Noir De Noir by Tom Ford, 2007

This is a very claustrophobic composition that features some notes as truffles, rose, aoud, patchouli, tobacco, woods and spices. It's an oriental chypre that expresses itself as a sort of edible concoction with its taste of chocolate and caramel flavoured by truffles and with its warm, dark rose the smell of which rises up holding on its work until the dry down. In the first part of its development i detect an accord of saffron-rose-aoud which is the backbone of the fragrance. In this fase the scent is earthy and a bit medicinal. The slightly pharmaceutical initial whiff lasts a while before the scent slides towards a sort of resinous juice smelling of chocolate and vanilla with a slightly " gasolinic"  undertone of truffles. The rose is still there and shows a powdery, obscure temperament so far from anything ethereal or potpourri. As already said by others the rose-saffron accord comes out in a different way comparatively with the implementation of the same accord made by Montale. This is not the earthy and brash accord of Aoud Lime, it's not rural or brutal; despite the barely medicinal starting the blend of aoud with creamy notes, spices and rose becomes edible and mellow as a sort of aged sweet liqueur fermented for years in order to turn it silky. In this process of fermentation the tobacco note emits some smoky, bitter-mild trace. This fragrance is mysterious and very delicious, it's perfect for a secret rendez vous with a dark lady in a hidden shelter. Unisex. The longevity and the projection are powerful.

At first, I was a little repelled by this oddly discordant composition (black rose, black truffle, saffron, crocus flower, patchouli and vanilla. On my skin, the first notes to emerge were very hard, dark, woody and "mediciny" (if there is such a word!). The dry-down came quite late (about 45 minutes) but it was well worth the wait. The entire composition finally started to make sense. It remained quite dark which is fine (after all, Noir de noir means Black of Black) but the vanilla became more present and had a much appreciated toning down effect on the harder top notes. Although there is no tonka in the olfactory pyramid, there is some intriguing tonka-like note I cannot identify. Noir de noir is not as intense as I first thought it would be but it has a reasonable longevity. It is quite distinctive and very chic as well. It also is a shared fragrance in the best possible sense: Dark enough for a man, sweet enough for a woman (although it can go either way!). In fact, the only negative comment I could possibly make about this great fragrance is it's outrageous price. Where I live, it sells for 215$ (somewhere between 165 and 170) for only 50ml. I know it is a very exclusive "private blend" but still...