I’m the odd man out on Tom Ford’s Private Blend line. I like a few of them, but by and large they strike me as not nearly so interesting or well-done as the (aspirational) prices might imply. I waited a good long time to try them at all, and when I finally worked my way through the initial twelve 2007 releases, the only one I really wanted to own was Oud Wood, and it was easy enough to control that lemming given that Yves Saint Laurent M7 is cheaper and easier to come by. Since then, there have been nine new additions to the line, including the four fragrances in the pleasant but comically overpriced White Musk collection.

Arabian Wood is one of the later additions. It was reportedly created for a “a well-known Arabian sheik” (ok) and was originally exclusive to the Tom Ford boutique in Kuwait. In 2009, it was unleashed unto the world at large, and in keeping with my usual pace, I’m getting around to it about a year later.

Arabian Wood is very much in keeping with the others in the Private Blend collection: it’s rough and loud…

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The “new” year is almost here and as usual, I’m worrying. What didn’t I accomplish in 2009? What’s the outlook for 2010 — will I be healthy, will I travel, and who or what will disappear, what will change for better or worse, by the time 2011 arrives? As you can tell, I’m not a champagne cork-popping, dancing, party boy on New Year’s Eve. I spend December 31 at home, listening to music, reading through some favorite novels and poems, looking at photography and art books, staring at the flames in the fireplace. I do rouse myself from contemplation long enough to eat and drink something delicious — that’s the extent of my “New Year’s celebrations.”

January 1? More of the same…

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In my “perfume notebook,” I found an entry from last January: “Always drenched in musky cologne, he smelled like a mixture of excrement and flowers.” Judging from my wobbly writing, this note was written at night in bed. I was not alert enough to record the book this sentence came from and when I think of the books I read last winter, there are several candidates — all dealing with personalities and events of the French Revolution. The courtier who loved musk back in the 1700s would not believe Tom Ford’s modern “musk” fragrances contain “musk” at all; the Ford musk fragrances are pristine, far removed from musk sacs, anal glands and the like.

The White Musk Collection’s four new perfumes add a lighter, feminine character to the richer, more masculine, Private Blend line-up. These new “white” musk fragrances are sheer and have been put through the hot wash cycle, twice, to remove anything “dirty” or animalic. (In fact, it seems most of the musk went out with the rinse water.)

Urban Musk

(jasmine sambac, white pepper, ambrette seed absolute, cumin, musk, honey, black plum, incense, Tonkin musk headspace, benzoin)

Urban Musk opens with green-ish jasmine…

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