Tobacco Oud Tom Ford

Desirability: Decant

Source: www.buro247.ru

I met Tobacco Oud while visiting a friend during my travels and became pleasantly acquainted with it over the course of my stay. I had previously bypassed the grey-bottled Oud trio from Tom Ford partly because I was a little weary of oud and partly because I flinch at the pricing of TF fragrances. Yes the range has a few fantastic scents but seriously? Anyway I digress.

A heavy scent this one is. I don't usually give a stuff as to whether my SOTD would be better suited to colder temperatures than the tropical humidity I live in 365 days of the year but I would advise that less is more with the likes of Tobacco Oud. It does quieten down but that's after at least 3-4 hours into the wearing.

I smell tobacco, whisky and wood. A rich, sweet and aromatic tobacco that feels warm and rugged. The whisky in Tobacco Oud is a mellow fellow, I'm on the very early stages of the learning curve for whisky and I still wince at the perceived harshness of Scottish malts I've been introduced to, but there are no rough edges to Tobacco Oud, it's smooth, smoky and very delicious. The drydown is sweeter than when it first started and reminds me of incense rather than tobacco by this stage. On a side note I prefer this to Phaedon's Tabac Rouge that my friend is partial to but which I found to be a little on the sweeter side of tobacco scents and while I do have a sweet tooth I don't always indulge it and Tabac Rouge is a sweet treat. Despite the dark tobacco and smoky whisky I don't find Tobacco Oud to be brooding or masculine, certainly it doesn't conjure up images of cowboys, instead it feels like it belongs in a swanky smoking lounge or whisky club where luxury is like daily bread for the crowd there.

Phenomenal longevity, a potent beginning that lasts for quite a few hours before it fades but remaining noticeable for days! So despite me failing to discover any oud in Tobacco Oud, I still think this is worth sampling and definitely worth getting a decant at least. Since it lasts forever and a day, a full bottle may not be required unless you are of the happy breed that is content with just one perfume in your closet. 

Doolciiisssimo Hilde Soliani

Desirability: Full bottle

Source: Fragrantica

I tried three Hilde Soliani scents today including Mmm and CiocoRosissimo and while all were interesting experiences, some more than others, Doolciiisssimo has the siren call that keeps drawing my nose to my wrist to inhale the scent over and over again.

I enjoy tobacco in lighter doses such as in Serge Lutens' Chergui and L'Artisan's Havana Vanille, cherry can be difficult and most times either smells quite artificial or fleeting, the most promising I've chanced upon recently was Hilde Soliani's Bambolina. Cherry and tobacco though? I had my doubts. Proved unfounded. This is no cigarette ashtray or the malodorous smoker's breath.  It's like sweet aromatic cherry flavoured pipe tobacco and smells nothing like cigarettes or cigars. On a side note I never realised that pipe tobacco is about as complex and interesting as wine, what with the different tobacco leaves, the different ways of curing the leaves, mixing and blending several types of tobacco and the addition of casings to give it flavours like whisky, maple syrup and cherry for example. The cherry note in Doolciiisssimo is so realistic that visions of the dark red succulent fruit come to mind with every sniff and I can practically taste the tart sweetness. Vanilla is there in the background, sweet and creamy but whilst there are suggestions of gourmand in Doolciiisssimo, it is not very sweet for those who are wary of smelling like dessert platters.

After finishing the rest of my sample, I've decided that I do want this cherry tobacco scent in my life and as luck would have it, Luckyscent currently has it on discount! 

Tobacco Rose Papillon Artisan Perfumes

It starts out smelling like a dewy fresh greenish rose like Pasteum Rose by Eau D'Italie and sweet rolling tobacco which has this caramel whisky smell that contrasts beautifully against the strong rose scent. 

As it dries, the scent loses some of its initial sparkling freshness and becomes a duskier rose-tinted, herbal and earthy mixture. It settles as a sweet, waxy rose and earthy musk and remains like that for the rest of its lifetime. Despite evolving through the above phases, I find that Tobacco Rose stays a greenish scent and not the woody dark rose I was hoping for. 

It stays close to the skin and lasted for a good few hours, I got about four to six hours of this skin scent. It's nice but from the Papillon trio, I still like Anubis best. 

Bois Blond Parfumerie Generale

Desirability: Adoption by a more appreciative nose

Straight up I smell alcohol swabs...a bitter and stinging combination of grass or leaves and galbanum. Very green and mineral, almost unbearably so, thankfully relief comes in the form of a sweet herbal accord reminiscent of The Body Shop's Tea Tree oil concentrate. Tobacco isn't listed but I smell that, not the listed white tobacco note which coincidentally, does not smell like tobacco, but supposedly more like jasmine. However I smell nothing floral here.

With time it progresses into smoother, smoky wood and sweet tobacco scent and loses its discomfiting opening.  It's as if someone twiddled the knob on the light dimmer and lowered it from blinding white to a soft yellow glow.


Tilda Swinton

After a week of wearing and testing mostly Orientals and gourmands, this opens up a whole different realm of scent. It's nicely queer and unique but I feel unsettled wearing this. I think it's more masculine although I can imagine a female boss wearing this. Or an androgynous female like Tilda Swinton would carry this well.

It stays rather soft on me but lasts quite a while, about 5 hours as of now.

Les Jeux sont Faits Jovoy

Les Jeux sont Fait. The bets have been placed.

Damn, this is a boozy opening and a loud one too. Rum, lots of it, reminding me of my mother dousing the Christmas fruit cake with rum, starting in September, so that when it is taken out of its container come December, the smell of rum soaked fruit fills the room. The cumin battles with the rum in the opening, but the tussle doesn't last long and they agree to a truce, living in relative accord with a dry, semi sweet, woody base (patchouli, dried fruit and tobacco present and accounted for).

Dark, luscious amber all tanked up. I smell incense in the base but it's not listed in the notes. Les Jeux sont Faits reminds me of a mix between Serge Lutens' Arabie, Chergui and Ambre Sultan, but not as honeyed, darker...more brooding. Feels more masculine initially but becomes sweeter and warmer with time, a woman could carry this off, a woman like Marlene Dietrich with her smoky, hypnotic voice.



Trivia: I stumbled upon a book by the same name, Les Jeux sont Faits, It was originally a screenplay, written by Jean-Paul Satre(part of the philosophical movement interested in existentialism) in 1943, in which two people, Ève and Pierre who have never met before, are destined soulmates, both dying in premature and violent deaths before meeting in the afterlife. They are given a second shot at life for 24 hours to prove their love, in order to keep that second chance. However both are distracted by unfinished business in their previous lives and that keeps them from concentrating on their love and they fail in their quest, dying once more. The story backs Satre's belief in determinism, i.e the philosophical position that for every event and action, there exists conditions that could result in no other eventuality, whether good or bad intentions abound, that destiny will always win over the power of life. In this play, Satre also shows that it is near impossible to know if a choice is the right one even if backed by the best intentions and that there really isn't an absolute truth or morality.

*An English translation is available to read on openlibrary.org (not affiliated, just read it there!)

“Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’- Khalil Gibran.