Oud Minérale 2023 (Tom Ford)

I've never smelled the 2017 formula of this one, so forgive me for not doing a comparison. I'll keep it short and sweet here, because what I smell of Oud Minérale has me thinking yet again that anything containing a clear note of oud, or "oud," is not for me.

Oud Minérale opens with synthetic oud, i.e., "black" oud, a lab mix that approximates the real thing without achieving its animalic potency. It's Iso E Super for oud. I've owned it in its raw state; perfumers informally refer to it as "black" for reasons I never bothered to delve into. The perfumer who gave it to me said that it's in nearly every designer oud frag on the market. It's basically an unpleasant woody amber that reads more piercing and medicinal than ambery. It smells exactly like whatever is in Oud Minérale. It eventually gets drowned out by an intensely salty marine accord that smells at once ashy and wet, and I find it unsettling. This marine-like clarity only endures for a few minutes, until the fake oud vies for attention again, at which point the whole thing smells like burnt hair that has been unwisely doused with seawater, and it persists for no less than ten hours.

I'm all for salty aquatics, and I'm open to the idea of throwing oud in the mix, but this just doesn't work for me, and I find it intensely unpleasant. Word has it this is a rehash of Ford's earlier and now discontinued M7 Fresh, but that scent was full of citrus and herbs, whereas this one lacks any fruity, floral, or green embellishments, and simply smells salty and chemical in a nasty way. A pass, no thanks, next please. 

Soleil Blanc (Tom Ford)

This is one of those "suntan lotion" perfumes. It supposedly contains Egyptian jasmine, benzoin, cardamom, Tahitian gardenia, ylang-ylang, coconut milk, monoï, sandalwood, bleh, bleh, whatever. Fragrances like this one conjure the question: what do you get if you put Coppertone through GCMS analysis? Do you get constituent parts of that globally-recognized accord of white florals and woody-musks? If so, what do you do with it?

Remake it with luxury-grade materials, that's what. And that's exactly what Nathalie Gracia-Cetto did, spinning from the dried vinyl of this played-out theme yet another fancy-pants beach scent. I'll be honest, I actually like how it smells, with its lilting citrus-fizz top note and the endearingly gentle florals that follow, and I'd be remiss to call it anything but an olfactory success. Its coconut never gets overbearing, its musk never too sweet, and Soleil Blanc winds up smelling like quite a sexy little summer spritz. 

Sometimes the person makes the perfume, and I really think Ford's concept begs for the skin of a beautiful woman lounging on a yacht somewhere on the Mediterranean. It holds the potential to jump from a pier of UV skin protection into a lagoon of skin flicks. But on its own, on my person, having worn it for a day and refreshed it on my wrist, I'm utterly and unremittingly bored by it, and see no reason to drop my dollar here. 

Oud Wood (Tom Ford)

I don't know about you, but the 2000s were disturbing to me. Y2K. 9/11. Another George Bush. The Patriot Act. Abu Ghraib. Torture-porn horror movies. BIG sunglasses. It was the decade when dial-up gave way to broadband, and the useless but irresistibly charming "early internet" transitioned to something far closer to what we have now. Gone were the carefree nineties, the Friends-fueled ambiance of coffee on cafe sofas wearing oversized clothes and super-sweet fragrances. In with the weird seventies revivalist brown-study woody masculines, which were driven by an unfortunate cultural renaissance of a material from the Middle and Far East called agarwood, gaharu, oud. 

This movement was ostensibly sparked in 2002 by YSL's M7, authored by Jacques Cavalier and Alberto Morillas under the supervision of then-creative director for the Gucci Group, Tom Ford. M7 was a little too serious for the milquetoast-but-collectively-disturbed sensibilities of post-9/11 America, and it failed to connect with buyers. It was flanked by M7 Fresh, then pulled, then rereleased in 2010, flanked again by M7 Oud Absolu, and ultimately all M7s were binned. I suspect Ford had a few mods of the original when he retired from Gucci, and one of them found its way into his own line in the form of Oud Wood (2007). Richard Herpin was on tap, and I find him to be the only interesting thing about Oud Wood, aside from my mod theory. Herpin is unusually fond of a sweet and powdery-fresh laundry musk, which was in his formula for New York Gentlemen by Brooks Brothers, a fresh-citrus cologne that lasted ages because of it. Well, it's also in the base of Ford's scent, but here it causes dissonance; creamy sandalwood, rosewood, and "clean" synthetic oud (mostly Givaudan's Kephalis) clash with the musk in the far drydown. 

I say the oud movement was "ostensibly" started with M7 because I have my own theory as to how and why oud became so prominent in the mid-to-late 2000s. I believe that oud in perfumery is all part of a CIA Op. After 9/11, a tragedy mainly caused by Saudi terrorists, America was outraged. The problem for the White House was that it couldn't afford to have the country openly turn against the Saudis, not if it wanted to keep them as an oil partner. The solution? Start by diverting everyone's attention with a pointless war in Iraq, and finesse the diversion by hooking America's "influential" upper class on what Saudis themselves love and use regularly, oud. Too crazy for you? Think about it. 

Tobacco Vanille (Tom Ford)

Photo by Makia Minich

I've always struggled to understand the appeal of sweetly-flavored tobacco (super cheap "pipe tobacco") fragrances. My brain interprets the cloying sweetness of gas station tobacco as a crassly cheap, artificial construct, a difficult association to erase. It's no different for a downmarket cologne like Pinaud's Citrus Musk, which ostensibly smells of lemongrass but is also reminiscent of a citrus-flavored soda, like 7 Up or Sprite. When a fragrance smells like a flavor, it usually doesn't bode well. 

Tobacco Vanille (2007) is a luxury remake of L'Occitane's Eau des Baux (2006). Tom Ford opted to simplify the composition by clipping the number of notes down to three and calibrating them into smelling as divine as possible, which I think was at least a good try. Where Eau des Baux attempts complexity with cypress and pink pepper, Tobacco Vanille opts for the stark beauty of Dutch pipe tobacco with a silvery edge of cool musk, which strangely lifts the dankness of fire cured leaf into a sharper, greener place. This musk note eventually segues into vanilla and wraps itself around the tobacco like a mother swaddling her young. Its increasingly vanillic sweetness stops just shy of being overbearing by virtue of balance; TV is nothing if not fine-tuned. 

It's also Mephistophelian in strength: a few sprays and I can still smell it on my shirt a week later. This is where it succumbs to the same fate as EdB; a fragrance this powerfully aromtic doesn't really feel like it should be on my body. It feels like a room spray, or perhaps a candle. Yes, it uses good materials, and it's absolutely an appealing option for anyone who enjoys a good flavored tobacco scent, but I need something with a little more complexity and contrast if I'm going to have it on my person for the whole day. Tobacco Vanille would work fine in the morning, but by lunch I'd be ready for something else. 

Rose Prick (Tom Ford)

The double entendres that are Tom Ford's fragrance names are funny. "Rose Prick" can mean you got stabbed by a flower or a randy dude, depending on how you interpret it. Today I submit a third meaning: a prick created this overpriced rose perfume. 

Rose Prick (2020) smells like black pepper, turmeric - yes, turmeric - and roses in the top note. I'd be lying if I said I get much turmeric, though there is a touch off the very top, which is nice. But the fragrance, to my nose at least, smells very much like Ford having his revenge on Armaf by cloning them back; after the Arabian firm copied Noir de Noir (2007) with Club de Nuit Intense (2013), Ford waited a bit and then did them one better. RP has a fuller and more satisfying interplay between rose and patchouli, and feels even more costume-showy than CdNI, which may appeal to today's aspiring metrosexual.

Still, it pisses me off. As basic and approachable as it is, for the money, it's a complete waste, and its vulgar flourishes make it difficult for me to pull off. Let me put it this way, I'm infinitely more comfortable wearing Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose EDT than Rose Prick. But hey, if you're looking for high camp in stiletto heels, this is for you. 

Lost Cherry (Tom Ford)

Tom Ford's exclusive line of top-shelf EDPs is prohibitively expensive, but Lost Cherry (2018) smells like money. Well, let me rephrase that: It smells like what people think money smells like nowadays. Fancy top notes, followed by slightly less fancy heart notes, followed by an eternal base of fruity musks. Its conglomeration of esters and aldehydes eventually blurs into a big beautiful smack of lipstick and feminine talc, which I thought I'd hate, but I actually think is pretty neat. You could have fun with something like this.

Of rare interest to me is the top notes here, which are photorealistic maraschino cherry, with just a splash of amaretto. It's a burst of juicy-sweet and dry-bitter that plays with my senses in a way that offsets the illusion of real Luxardo cherries with cultural connotations of sweets and liqueurs, a veritable Etruscan daydream. While my imagination drifts to a veranda overlooking a villa in Tuscany, my nose becomes hyper-focused on the intense musks that carry it all, and suddenly (within five minutes) the party's over, and perfumey perfume is in the air. But this potentially disappointing development doesn't last.

An hour into the fragrance, and a great big tobacco leaf appears, which then elicits imagery of Flatiron, New York City, and its eighty year-old ragas with their magnified bifocals hand-rolling cigars on tables supported by empty olive barrels. There's just something so Italian about Lost Cherry, even with all the innuendo and Tom Ford swagger accounted for, that I can't help but like it. My girlfriend gave it a sniff of approval, saying it smelled good. When I told her the price, she winced and said, "Not that good." And that's usually the issue with Ford's stuff. Good, but not great. Close, but no cigar.

Ébène Fumé (Tom Ford)

Every few years, a fad fragrance note comes along that doesn't really work. Back in the 2000s, it was "rice," appearing in stuff like Kenzo's Amour, Creed's Love in White, and Miller et Bertaux's A Quiet Morning, and I never thought it smelled that great. Lately it's been Palo Santo, which, while a wonderful smell, is proving to be difficult for perfumers to pull off. It's super strong, and tends to hijack a composition. Never one to shy from a challenge, Tom Ford hired Rodrigo Flores-Roux, and went for it with Ébène Fumé. 

Every precious wood has its bad side, and the vaguely pickle-like off-notes of palo santo seem to overshadow its better features. But Ébène Fumé does something clever, and presents its freshly-sawed dill-by-fours alongside a fresh and discreet incense. All I get when I smell this perfume is intense palo santo for the first few minutes, hyper-realistic and three dimensional, and I have to pull back a little. You must truly love palo santo to invest in this. However, it tames pretty quickly, and when incense comes forward, it's clear that Flores-Roux has made palo santo palatable (say that three times fast). I don't know if I'd wear it, but Ébène Fumé winds up smelling very nice. 

After a few hours, the main notes on my skin are still palo santo with a hint of incense and just a touch of labdanum. There's a brief stage of amber and smokier resins, which help to nuance the laser-focused woody notes, but it doesn't last. It's tempting to think Ébène Fumé is too loud, but I think it's merely stolid, a firm, focused, and eminently well made piece that takes a route less traveled, the sign of a true niche perfume. 

Ombré Leather (Tom Ford)

The round sticker on the bottom of my bottle of Ombré Leather says it's made in Switzerland, which is interesting because the Swiss are very well known for exporting only the finest luxury goods, and it's no accident that this 2018 Tom Ford offering falls squarely into that rare category of things. Ombré Leather in its current eau de parfum concentration is an elegant olfactory ode to the inimitable beauty of luxury leather, and an example of how great craftsmanship can yield a quiet work of genius. 

The fact is there's no such thing as a true standalone leather note in perfumery. It takes gobs of rectified birch tar, all sorts of oak and tree mosses, and burly woody notes like fir and castoreum and patchouli to reconstruct a typical treated rawhide effect, and my nose usually deceives itself by balkanizing the constituents of the accord before it even has a chance at imparting what the perfumer was trying to do. Instead of leather, I smell birch tar and oakmoss, fir, patchouli, and by the drydown phase I've written volumes on how great the castoreum is, instead of how realistic the leather accord might be. 

Sonia Constant opted against the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to leather, and wisely chose instead to reinterpret a classical Guerlainade chypre structure, using deft technical tweaks to bring its most leather-like characteristics to the forefront, while also adding abstract fruits and white florals for contrast. There's something lactonic and dreamy about the bittersweet apricot, jasmine, and oakmoss intro to Ombré Leather, and I'm immediately reminded of Mitsouko. But where the sweetness of the jasmine and the starkness of the moss intersect arises an affectingly smooth leather note. 

It's the smell of car leather, Italian alligator leather, luxury handbag leather. We're not in Knize Ten riding tack territory here, although as the drydown progresses the fruit warms and morphs into something sweetly raspberry-like, and not far from the hallucinogenic strawberry kiss of The Knize. The jasmine grows ever more expansive, and a genteel patchouli, steam-cleaned and mellow, grounds everything. At the four hour mark Ombré Leather becomes more about patchouli than leather, yet the smooth treated hide effect lingers sturdily in the periphery until seven or eight hours later, where the evernyl and a whisper of white flowers are all that remain. Excellent longevity from this stuff. 

I've described the notes, but how does the fragrance feel? It possesses something only found in great perfumes: the ability to move. It floats like a phantom in undulating robes, sometimes feeling masculine and leathery, other times feminine and floral, even a bit fruity and sweet, yet always shifting, always kaleidoscopic and elusive. Good perfumes give you the lay of the land in one or two chops, and maintain their luster by keeping still the things that smell nice. But great perfumes are kinetic, changeable, elusive, and flirt with their wearers' expectations one shape at a time. Ombré Leather is such a perfume, and its easy, effortless nature makes it all the more enjoyable for this connoisseur. 

Sahara Noir (Tom Ford)

A great incense perfume has the advantage of boasting a material with its own olfactory polarities, which are in equal measure both smoky-cold and dusky-warm. Incense has a crisp, spicy, balsamic odor, which in some ways is similar to the world's greatest sneeze-inducer, black pepper. There's a flinty aspect to it (and frankincense in general) that always feels mysteriously cool and aloof, but also paradoxical, thanks to its warmer, ambery edge. In perusing the blogosphere, you would think Sahara Noir is an ode to Africa and the Middle East, a cultural nod via scent. 

I want to feel like Lawrence of Arabia when I wear it, but I was raised a Roman Catholic, and for many years attended mass in cathedrals across the U.S. and Ireland. Despite a searing awareness of frankincense's true geographical origins, Sahara Noir strips me of my tunic and keffiyeh, and drops me via scent memory right into Sunday morning mass at Sligo's Cathedral of The Immaculate Conception. Let's drop the exotic references in speaking of this latest Tom Ford signature release, for here there are no camel treks across arid desert sands, or carpet shops in Moroccan souqs. Sahara Noir smells of Catholic church incense, which is fairly common (and inexpensive) on the international market. Does that suck the air out of Tom Ford's sails? Not quite.

Tom Ford's fragrance conceptualization is typically hum-drum and a little tawdry, but in sniffing past Black Orchid, Gucci Rush, and Violet Blonde, I'm definitely smelling a serious, high-quality perfume in Sahara Noir. Its secret weapon isn't incense, but the shimmering accord produced by its pairing with cistus labdanum. The latter material exhibits its own internal scent polarities, with bright top notes of freshly-hewn wood pulling at earthier base notes of raw leather, sweet spice, and honeyed amber. It lends the composition a deeper warmth and creates a smooth amber over which the church smoke can waft. It also skilfully reinforces the brighter, almost citrus-like qualities of fresh incense. 

Sahara Noir utilizes both materials by putting them parallel to each other, with their convergent evolution yielding hyper-realistic solemnity. By replicating the smell of church incense, it offers something more: the suggestion of a spirit lurking in the smoke. In a stroke of genius, Ford seems to have demanded the integration of floral notes with a few drops of vanilla, as I often get little whiffs of rose, and an almost-edible sweetness under all the resins. It's really great stuff, really potent, and bound to satisfy even the most jaded incense lover.

It helps to be somewhat familiar with a few Amouage fragrances while wearing Sahara Noir, because their compositions are a bit less obvious about the use of incense. Amouage doesn't try to offer incense reconstructions. They simply use quality incense as a coherent bond for what are typically relatable materials, like wormwood, cedar, and ambergris. Because the perfumes are of such high quality, and because their noses are cognizant of incense's many facets, Amouage fragrances manage to make what little incense they contain sing out and sweeten the air. Ford's more literal interpretation goes for photo-realism by relying on the accuracy of memory, relating real-time experiences to thematic associations. Since incense is used in religious ceremonies, there's no shame in associating Sahara Noir with the imported oak pews in a Celtic country. I'm grateful to this perfume for eliciting those memories - I really love that cathedral. It's an architectural marvel, and whenever the priest waves the burner, its looming spires fill with the scent of a thousand sins gone unpunished. Now all of that mystery comes in a gaudy faux-gold bottle with matching gold tassels. Thank you, God!

Neroli Portofino ( Tom Ford )

The nose behind Ford's 2011 summer release is the accomplished Rodrigo Flores-Roux, who also created the new Fougère Royale, and most of Arquiste's range. NP is part of Ford's Private Blend range, and was released but a shoulder's breadth from the much-maligned Lavender Palm. You would think, given its lineage, that NP would smell like a brand new take on citrus aurantium, the woody-fresh blossom oil of the bitter orange tree, but alas, it is simply a conventional perfumer's rendition. The very first thing I thought of when it hit my skin was 4711. That's surprising, given how cheap 4711 is, and how expensive NP is. Yeah, it's oddly the only fragrance I can think of when I smell NP, and that's not terrible, because 4711 smells really, really good. This Private Blend has imbued me with a whole new appreciation for the National Granny Cologne of Germany.

What becomes problematic is that NP doesn't really develop much, and remains a linear, semi-sweet, and utterly woody neroli, with hints of mandarin orange and cool amber in the base. That's fine, except that NP's price-point suggests it should be something more. Comparatively speaking, 4711 has complex development, with a rosy herbal structure underlying its layered citrus top accord. The basil and rosemary in that little $20 cologne really add dimensionality and zest to it, but NP is thoroughly non-herbal, possessing neither the humor, nor the panache of its predecessor. 

Speaking of humor and panache, the advertisements for this one really do a disservice to the buyer. I'm not normally influenced by visual advertising (I've been jaded by my graphic design studies), but with NP I really expected something fizzy and sexy. What I get instead is something flat and rather formal.

All well, at least the 4711 connotation is interesting. It's just a shame that little else about Neroli Portofino grabs me.

Black Orchid (Tom Ford) - 1st Impressions

Black Orchid is fittingly dark, glamorous, rich, full of textures and tonalities and spoiled things. I get semi-rotten fruit, but only marginally, and not even enough to say there's a "fruity" element. I get some sort of odd lipstick note, which smells really trite, sweet, chemical, greasy, and like nothing a heterosexual guy would gravitate to. I get bubblegum, I get makeup powder, I get grape candy. There's a very twangy and cold (read: frigid) orchid note, tempered with creamy ylang, and rubbed with indolic jasmine, but nothing smells overripe, per say. Just blotted. Densely mixed. Heavy. Acrid, even. 

This is a convoluted, aggressive, feminine, dramatic perfume. It boasts a darkness that few other perfumes in its class ever deign to convey. You wear this to the opera, and you wear it as you pull that silenced Browning Hi-Power from your cummerbund and aim it at the Sirroccan who sits, under the mistaken assumption that Americans give a crap about diplomatic immunity, three boxes from your cross hairs with his wife. The curtain call comes early for him tonight.

These are the first impressions I get from Black Orchid. More to follow. Stay tuned.

White Patchouli (Tom Ford)

I tried White Patchouli with modest expectation of neither loving or hating it. This scent receives some tepid reviews, even from one of the best blogs on this subject. I have yet to review it here, but I'll prelude my thoughts on Black Orchid by stating that it did little to set the bar, and so White Patchouli was met with a level of stoicism usually reserved for things by Coty. It's a good thing I'm open-minded. People who know me personally know that I love movies; I have often stated publicly that I'll watch any film from any genre without discrimination. The same holds true for my approach to fragrance. With the exception of a few extremely cedar-intensive scents, I'll give anything a generous dab. To me, open-mindedness is the key to making interesting discoveries in this field. Without it, one is limited to, well, . . . their limitations.

As an ardent Creed fan, I approach other semi-designer/semi-niche brands with trepidation, mainly because the current trend is for masculine scents to be overbearing, either in sweetness, or in spice. I have yet to try Creed's Royal Oud, but from what I've read it doesn't look like it will be my favorite Creed. Seems they went a little heavy with the spices and woods in that one. Without referencing it too directly, I'll add that my test of Black Orchid was akin to being knocked over the head by a Zulu knobkerrie. If things get any headier out there, the world will start resembling the goth-punk fictional metropolis of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

Fortunately, White Patchouli is a delight from beginning to end. It isn't heavy-handed in its treatment of woods, flowers, and spices. The patchouli is incredibly elegant, and rendered in a uniquely modern style. It has a two-tiered evolution: an opening of rich orange, amber resins, and spices, all flanking an opulently smooth and bitter patchouli, followed by a drydown of white flowers and musks, which halo a very sheer patchouli. The star note is dense and chewy in the beginning, and loses opacity with each passing hour, until it is little more than a suggestion of head shop. Yet the yin-yang of density and airiness exhibited in White Patchouli's movements is incredibly satisfying.

I particularly like how the dirtiness of patchouli is seamlessly melded with earthy spices and pungent orange notes, which elevate all sixties-hippie associations into a more spiritual, oriental realm. The notes bond thanks to the usage of raw incense, a briskly mysterious element that adds dimension and clove-like mentholation to an otherwise fuliginous composition. The incense bridges the gap between this dark opening, and its lighter resolution. Gradually notes of rose, peony, and jasmine emerge from behind the veil, opening White Patchouli's heart and base with a fluffy cloud of whiteness. The flowers are cool and semi-sweet, and never become overbearing or indolic. As the grittiness recedes, the patchouli lightens, and a classy skin-scent remains.

Laudable is Tom Ford's use of restraint here. It was a good idea to keep White Patchouli firmly in its unisex realm, and smart to keep things clean and modern. As such, this Ford scent actually feels very much like a Creed. Its notes are clear, easily decipherable, and never devolve into a nondescript muskiness. It seems some lament the use of musks in White Patchouli, and think they overtake the composition - I disagree. I sense a very sanguine white musk accord upholding the flowers and patchouli in the later drydown stage, but feel that it only adds a bright cleanness to the proceedings, and never goes full throttle. I appreciate realistically-rendered white flowers (as much as I hate badly rendered white flowers), and here the delicate greenness of the floral notes just begs for touches of silky animalism to uphold their elegance. White Patchouli is indeed made of obviously high quality ingredients, and is entirely worth the price of admission.

Tom Ford for Men (Tom Ford)

Today is my birthday, and I'm somewhat chagrined to report that it's a milestone - the Big 30. The only good thing about it is that it's the furthest point in time from turning 31. Otherwise, it's just plain scary. The roaring twenties are over, never to return again, and all for a staid decade of becoming a serious adult. Or . . . not. Depending on how you look at it, the future can be bright or bleak, but whatever the case, I trust it will smell good.

Last week I had a chance to wear a fragrance that I've been dying to try for a while now - Tom Ford for Men. In fact, I got to sample a good portion of the Ford lineup over the course of a few days, and other reviews will soon follow this one. Mr. Ford's signature masculine is somewhat controversial because many feel that it fails to live up to its marketing hype. Maybe it's my 30-dom chiming in here, but I refrained from posting the ad with this fragrance's bottle positioned suggestively between a naked woman's widespread legs, favoring Mr. Ford's self-portraiture instead. I have a feeling that the pornographic imagery is largely to blame for the collective disappointment here; thousands of guys were drawn to it like moths around a neon beer sign, all expecting liquid nirvana. Instead they got a conventional woody-fresh fougère in the accustomed post-Cool Water style. Quite a letdown if you let the visuals manipulate your imagination before the perfume's molecules can speak for themselves.

I wasn't really baited by the ads, however, so my nose was not struck down with melancholia upon smelling this scent. It was a bit surprising though, as I thought the fragrance would be darker and denser in nature, more of a "cologney" type of oldschool frag in the manner of Pierre Cardin Pour Monsieur, or Aramis. Tom Ford's opening notes of lemon leaf and ginger are tart and refreshing, and the perfect intro to the sweet aromatics of pipe tobacco, cedar, patchouli, and pepper in the heart. This is as woodsy as it gets - about twenty minutes into its development, the scent's manly curtain is drawn to reveal a sweet violet leaf and orange blossom base. All is punctuated by crisp vetiver and warm amber notes, making Tom Ford for Men a likable and thoroughly unremarkable workhorse fern. It has good longevity, modest sillage, and not a single drop of confrontational innuendo anywhere in it. It's the perfect gift for the guy who has it all.

I prefer Chanel's Allure Homme and Coty's Aspen to Tom Ford for Men, but only because I have a history with those scents that I don't share with this newer offering. I can see this being a disappointment in the face of more exciting Ford scents, but I don't think it warrants so much negativity - it's well made and competent for its class. I would have made it woodier, perhaps with a touch of birch and a little fennel or anise to correlate with true fougère classics like Azzaro Pour Homme. But as it stands, there's nothing wrong with Tom Ford for Men, and wearing it is as comfortable as sitting by the fire in a leather armchair with a glass of cognac. It's not as sexy as a bottle blocking a vagina, but then again nothing ever is.

Grey Vetiver (Tom Ford)

Tom Ford for Men: Nice, but I'd rather gift it, not own it myself. Violet Blonde: Also nice, but way too feminine for me. Black Orchid: I'll let you know what I think later, but let me just say it's a weird one, and that's an understatement. White Patchouli: Excellent stuff, and I see a bottle in my future.

Then there's Grey Vetiver, Ford's token masculine vetiver fragrance. Prior to wearing it, my expectations were as stark as the scent profile itself - this was going to be well made, but humorless, soulless juice. The sort of stuff unimaginative bankers wear while injecting loan interest rates with Botox. I'd like it for two or three minutes, and then dislike it for the rest of the day. Who needs a fragrance with "grey" in its name?

Whelp, lemme see here . . . yeeaaah. I was wrong.

While no vetiver scent will ever really excite me, Tom Ford's Grey Vetiver comes pretty darn close. The scent opens with an extremely dry and sugar-free lemon, bergamot, and grapefruit mixture, which grows even drier and starker as the seconds pass. Eventually a papery wood note, fueled stridently by black pepper, kicks through the bony fog of the top and presents the star note in its unadulterated glory. The vetiver is clear, beautifully rendered, and very clean.

As it dries further, Grey Vetiver grows soapier, and eschews the tobacco elements of classics like Guerlain's Vetiver in favor of a purer presentation. Its name fits it well; Grey Vetiver evokes images of cold grass on a misty embankment in the colorless hours of early morning. Well done, André Firmenich, and well done, Mr. Ford. This is the vetiver scent I'll turn to in the future, especially when I'm looking to impress. It's also the vetiver more guys in their 30s should turn to, lest they forget that sometimes it pays to smell like a blue morning, wrapped in the greyest strands of fist and bone.

Lyrics conceived of and hand written by Adam Duritz.

Violet Blonde (Tom Ford)

Black Orchid's reputation precedes Violet Blonde, to the latter's detriment. Where Black Orchid is renowned as being a challenging fruity-floral, Violet Blonde is considered to be accessibly haughty, the olfactory equivalent of a Poliform sofa. The fragrance opens with a brilliant array of citrus fruits and violet - sorry - make that sueded violet. The detached coolness of violet leaf is rendered against a sheer leather note that is so brisk and confrontational that it's wonderful. So far, so good.

Gradually the violet and violet leaf begin to fade, and a sparse vetiver accord takes their place. Just as it begins to show promise, the woodsy note is drowned out by a sweepingly "clean" Sambac jasmine. The white flower rides in like one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, its indoles sped into a grandiloquent white rush, utterly devoid of character. The sweetness of the jasmine reminds me of the violet, and in the end I'm left with a very sheer, clean, and strong musk. That musk is like an echo chamber for all the other notes in the scent. They're memorable enough, and enlivened ever so briefly in the drydown, but are essentially neutered of their effectiveness. 

Like pieces of a puzzle, the violet top notes, vetiver-joked jasimine heart, and musky-blah drydown are all perfectly fitted into a dreamy landscape - the kind you see in a Thomas Kinkade painting. It's very pretty, very bright, and very dull, to say the least. I can see a classy, pearl-wearing Silicon Valley trophy wife wearing this to cocktail parties, but I also see her leaving the party early and alone, right after her Black Orchid-wearing friend, who snagged the only viable guy in the room.