on his life and work.

From Andalusia to Somaliland, Roques takes us on an exclusive tour of a vast but delicate ecosystem wholly sustained by the artisans who are its caretakers. Isolated and rural, the tropical jungles of northern Laos remain to this day the only source of benzoin that centuries earlier wafted through the air of Louis XIV’s court. In Madagascar, where every transaction is made in cash, a caravan of porters carry pallets bearing $500,000 dollars to exchange for vanilla beans. The Venezuelan tonka bean, as fickle as the weather, may refuse to flower for years but is so esteemed by perfumers that patience becomes its truest virtue. Everywhere Roques takes us, his infectious curiosity and amiability illuminate an immersive world of the uncharted.

Entertaining and eye-opening, decorated with beautiful black-and-white illustrations , In Search of Perfumes is an irresistible exploration of the smells that fuel our nostalgia and suffuse our fantasies.

Translated from the French by Stephanie Smee

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Beautifully written

This book was beautifully written and fun to listen to. It was also very informative and interesting

Absolutely Enchanting!

Travelogue, alchemy, history… This beautifully written book conjures up a sense of wonder and timelessness. It’s like reading all my favorite parts in a novel except that the captivating descriptions are all real. It stirs up the imagination like Tales from the Alhambra by Washington Irving. The translation and narration are excellent.

Interesting, if not a bit vapid

Roques takes us on a tour of a global perfume industry. He begins every examination of a unique ingredient with a faintly nostalgic, inevitably orientalist musing on the poor people picking the flowers or stripping the bark, and ultimately makes no connection with the fact that his industry creates these imperialist, extractive structures and maintains them often using a merger of state and corporate power. It's like, cool, the pretty jasmine, whatever, but let's talk about the politics, the bucks, and maybe even the chemistry? It's a fun read but it feels airy and vacuous.

Perfume Travel Around the World

Enjoyable stories of where the delightful natural scents come from. Along with growth, harvesting, distilling or processing them. I enjoyed his personal relationships, speaking of cultures and peoples who make them. I did wish there were photos of the areas and people he visited.

Creating essential natural scents is often back-breaking and low paid work, and at the same time the only economic benefit available in the region. It lifts some from poverty, and causes deforestation and cartel battles over the resources with more than gold in some cases. A startling fact of having armed guards in many of these places is sobering.

It did make me really think about the ethics of preferring the naturals over synthetic scent sources. It is a source of income in poor areas; forests are stripped, tribal battles over resources and black markets make it dangerous. Is it worth it to give us that enjoyable moment when a favorite perfume hits the skin? After reading this my answer is...maybe.

Superb!

What a rugged, realistic, beautiful journey through the essential oils that are so precious and meaningful to our lives and human history!