fume: tom ford's tobacco vanille

don't have time to do a proper write up just yet for it, but my goodness the hype about tom ford's tobacco vanille is pretty darn warranted. the top wasn't great for me--just a generic alcohol-y "department store perfume!" thing, where i can't really even distinguish what's what it just smells like...perfume--but once it starts drying down it is one of the best of those "comforting vanilla pipe tobacco" scents i've tried, and that's one of my favorite perfume types. and the projection and longevity is very impressive, strong and enduring but not unbearably so. i have to note i don't think R agrees with any of this--he did the same thing he did when i tried fahrenheit, instinctively tried to get away from me as much as possible--but i think i've figured out he's just going to be like that when i try stuff that his limbic system registers as "masculine" or whatnot. (and i can live with it--they're some of my favorite smells, and we're not together during the day usually.) it smells like something Ryan would be all about. the super dried down base note phase, a zillion hours in, has a subtle but on me clear funk to it that's a little odd, almost civet-y. that and the top are my only hesitations (but i've learned to ignore the top of most "true perfumes"...i almost never like or appreciate them and they don't last very long anyway). i tried 4160 tuesdays the lion cupboard earlier and while they share some similarities on drydown--a comforting "what my nicest, most old school grandpa's study would smell like" feeling--the lion cupboard starts off muuuuuch more incense-y. i really like both. i was afraid the tom ford'd be too vanilla sweet but it's not at all, it's a good, not at all gourmand thing (there is indeed a chocolate note in the middle that is rather mouthwatering gourmandish, but it's like brick chocolate, not too sugary). the tobacco is in perfect balance with the vanilla (and the chocolate), keeping it from being cloying while the sweetness keeps the tobacco from being too musty or earthy or pungent. i didn't get any strong sense of smoke until a good 8 or so hours in, and when it comes, it's a delicious, unmusty, precise kind that evokes good pipe smoke and nothing else. honestly in the winter months i could see myself making it my everyday "don't think too hard about it" perfume. and it has ruined me for most all of the others like it i've tried before.

tl;dr: i share Erin's pain now. great perfume.

...

must edit to add at some point for my final review that this thing's longevity is even more insane than i first realized--i put it on last night, woke up with it going strong, and then showered at like 2:30pm AND I COULD STILL SMELL IT after my shower. whoa.