What, exactly, is fragrance? How might we disscuss and theorize the sense of smell? Luca Turin and Saskia Wilson-Brown confront these surpringly thorny questions and argue that fragrance is an autonomous art which must be dealt with on its own terms, a message in a bottle. As Igor Stravinsky said of music, fragrance may be "by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all". Wilson-Brown’s fragrance awards have shown that there is the possibility for a blind consensus as to what makes a fragrance good or bad. Turin, in his research and writing, has been trying to figure out what that elusive thing may be.