So when I reviewed Tom Ford Violet Blonde last month, I said that I may be nearly alone among perfumistas in preferring Tom Ford’s Signature Collection to the Private Blends. I like Oud Wood, but I like Yves Saint Laurent M7 better, and I’ve never been more than lukewarm about the rest of them. If anything, my interest in the collection has decreased over the years, and it pretty much hit rock bottom with the release of the White Musk collection.

The Signature Collection fragrances strike me as generally better thought out and better executed — Tom Ford tends, in general, towards loud, but the polished elegance of the Signature Collection stands in stark contrast to the blunt force of some of the Private Blend scents, especially the early ones (I still remember wondering, when I first smelled the Private Blends, if some of them weren’t maybe unfinished mods for Black Orchid). The three Signature fragrances fit together nicely; they don’t smell the same but they have a similar style, and as such they lend a sense of cohesiveness to the Tom Ford Beauty line that is notably missing from most mainstream designer perfume houses.

The Private Blends, on the other hand, seem like a mishmash…

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