Reviews of Black Orchid (2006)
by Tom Ford

An amazing opening but the drydown was very generic and disappointing.

If you don’t agree with me about the drydown, but could do without the topnotes (or you can even take it or leave it), try Scent Intense or Nu instead. Your bank balance will certainly thank you for it.

Here are the notes I collected from various sources on the internet for the Perfume: Notice the Dark Chocolate in the base...only found at two sources.

Top: Black Truffle, Ylang Ylang, Bergamot, Black Currant, Mandarine, Jasmine, Black Gardenia
Mid: Lotus Wood, Black Orchid, other fruits and florals
Base: Dark Chocolate (from FragranceX, also listed as Noir Gourmand at Saks), Patchouli, Incense, Vetiver, Vanilla Tears, Balsam, Sandlewood

When I first sniffed out of the bottle during a recent shopping trip, I was entranced, and couldn't wait to spritz this on. Sorrowfully for me, that's as enticing as the scent got. I got my hands on a decant, and eagerly tried it for the first time last night. It was with great anticipation and relief that my first impression was indeed marvelous...the scent was so very...all over the place. What was I smelling? It has only to get better! It was a HOT scent, a touch exotic, with definite blasts of vanilla and oriental spice, and what I'm imagining as "orchid".

Well, as interesting and confusing as the first spritz was, the rest was oh, so disappointing. After about 15-20 minutes, the thrill was gone. What developed was a common oriental (although marvelously smooth) with a hint of B.O. Now, knowing that Chocolate was a note, I recognized this as chocolate...and not something that won me over...just out of place. The whole of the scent got very heady, and bordered on bothersome.
After an hour, the chocolate was still present, but the scent had died down to roar, a simple spicey oriental. The next day even the chocolate was gone, with remnants of the everyday spice.
I will try this again, but don't have much hope. I rather detest orientals, wishing that this one would have change my perception. It didn't. I wouldn't shell out cash for this, and would pass if it was handed to me. What a disappointment!

Gawd! The name is so enticing, and the reality so crass! I love many complex and "challenging" orientals, but this is not among them. On first blast it has a sickly sweet gourmand, boozy, faintly rotten animal pong -- after a few moments I detect an ambery accord similar to Prada -- and then it quickly devolves into something anemic, faintly metallic, and synthetic. Such a disappointment. I recommend sampling before buying.

After all the hype and expectation, this was a mega disappointment. Sickly, headache enducing and syrupy. I imagine a bordello in a red light area to smell like this. I could not smell any truffle or indeed any of the listed notes. My husband gave me a wide berth the evening I wore my sample, and told me I had an 'unpleasant odour'. I think it was his hint for me to hit the shower!!

Does anyone remember the store chain Spencer's Gifts? (They have an online entity now.) They sold/sell gag gifts, semi-obscene t-shirts and posters shown under blacklights, lava lamps, etc. I didn't remember that the store even had a particular smell until I tried Black Orchid last night and Bam! I went back in time 30+ years and found myself standing 10 feet into the store at the mall. Freaky, man. There are layers of scent emanating from the store shelves: waxy pads of sandalwood and patchouli for hippy-wannabees and sugary sweet smells that I can only believe came from edible panties, and there's another odor I can't quite name (and maybe I don't want to?). Once I had that mental picture, it was hard to shift focus to a more neutral context.

The high- and low-pitched top notes start quite some distance apart and take their time settling toward each other. I was hoping once the candy faded, I was in for some pleasure. Twenty minutes in, I was reminded of the feel, although not exactly the smell of mure et musc. The arrangement never quite came together for me because the candy panties smell hung around too long. Yet, there is something compelling about the scent of the sample sprayer itself. So, maybe someone with the right chemistry can bring out the truffle undertones I'd prefer to have encountered.

oh...my...g-g-g-god! one awful smell and i love frags of many stripes. this stuff billowed, sweet and cloying, out of the sample vial, followed me thru the next 4 hours while downgrading to a vanillin (not vanilla) with a cadaverous rotten wood undertone that COULDN'T BE SCRUBBED AWAY! gives orchids a bad name. not only that but the crusty perfume woman at nordie's insisted on giving me a tom ford bio even after i told her i already knew about him...

Hell of an expensive scent that smells rather synthetic and mainstream. Bold, with berry and creamy notes, the wood and incense is choked off of its beautiful qualities due to this berry-floral, Aunt Betty has just entered the room smell. You'll be better off reading about a black orchid in a mystery novel rather than trying to read the black orchid in this composition. Did Tom Ford really have a hand at creating this? Doesn't smell like it at all!

Given this by a friend who knew I love orchids....

What a terrible stench! The truffle was not as bad on her as it was on me, but we both scrubbed it off - or at least tried to!

It does endure - a plus if you like it.
I get none of the sweeter, deeper notes that others love - only funk and stench. No development past the awful rot.

I sooo wanted to love this! But it's impossible on me. I tried to wear it a second time - same bad luck.

Even the friend who gave me the cool-looking bottle doesn't want it (sigh).

What a waste of money. One of the worst disappoint-scents in my career!

I am neither a fan nor a hater of Tom Ford and his olfactory concepts. When his first scent was approaching, I was easily able to hold myself together and wait till whenever it hits the local counters. Thought he packaging is quite beautiful (though not particularly original, considering similar designs of Nuit de Noel and Habanita), the name is particularly corny and over used in my opinion. So you see, when I mean disappointment I refer to it purely in the olfactory sense.
At first, Black Orchid seems to stand up to all the expectations it tried to set in the packaging and marketing campaign. The opening notes are definitely luxurious, Femme-Fatale infuses mushroom sautéed in their very own arrogant sexual secretion while deeply inhaling spices. There is some nicely done chocolate accord as well… But if you think this is the base, you have been miserably deceived. These carnal notes wear off quickly, gradually revealing a phase of rum-soaked berries (not so bad on their own, really) and than a short lived rose opens up, only to be brutally murdered by an aquatic patchouli accord. From now on it will only go downhill, resembling a better-version-of-Allure-Sensuelle, which while is quite an achievement on its own rights, it is also frightfully disappointing in its own original way:
In Black Orchid, Tom Ford had proved to the world that it is possible to create a perfume with marvelous opening that smells worser and worser as it develops on the skin, thus creating the most disappointing fragrance of 2006.

* I can accept the idea of a perfume opening with less than lovely notes, and becoming better thanks to interaction with the skin (though this is not always the case, of course, because of body chemistry etc.). But to intentionally create such a devolution from fantastic to unoriginal is quite insulting.

Tom Ford get what he asked for: it does smell "like a man's crotch" (and I quote the designer himself) Bravo, Tom! (NOT)