fragrances and niche brands. The manual’s original linear, sectional layout, traditional to fragrance classifications, presented certain limitations. Consumer preferences, Edwards felt, did not necessarily fall into a particular olfactory group (floral, oriental, woody, etc), and could span two or more groups if linked by similar subgroups (i.e. soft florals being akin to floral orientals). This he addressed in the 1992 edition of The Fragrance Manual, the first to feature an annular taxonomy known as the ‘fragrance wheel’, which organized olfactory groups in relation to one another while showing their interchange. The fragrance wheel proved a major innovation in perfume classification, its design copied widely throughout the fragrance industry. In 2000, The Fragrance Manual was renamed Fragrances of the World. The printed guide has since been published annually in a bilingual English-French edition. Online database The Fragrances of the World online database was launched in 2004, accessible by paid subscription. Due to its weekly updates and comprehensive scope (profiling over 17,000 perfumes in 2015), the database has largely superseded the guide's printed edition. Applications Fragrance Finder, an application based on The Fragrance Manual designed to recommend perfumes according to consumer preferences, was originally developed for Sephora without success. The application was instead sold independently to retailers in 1994 on CD-ROM, before appearing online in 2006. Criticisms While Fragrances of the World has largely been adopted as a standard reference in the fragrance industry, the guide has also been subject to criticism. As an independent publication, the guide's fragrance classifications are sometimes discordant with those of the perfume houses, and the creations are sometimes attributed to the wrong perfumer, causing debate. Its simplistic categories, largely devised for retail, differ from the complex subgroups featured in smaller technical manuals such as the Classification officielle des parfums et terminologie (also created in 1984), published by the French Society of Perfumers. Its content is also limited in comparison with free resources such as Basenotes, Fragrantica or Perfume Intelligence, though it is considerably more accurate. See also Michael Edwards (fragrance expert) Fragrance wheel Perfume Perfumer References External links Fragrances of the World website Perfumery Australian encyclopaedias