"Alyssa Harad always considered herself practical, earnest, and bookish. She was a proud feminist, a Birkenstock wearer, and a religious recycler; the only interests in which she came anywhere near self-indulgence were food and cooking. Until she chanced upon a blog and read a new kind of review--not of a novel or a recipe but of a perfume. How frivolous and girly, she thought at first. And yet, months later, she noticed she had begun to heard vials of fragrance samples. Embarking on a journey that takes her from perfume galleries and private laboratories in her hometown of Austin, TX, to the glamorous perfume showrooms of NYC, Harad discovers a secret network of perfume-traders, scent sharers, botanists, and fragrance enthusiasts around the world. Through them she comes to reassess her ideas about femininity, passion, her own long-term relationship--and what her life is about"--