There is some great news for fragrance fans:

From the Guardian:
The New York Times has announced the appointment of its first perfume critic, in what the paper describes as a breakthrough for olfactory journalism and a wake-up call for a secretive, hype-driven industry.

There are a couple of websites devoted to fragrance and a scent columnist at a Swiss newspaper but, as far as the New York Times is aware, Chandler Burr, a journalist and author, will be the first full-time perfume critic for an English-language newspaper.

I have to interrupt the article:
There are more than a handful perfume based websites!
Here are some of my favorites:
http://nowsmellthis.blogharbor.com/
http://boisdejasmin.typepad.com/
http://scentzilla.com/
http://lachendwolf.blogspot.com/
http://www.aromascope.com/
http://legerdenez.blogspot.com/
http://www.perfumeposse.com/
http://perfumesmellinthings.blogspot.com//
http://www.perfumecritic.com/
http://www.mimifroufrou.com/scentedsalamander/
http://pinkmanhattan.blogspot.com/
http://sweet-diva.blogspot.com/
http://scentbloggers.wordpress.com/
http://ayalasmellyblog.blogspot.com/
http://tauerperfumes.blogspot.com/
http://perfumeoflife.org/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=22&/
http://qwendy.typepad.com/shoescakeperfume/
http://victoriasown.blogspot.com/

Also visit makeupalley's fragrance boards or Perfume of Life for great conversations about fragrance. These are the ladies and gents that need to be feared.

"Perfume is an art form just like other art forms from theatre to painting to music, so we're excited to be the first to cover perfume in this way," Diane McNulty, a Times spokesperson, said.

Burr's column, Scent Strip, in the paper's style section, will assess old and new perfumes for men and women as well as the occasional scented candle, and rate them from zero stars to four stars. Some company executives are not going to be happy. In his first column on Sunday he says he will describe one fragrance as smelling like "fresh insecticide", although he says he gives another from the same company a three-star rating. He argues that the industry as a whole will benefit because the column will enliven public interest.

In 1998 he was waiting for a delayed Eurostar at the Gare du Nord in Paris when he got talking to another man on the platform, who turned out to be one of the world's greatest experts on the science of smell. Luca Turin, then a biophysics lecturer at the University of London, was pursuing a controversial theory of how scent is recognised by the human nose. Burr went on to write a book about him, The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses, and entered the uncharted waters of perfume criticism.

from Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
photo is from gettyimages