This week on Try-Hard Valley, Yael prepares for her Adriatic adventures and Carrie wonders if her running career has one more chapter left.

Then Carrie sits down with one of her favorite writers and longest-running intellectual crushes, author and perfume critic Tania Sanchez.

Tania. Sacramento. Extended Stay America. Canned vodka mule. The glamour is subtle.

Tania shares the unlikely story of how a finance writer from New York became one of the world’s best-known perfume critics, fell in love with fellow perfume writer Luca Turin, and spent the next two decades packing and unpacking.

Along the way, the conversation wanders through:• The challenges of caring for aging parents• Life as an American living in England• Perimenopause and the indignities of middle age• The enduring weirdness of high school• Why the British keep asking, "Are you all right?"• The mysterious power of scent

As always, the episode is ultimately about what we're all trying hard to do right now, and why that's often more interesting than what we've already accomplished.Subscribe to Tania’s Substack! And to her husband Luca Turin’s Substack as well!

That’s the brilliant and hilarious perfume guide Tania wrote with her husband Luca Turin.Is it available on Amazon? You ask. Why, yes, it is. I answer.Buy it here!

The Devil wears Guerlain's Samsara. Perfume legends Tania Sanchez and Luca Turin discuss the alchemy of great scent in Vogue.

Two try-hards. One hotel room selfie. Several teeth.

This great book, The Emperor of Scent, is about Tania’s husband Luca Turin.Tania has been married to Luca for 19 years. Ergo, she is The Empress of Scent in our book!

Tania’s many fans and theRedditors of r/fragrance agree wholeheartedly!

Get full access to Try-Hard Valley at carriegilbert3.substack.com/subscribe