Tom Ford just launched the latest fragrance in the Tom Ford Signature line — Sahara Noir. Judging from my recent experiences with Tom Ford perfumes, and the looks of Sahara Noir’s ingredients list*, I got more, and less, than I bargained for.

First, the “more.” Sahara Noir is a high-quality fragrance, easily besting recent Private Blend offerings. Sahara Noir goes on skin smelling of smoky (frank) incense, with sweet (but faint) undertones of cedar/cypress, cistus labdanum and cinnamon. Sahara Noir is a dense perfume, conjuring closed spaces, almost airless, where odors “congregate” and abide (think: tiny chapels or temples, saturated with incense smoke and candle soot). If you love incense-wood fragrances do try it, especially if your tastes run to “stark”/simple incense perfumes…

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When a perfume company like Tom Ford produces two distinct fragrance lines, one upper-tier prestige (the exorbitantly expensive, limited-distribution Private Blends) and one ‘simply’ prestige (the more affordable and widely distributed Signature line), I’d expect the quality of ingredients or the quality of the formulas to differ (for instance, the Private Blends should smell “luxurious” and/or innovative compared to the Signature scents). As the Tom Ford lines stand, that is not the case; there are hits and misses in each line (more misses in the Private Blends because the offerings are more numerous).

I liked the first masculine Signature fragrance: Tom Ford for Men (2007); I liked Grey Vetiver (2009) a little less. Tom Ford just launched the third Signature men’s perfume — Tom Ford Noir; the fragrance notes sound promising: bergamot, verbena, caraway, baie rose, violet flower, black pepper, nutmeg, iris, geranium, rose, clary sage, opoponax, amber, patchouli, vetiver, civet and vanilla…

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