Reviews of Moss Breches (2007)
by Tom Ford

The top notes have the most personality in this fragrance. There's a distinct dried-herb accord; a touch of the garrigue, and then an upwelling of sweetness. This warm, sweet honeycomb note gives Moss Breches a sore-throat lozenge feel.

The balance is brief, however, and quickly the herbs and honey vanish, leaving a pleasant and unassuming vanillic amber with a mossy touch.

It's nice, but it doesn't motivate me to restock in either bottle or decant form once my sample runs out.

Moss Breches: whew..what a scent. it reminded me of and for all you know, it's inspired by the classic release we all know as, Van Cleef & Arpels Pour homme....Today i happened to dab a lot more of Moss Breches and what struck me the most is the way patchouli is done here. very wet, sloggy patch i must add. not as dry as in thundra or Ingrant patchouli. this has a very wet forest floor kind of accord. it's clearly visible upon application, almost watery quality, within 5-7 minutes it slowly takes the backstage for other accords to follow in... i have stated elsewhere that i get this vibhuti accord in No. 88, which is white ash, it is very camphory sweet and dry in smell..and exudes a white incense like accord. i could also distantly relate it to an intense version of Chanels masterpiece, Coromandel(could be the patch playing tricks with me). it's pretty spicy in it's opening...but, where SL's Ambre Sultan exudes a color which is golden.. Moss Breches exudes the color white for me. so, it's spicy, but not in the spicy amber type scent we know of. maybe there is Angelica in there that gives it this "white" feel... that said, i dont get that image of Moss from it until i reach the mids to base section. whne someone mentons Moss, the firsts scent that springs to mind is Leonard Ph...however, the mossy nature of this scent is clearly expressed and it's not the smell of wet moss on stone after rain..it's more like dry, golden hued moss over stones...lovely! Patchouli indeed holds this scent and forms the core. but theres a lot of other things going on which doesnt make it a patch exclusive scent. this is a must try for anyone who appreciates VC&A ph, C&S's No.88, Creed Angelique Incens & Chanel's Coromandel, and also Leonard ph to an extent (i dont mean to imply all these scents smell similar to each other, it's just a reference, that im sure we all can relate to).

Moss Breches, initially, comes across as an old-fashioned smelling chypre – with herbal spicy accords that slap you around the face, like an irate father sporting a string vest, golden medallion and an unkempt moustache. The drydown, however, is almost a world away – with patchouli and vanilla being the main players by this stage.

I can certainly understand why some would appreciate this but it's not something I would bother investing in.

[Original submission date: 05 January 2009]

Moss Breches? It's an affectation for Tom Ford, the boy from Texas, to give his fragrances French names, but since everyone does it, it's also a little difficult to fault him for it. In English I guess this means moss gap or breach or possibly foothold. But maybe the moss in Texas has a different aroma because the scent bares no resemblance to moss in my world.

On first application, I get a strong whiff of the beeswax absolute - sweet and honeyed. After 15 minutes or so some of the spicyness appears although it doesn't smell to me like the herbal quality I would expect from sage, tarragon and rosemary but more like cinnamon and nutmeg. Later I get vanilla subdued by just a hint of patchouli.

This is a pleasant, wearable fragrance on me. But I save my thumbs up for the ones that really wow me.

Fragrance notes (from TF site): woods, spices, beeswax absolute, clary sage, tarragon, rosemary, labdanum, patchouli, benzoin.
I'm in agreement with Vibert. I'm underwhelmed by this scent. I was expecting great herbal notes, a green experience. I call this a honeyed brown sort of scent. Ambery vanilla from the resins hit my nose from the get-go, and persisted throughout. I don't have a complaint against the patchouli. It is restrained, and adds an interesting tangy note to the rich scent. Ultimately, it is too ambery for me to endorse or enjoy. It is a luxurious scent, some would find it classy. My complaints are as follows: where is the moss, where are the herbal notes, where are the woods? It is a pleasant sort of scent, but not terribly interesting. The Breches in the title refers to a region of France. The moss in the title? Your guess is as good as mine.

A deep, rich spicy chypre with a hint of a "soap and water" accord. A great opening but goes into a spicy gourmand (as Vibert said) and dries down into a wan vanilla.

A deep, spicy and herbal impression slowly melts into something more animalic, resiny, and oriental; a strong allusion to chypre construction can't be missed in this scent. The whole seems particularly innovative in the weight of spice and herbals vis-à-vis the chypre theme. The total lack of florals in a chypre is quite striking, really. This is barely balanced at the tipping point, but its audacity gives it the edge it needs to pull off the stunt with panache.

Mean green sexy machine! A classic chypre, with a blast of tarragon and sage to open your sinuses at first. From there, it's all about the labdanum, spices (can't quite put my finger on them, though), patchouli and benzoin.

What comes to mind first and foremost for me is the old Givenchy Gentleman -- I get much of that with the patchouli-heavy drydown. Still, this has no civet that I can detect (unlike Gentleman) and a slightly more unisex dry-down.

Gorgeous "dark" green frag, but the price tag (as with the other Tom Fords in this line) is, for me, prohibitive. (A huge thumbs up, though!)

Moss? This is a spicy gourmand fragrance, not some walk in the woods. The first few minutes are excruciatingly sweet to my nose, as honeyed green hay notes ride on a huge wave of cinnamon to quash any of the forest floor accord I'd hoped for in this fragrance. With time the green notes recede, leaving cinnamon and honey on their own. The honey in Moss Breches is raw, pungent, and animalic, a bit like that in Serge Lutens's Miel de Bois, though far less potent.

As it dries down Moss Breches leaves a trail of soft woods and vanilla. A pretty exit, but disappointing if it's a chypre you're expecting. Taken as a whole, Moss Breches is far from revolutionary, and even a little bit dull. If it's a spicy oriental I'm after, I'll stick to Noir Epices, Eau Lente, or Cimabue, thank you.

I'd call this a "musky chypre" or "musky fougere" in the vein of Jicky. It does not have the distinct lavender note of Jicky, the herbs are more vague and mossy, but it shares the combination of green herbal notes and a sweet, soft, animalic warmth. Like Jicky, it's also a bit "perfumey" in feeling, in a sort of old-fashioned way. I like it.

It's very difficult to combine two such different families as green and spice, but Moss Breeches does it splendidly. A fabulous fragrance that surprises and enchants like the wild forest spirits it's named after! Love it!