Reviews of Italian Cypress (2008)
by Tom Ford

I love a great cypress note (Cypres Musc by Creed was love-at-first sniff when I smelled it years ago) and Italian Cypress is a great cypress scent. In the first few seconds the resinous, coniferous notes are stiff, dry, bitter and very wonderful. Let’s call it the Yatagan-effect (I love it!) but then it head spinningly transforms into a wide expanse of green pine needles, fresh air (well, the effect of oxygenated pine needles) and a breezy mosaic of cypress trees, leaves, twigs, branches, sap, the whole darn forest. An extraordinary beginning! A green so true, that if you gathered together all of the shades of green in the world and picked the greenest, the epitome of green, this is the one you would choose.

But the top notes are not enough to win me over completely. The base notes are just like Polo (1978) by Ralph Lauren. As the scent progresses its parallel similarities to Polo are astonishing. The creamy wood effect. The whiff of leather at the edges of the green. Ford managed to copy everything about it except for Polo’s longevity since Italian Cypress lasts on me only about 3-4 hours and then disappears (unlike Polo which lasts + 8 hours).

It's dry and woody alright, but not quite naturally woody enough for me as it has a quite soapy feeling to it too as well as a strong air of classic gentlemanly cologny. "Like something your Dad would like to wear" - not mine, he's not that kind of dad, but yes, that's the general idea. I wonder if I quickly grow anosmic to the scent (maybe because it's so close to a single note) because it's barely there, no sillage at all. I tried to refresh my nose with coffee beans but that seems to have had the opposite effect - maybe the scent of Italian Cypress is too close to the warm, roasted scent of coffee beans for it to work? The little I can smell with my nose pressed to my skin is nice enough though, a warm, comforting, soapy/smoky wood.