Pointless Perfume Review: Tom Ford Noir Extreme

[smokingboot]

Tom Ford made one of the greatest perfumes of all time, Black Orchid. It's a perfume I always have, and only wear for dangerous liaisons and assignations. It's for night, it's for winter, it's for worldliness, it's for hedonism, it's a patchouli/chocolate treatment without the sweetness that turned Angel into the staple of porn stars.

But Tom Ford hasn't really captivated me since. This next tester is Noir Extreme, which R didn't realise is for men. I guessed almost instantly because of the old conventions that inhabit perfumery and even now make their way into gender identity: Male notes traditionally include leather and tobacco, female notes include lilies and roses. Bloody nonsense as it's all chemicals anyway. You want to wear Noir Extreme? Maybe that's the part of you that wants to drive cars and smoke cigars in the club, a part we shall call 'Man'. You want to wear Joy de Patou? Maybe that's a part of you craving a beautiful meadow and a lover walking towards you with a labrador puppy in their arms, a part we shall call 'Woman.' If this sounds like sexist stereotyping along the lines of buy-her-a-hoover-she'll-love-it that's cos it is, and yes, there's a lot of old wine to be found in very fancy 21st century bottles. Nowhere are these tropes more obvious than in perfumery. I love perfumery but am the first to agree that it's at least 50 percent BS, and of that BS, at least 50% is based on evocation and memory. And what forms one's memories? Is it not our emotional understanding, our categorising of experiences we go through and how we interpret them - or how society interprets them for us?

'Male' perfumes change less, The top notes seem to stay a lot longer. Maybe this is because in our society men are 'taught' or 'allowed' or something like that, to try something and walk away if they don't like it. Female-targeted perfumery has a lot more mystique around it; women are spun a lot of stuff about top notes; the idea is to wait a little and see if, when the top notes die down, we like what we smell. But no-one expects male customers to try then wait. The marketing prediction is that they will make a decision straight away, based on first impressions. The result is that their perfumes are less chimera-like. They may fade, but they do not change.

The defining scent in Noir Extreme is a strong but mellow tobacco note that turns up behind various spices and sandalwood. When I have previously found these in feminine perfumes, they are inevitably sweetened in some way. Didn't happen here. And it stayed this way, with a kind of vanilla amber note smoothing it out. I'd like to see how this smells on my husband.

I like Noir Extreme and I'll try it again to see if I grow into it. But tbh if I'm going to spend more money on Tom Ford, I might as well stick to the divine Black Orchid.

https://www.lookfantastic.com/tom-ford-noir-extreme-eau-de-parfum-50ml/12018668.html?affil=thggpsad&switchcurrency=GBP&shippingcountry=GB&thg_ppc_campaign=71700000088329921&adtype=&product_id=12018668&gclid=Cj0KCQiAw9qOBhC-ARIsAG-rdn75VwM3GrH4Wjsz1SGwBvALYDa7ynzuFWRyUQvBD8ZemR8AOmsEBLkaAr74EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.thefragranceshop.co.uk/tom-ford/black-orchid/eau-de-parfum-spray/p/31628?msclkid=960e9d6010fb121e0aeafcb70e5d93c7&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Shopping%20%7C%20Smart%20%7C%20Burberry&utm_term=4581390086767403&utm_content=Shopping%20%7C%20Smart%20%7C%20Burberry