Category Archives: Tom Ford

All idols stumble at some point. Even Madonna makes mistakes. Most of the time when it happens, those blips are just as fascinating as the hits, and in the case of Tom Ford it’s more of a matter of taste than a god-awful move. Case in point is his Jardin series. It was the first Private Blend series in which I found not a single scent to love. The closest I came was ‘Ombre de Hyacinth’ which took one of spring’s seminal scents and turned it on its floral head.

This was the least feminine of the group, which also included ‘Café Rose’ – obviously a dose of rose, ‘Lys Fume’ – his twist on the lily, and ‘Jonquille de Nuit’ – his take on the jonquil. As much as I love his stuff, Ford’s florals are where we usually part company. His ‘Tobacco Vanille’ is too cloying, and his latest ‘Fleur de Portofino’ skews too old-lady for someone who traditionally embraces my old-lady-ness to an extreme. ‘Ombre de Hyacinth’ totters on that floral edge, and for the price point of a Private Blend there can be no teetering. Or tottering for that matter.

Instead, I’ll cling to my precious sample, dabbing it on when I’m feeling like a bit of heady hyacinth cloaked in the darkly gorgeous rendering of his olfactory madness. For my taste it’s a bit of a mess, but a mess by Tom Ford still manages to be a thing of beauty.

The battle for spring fragrance dominance is about to be waged, as Tom Ford’s latest Private Blend, Fleur de Portofino, goes head-to-fragrant-head with Diana Vreeland’s Smashingly Brilliant.

Ford’s latest Portofino addition (a line already established with Neroli Portofino, Mandarino di Amalfi and Costa Azzurra) reportedly includes notes of bergamot, citrus, osmanthus, acacia blossom and acacia honey. The latter two ingredients seem to provide the difference from the other Portofino flavors. According to the literature ‘Fleur’ is “inspired by the cascades of white flowers that spill off the branches of the White Acacia— a beloved shade tree that dots the Mediterranean’s gardens and lines its tranquil avenues. Fleur de Portofino creates a crisp and bright floral accord from this bloom, then surrounds it with effervescent citrus and acacia honey. The fragrance creates an effect of sheer floral possession that is incomparably hypnotic and extremely bold.”

Early reviews have indicated this is a very floral frag, and floral scents are not my favorite, so I’m not placing all my eggs in this Tom Ford basket just yet. Rather, I’m giving another Diana Vreeland offering, ‘Smashingly Brilliant’ a look-see, or smell-see as the case may be.

The House of Vreeland’s new summer  scent is said to contain bergamot, geranium, lemon, and suede accord. I tend to favor bergamot for this time of the year, and citrus is usually an integral part of any spring/summer fragrance. It’s not always lasting, but neither is spring. ‘Brilliant’ sound quite promising: “Smashingly Brilliant, created by Clement Gavarry, was inspired by Mrs. Vreeland’s love for the island of Capri. A play on contrasts, the fragrance combines the zesty freshness of citrus notes with a deep textured background. The burst of Lemon Oil and Calabrian Bergamot Oil is enhanced with aromatic notes of verbena, basil, and juniper berries. A luxurious heart of Geranium Lemon Living creates a bridge to the sensual dry down of suede accord and enveloping woods, offering a trail of mysterious depth and raw elegance.”

Capri or Portofino… it’s a beautiful dilemma. The battle for summer has begun.

These are grey days. They call for grey tweed and flannel, wool and down-lined coats. The sky blends its dull shades into the mournful hues of the earth, and all of it bleeds together in one dismal monochromatic pile of wretchedness. Into this lackluster landscape, an interjection of something slightly sharp is needed, a jolt to wake up the senses, an inhalation to prime the points of inspiration. I thought I’d find it in Black Saffron by Byredo, but that burns almost too hotly and too sweetly for this time of the year. Better to save that for a winter party, where a smoldering bit of pungent fruitiness is more suited to accent an outfit of red. For the average office day of suits and wingtips, I turn to Tom Ford and his ‘Grey Vetiver’ masterpiece.

Like his recent ‘Patchouli Absolu’ Private Blend, Ford takes a classic (read: overdone) and imprints his pristine style and trademark elegance on it. In this instance, the age-old tried and true of elders ‘vetiver’ gets a fresh make-over that refines it for the modern man. (While many of Ford fragrances are deliciously unisex, this one is on the traditionally-masculine side, so entrenched is vetiver in the history of grandfatherly cologne.)

The latter is the reason for my hesitance in coming around to ‘Grey Vetiver’ – it always reminded of older gentlemen and their safe but uneventful olfactory adornments. Ford invests his version with a few updated accents. The sharpness comes in the form of citrus – tart and fresh and bright, like the sliver of sunlight caught in an icicle. Beneath this quick note is the heart of the matter – a creamy vetiver – and it carries for a few hefty hours with vetiver’s traditional potency. A few woody notes lend a wisp of warmth to the cooly elegant proceedings, rounding out the journey wondrously. More pin stripes than herringbone, more cashmere than cotton, ‘Grey Vetiver’ is a modern-day classic, and no one does that better than Tom Ford.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I have not gone off Tom Ford. Despite recent dabblings in Byredo and this Valentine wish (which is still in effect), my heart belongs to Mr. Ford. I’m simply not a fan of absolutely everything the man produces, which includes the recent Noir Extreme. I did not at all like the original ‘Noir’ he put out, so an Extreme version of that has the expected effect. It’s nothing against Ford, it’s more against the Noir.

Of course, in time tastes change, so I won’t say that one day I won’t be completely enamored of Noir, but that day has not yet arrived. Until it does, I’ll satisfy my Ford cravings with any one of his Private Blends, with the exception of ‘Noir De Noir.’ See, it really is a noir thing.

A perfect example of the evolution of cologne likes and dislikes is my relationship with ‘Grey Vetiver.’ When I first tried that I was decidedly unimpressed. Again, it was due mostly to a dislike of vetiver over any fault of Ford’s. Yet as the years progressed, I came around to the Grey, and it’s about to become a winter staple of my fragrance garden. There’s a lesson here. Never say never, and always give yourself the option of changing your mind. One more thing: Tom Ford is rarely wrong. The rest of us just take a little longer to get there.

When one’s funds have depleted to the point where one can’t afford a new Private Blend from Tom Ford, one mixes and matches and comes up with a hybrid from what is already on hand. In this instance, I was seeking out some of his delicious ‘Oud Fleur’ without the $225 price tag, so I perused the cologne cabinet and came up with a comparable pair of Private Blends: ‘Oud Wood‘ and ‘Santal Blush’. The Oud is a classic Ford component, but I wanted to sweeten it up for the holiday season, so I added some of the ‘Santal Blush’ – and the result is pretty fantastic.

For the most part I frown upon mixing colognes. There’s too much possibility for disaster, and one never knows how those molecules are going to mingle or fight. It’s much safer not to mix and match. Some fragrances, however, are meant to intertwine, and this includes a number of Ford’s Private Blends. Being that they’re supposedly based in essential oils, they have a better chance at being compatible, and that was certainly the case with this poor-man’s facsimile of ‘Oud Fleur.’

As we get closer to Christmas, I’ll phase out the ‘Oud’ portion and stick with a few pure spritzes of ‘Santal Blush.’ It’s a perfect scent for those evenings when all is calm and all is bright.

In the fast-paced whirlwind of the end of August, I missed a post celebrating the birthday of one of the men I most admire: Tom Ford. My obsession with his Private Blend fragrance collection has been well-documented in these pages, and since a few have asked which ones I like best, I present my current inventory, with links to those which have been featured here:

• Amber Absolute
• Arabian Wood
• Bois Marocain
• Japon Noir
• Lavender Palm
• Mandarino di Amalfi
• Neroli Portofino
• Oud Wood
• Plum Japonais
• Rive d’Ambre
• Santal Blush

Among these are a few extra-special favorites: I adore ‘Amber Absolute’ for its smoky amber richness, ‘Plum Japonais’ for its fruity exotic sweetness, and ‘Mandarino di Amalfi’ for its summery citrus freshness. I usually save ‘Santal Blush’ for the holidays, as it’s almost over-the-top in decadence (yes, I try to rein things in at quieter times of the year.) The more woodsy options – ‘Oud Wood’ and ‘Bois Marocain’ are more suitable for day-to-day wear, but make no mistake: Tom Ford’s Private Blends are special, so I only wear them on important days.

As for the man himself, he recently did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and managed to make even that messy bit of waterlogged madness look sexy. See here:

Happy (Belated) Birthday to a master of style and scent.

As much as I love Tom Ford (and clearly I do, much to my bank account’s distress) I have not found most of his fragrances befitting the lighter touch needed for summer (with the possible exceptions of ‘Neroli Portofino’ and ‘Azure Lime’ – and maybe ‘Lavender Palm‘ on cooler days.) Mr. Ford’s Private Blends are usually too strong and dark to work well in the hotter months. Luckily, he just released two cousins to the Neroli collection, one of which I purchased on the first day of our recent family vacation, just in time to wear it to the beach.

‘Mandarino di Amalfi’ retains a strong thread of Neroli, but adds notes of tarragon, bergamot, and citrus. It is refreshing and effervescent, and manages to maintain a decent sillage – no easy feat for the lighter frags of summer. Citrus is notorious for disappearing soon after it is applied, and while this does simmer down to a skin scent with a couple of hours, that’s what I look for in the heat of the season.

So enamored of this scent am I that I’m already seriously considering its second cousin, ‘Costa Azzurra’. I tried that one out as well, and it has a slightly smokier shade to it, something perfect or the end of the summer. That’s a long way off, and I am in no way going to rush through the sun and warmth, so for now I’m basking in the sparkle and glow of ‘Mandarino di Amalfi’. It’s perfect for the beach, and the aquamarine shades of an undulating ocean. In fact, those are the memories already embedded in my heart from just a few short days on the Cape Cod shore, and Tom Ford wafting through the sea breeze.

Fragrance is one of the strongest memory-triggers. One day in the future I will spray a bit of this Mandarino, and be instantly transported back to that magical time and place when I watched my niece and nephew bounding across the beach, kicking up sand, carrying seaweed, and playing in the sunshine.

If there’s one fault I’ve found in Tom Ford’s Private Blends (and there are, actually, a few – but most of them are a matter of taste) it’s that with the notable exception of the exquisite Neroli Portofino, and possibly Azure Lime, there are none that are truly summer fragrances. His touch is simply too potent, his essence too powerful. The Private Blends are a lot of bang for the buck (and given their hefty price-point, that’s saying quite a bit.) The problem comes in the heat of the season, when heavy scents are the last thing I want on my body. I want light and crisp, effervescent and airy – and that is decidedly not Mr. Ford’s way with fragrance.

That may change with the arrival of two new Private Blends that are whispered to be cousins of Neroli Portofino. As he did with his Oud collection, he will be offering two new blends in the same vein as the Neroli, and the bottles alone look worthy of purchase (in shades ricocheting off the original Neroli bottle, imitating the aqua ocean and mesmerizing like the Mediterranean sea.)

Mandarino di Amalfi sounds like the more promising of the two, featuring tarragon, mandarin orange, mint and lemon. Tom Ford finally delves deeper into the citrus grove, and I like the possibilities at hand. Costa Azzurra is the second blend, said to focus on oak, driftwood, lavender and vanilla. As with most Ford items, what’s on paper is often quite different when sampled in person, so I will be anxiously awaiting the arrival of these two lovelies, one of which may be my new summer scent. Get your olfactory engines running.

I’m a big-ticket boy when it comes to gifts. Flowers and chocolates are nice, but they’re not sufficient. However, for our upcoming wedding anniversary (May 7!) I’m going to go easy on Andy and his pocketbook – well, easy in Alan-land. Typically, I’ll drag him into Neiman Marcus or  Hermès and politely pick out a bottle of a Tom Ford Private Blend or the latest Hermès cologne.

This time around, I’m pleading for Tom Ford, but not one of the pricey Private Blends – I’m requesting one of the, ahem, mainstream fragrances: Black Orchid (which clocks in at a much more reasonable price point, and is not to be confused with Black Violet.) Up until this time, I’d ignored this one, being that it was over in the perfume section, and while I’m not averse to wearing perfume now and then, I tend to find most of them too sweet and floral for my liking. The last time I was in Sephora, however, I noticed that they had put it in the men’s fragrance section (Andy, you walk in and turn to the left wall, then go about three-quarters of the way into the store). I knew it was likely a store decision based on who was buying it, as the fragrance had been in the women’s section since it came out a number of years ago, so I gave it a try and fell in love. Maybe all these years of wearing Mr. Ford’s scents had finely attuned my sense of smell to better appreciate what I had hitherto ignored. Either way, I fell in love with Black Orchid, despite its questionable name. (I don’t know of a single orchid that’s very fragrant.)

It also has a sweet-enough aspect to make it palatable for spring – and I’m big on being seasonally appropriate when it comes to fragrance. I’ll grant you your white pants before Memorial Day nonsense if you must, but when it comes to scent, please show some sense of decency. Even with that sweetness, however, Black Orchid may be too much for many, and that’s precisely why I like it. The nights in spring are just as dark as the nights in fall.

{Available at Sephora in Colonie Center, first floor. I’ll supply a map if necessary.}

The tricky transition from February into March has traditionally been difficult to navigate as far as fragrance goes. It’s still winter, but I’m dying to break into something lighter, so the scents that worked in the fall don’t fare as well now. The heavier ones that saw us through the holidays and early winter (‘Amber Absolute,’ ‘Japon Noir’ and ‘Santal Blush’) are simply too much. We are almost, but not quite, into the early spring forest of ‘Oud Wood’ and I confess I’ve already spritzed some because I just couldn’t wait. Yet before that we have ‘Bois Marocain’. The latest addition to my Private Blend Collection, it forms the perfect bridge from the weightier winter musks to a less oppressive olfactory experience, and would also work well in fall.

Because the Private Blends are made from essential oils, many are perfectly suited to mixing and matching – something that should rarely be done with most colognes, even by the most experienced hands. In this instance, given its woody, cedar base, I like to pair ‘Bois Marocain’ with the aforementioned ‘Oud Wood’. Both have aspects that blend nicely together. Mr. Ford seems to be on an Oud overload of late, but I happen to love it, and I still want to more fully explore ‘Oud Fleur’ and ‘Tobacco Oud’.

While I’m looking forward to the new ‘London’ Private Blend, I’ve also heard whispers that there are other things to do with Tom Ford coming down the line. Now that is something that takes away the most trying of winter blahs.

Attention: Tom Ford’s latest Private Blend ‘London’ is now available in Terminals 3, 4, 5 at Heathrow Airport. Just a short while ago it was only available at his Knightsbridge store. Now, it seems to be on the slow-move across the world, and it’s only a matter of time before it reaches these shores (fingers crossed). It definitely sounds like an intriguing scent, a bit darker and less feminine than his Jardin series, and more similar to his recent Oud infatuation. As should be apparent by this third post on ‘London’,  I simply can’t wait to try this one out. Tom Ford rocks.