Oud Minérale (2017)
by Tom Ford

You're taking a stroll on a wet, rocky beach adjacent to an evergreen forest. Someone has built a driftwood fire in the distance. As you walk, you sip a dram of Laphroaig and breathe in the sea air, with wafts of salt spray, seaweed, and smoke from the distant campfire pairing perfectly with the smoked peat notes in your Islay whisky.

This smells more like the ocean than any other supposed marine fragrance I've smelled personally. As a sailor and aficionado of Islay Scotch, this scent was love at first sniff. The name is a bit misleading though, because if there's any oud in this it's so well blended that it just fades into the woodsy resinous base, adding its magic there. It is a very unique scent, and one of my favorites.

Oud Minérale is fascinating.

It's such a weird combination of notes and yet it all works together unexpectedly well. Plus, it smells exactly like the beach. And I mean EXACTLY like the beach, with all its delightful smells and all of its wretched bad odours. It's really quite uncanny and I feel instantly transported to one of my local beaches.

Performance wise, it's bloody brilliant. I am right now in the tenth hour of a wear and it is still projecting strongly into my nostrils from only one spray in each elbow pit. Quite unbelievable for something so "marine".

Yet, having said all that, and despite the fact I find it intriguing and love its performance, I don't actually really like how it smells. One minute, it smells fine, and then the next, it smells totally off putting. Utterly confusing and I can't make up my mind on it.

I suppose, however, that further adds to its mystery and what makes it so interesting to me.

Neutral.

I'm giving this a Neutral for now even though I'm not impressed on this blind buy. It like going down a freshly paved road. I mean is Tar the scent he was looking for?? I'll give it time as maybe it will get better. ++++
I'm trying this for the 2nd time today. It does get better after a few hours.The Tar scent fades away and I could see that it might take time to win me over. I'll stay with the neutral as its not high on my list as yet.

I'm just not liking the seaweed mixed the the tom-ford-linade. I simply don't think this smells good. Almost seems like a fragrance that is unwilling to commit. It is aquatic without being too aquatic, woody without being too woody. I feel like if they would have made the oud more medicinal and astringent this would have worked better. It feels like a tweaked Sel Marin. It performed really well, so it has that going for it. It also does a good job of stating what it is. If you read that this is one of those salty version aquatics with a pinch of fake blond wood it will get you there. Wearing it a couple of times, I liked it more than my initial dislike, but I'm not sure it rises all the way to neutral. It is a low neutral to me, but I'm knocking back to down based on the fact that I expect better from a fragrance that is expensive. Cost. Thumbs down.

Well...this thing is awesome if what you seek is smelling like gasoline. I cannot see though why someone would enjoy emitting such a sick smell. It is one of the worst fragrances i have tried. And i honestly wanted to like it so much...