Private Blend: Noir de Noir Tom Ford for women and men

Thia goes without saying that this one is quality scent. You can feel it from once you apply it till the last minute of its dry down. Boozy, dark, mysterious, unisex(more oriented on a person who wears it than the sex devision). Captivating and alluring fragrance, Whenever i wear it i feel like in some kind of state of darkness and seduction. You`ll get compliment with this one. Many of them. And believe me you`ll be suprised where it will transfer you while you gonna be wearing it.
Be easy on the sprayer and try to layer it with Japon Noir or Tuscan Leather which will give it more depth. Tom Ford, once again created a perfection.

10/10

@Partario....wow, i'm so intrigued to sniff this I've ordered a sample online after reading your story.

techonolgy must be advanced as we can smell these fragrances from our laptops...:/ cant find it anywhere :/

Ok I had a go at this and tried it today.

I never thought rose could be this dark. The oudh certainly casts a shadow over the rose and I totally see why this scent has been named a dark entity. It is very intriguing and certainly meant for specific evening occasions.

I see myself sniffing this and just being captivated in a trance-like state. People will notice you. This is a fragrance and a half.

@Partario,

That was an amazing review, can I even call it a strict review? Tom should hire you if he hasn't already!

THAT GUY...

Do you know the sort of fellow I'm talking about? He's the one that came late to the party, and sits in the corner, comfortably surveying the room.

There's a magnetic quality about him, though at the same time it's difficult to put your finger on just what it is about him that's so striking in particular. He doesn't have to speak much, he makes no attempt at flirtation, he's not flashy, and the only thing that shows on his face is an occasional smirk. Possessing a dark quality about him that's difficult to place, yet all the while he makes no great show of it.

However, the fact is that all the women in the room are aware of his presence, and take a momentary chance to look in that guy's direction whenever they think he might not be looking back. When he stalks by, right when they think they're safe, and won't be seen, they'll flash their pupils up at him. Whenever the man that they initially came with turns his head away from them, they'll risk a quick look in that guy's direction. Whenever that guy makes eye contact, they grasp at their own boyfriend's hand more vigorously than before, as a way to reassure themselves that they really are content. Which they are.

Aren't they?

He may have come alone, and he may leave alone, but he's put his fingerprint on the gathering either way.

The girls have their obligations to remain with their dates, but unbeknownst to them, that guy accompanies them from the congregation. Though he may not be there in body, he'll linger in the memory of the women that he's been in the presence of. When their man asks them what they thought of the party, their first thought will be to where that guy sat. As her boyfriend rides with her, she'll continue to think of all the positive qualities she sees in her current relationship, and how great her current man is, even though these weren't the sort of things she had to affirm for herself before the party.

But when her boyfriend leans in for the goodnight kiss, she's no longer his solely. She remembers when that guy walked past her, what it felt like to be that close to him, the smell as he passed her by, as she now begins to wonder, "Would his lips feel like this?"

That guy has had many faces, and has smelled of many things, but the only scent that truly incarnates everything that he is, can only truly be fully embodied in Noir de Noir. It strikes as keenly and as sharply as his demeanor does, and takes captive before most are even aware. Many will scratch their heads, and say they don't understand why he's so appealing, but his shadowy allure remains whether one "gets it" or not.

Do you know what guy I'm talking about? Have you seen him? Have you been jealous of him?

Have you been him?

Do you want to be him?

Why not start? You now know what his scent is. Start from here. See where it takes you.

(I'll leave the note breakdown, longevity, and projection sections to others with better noses, as it really is impossible to accurately depict what this smells like just by listing the components IMHO. Smell it and you'll understand.)

So the sample passed the paper sniff test with flying colours; warm, spicy, with an interesting elusive, mysterious quality.

The skin test was another thing; Noir de noir opened with a messy almost fruity accord, then dried down to a rather sweet and bland fragrance. The only thing I can say about it is that it was not very offensive, and has excellent lasting power.

Won't be on my list of wanted fumes...

Didn't quite get this one.. Smelled too awkward for me

Its quite nice, winey, plasticy (truffle accord?), and slightly sweet; definitely a darker rose when compared to Lyric Man. I heard that it is an amped up version of Bond's Westside. I really like it, although it does feel a little bit like a less rosy and more restrained Une Rose from FM if that makes any sense.

If you want to go for something even more over the top, check out Une Rose from Frederic Malle. It is boozier, earthier, more chewy but more winey at the same time (some will find it acetoney).

This is the older brother of Kilian Rose Oud, less strong, more like a skinscent fragrance.

Agar and rose are the dominant notes that make this perfume seductive, deep, velvety, dark, and sweet. To me it has the smell of (rahat) lokum, very delicious and mouthwatering!

Poor lasting power.

I was introduced to Noir de Noir by a sales assistant as I was testing Black Orchid. He claimed that this fragrance was similar, yet richer. I'm not so convinced.

I'm surprised to discover that some find similarities between this fragrance and Bond No.9's West Side also, which is a fragrance I am very familiar with. I honestly can't compare Noir de Noir to anything.

It's a deep, rich and rooted fragrance to my nose. The oud wood and patchouli notes smell very musty and concentrated, and the rose is present in a tart-like fashion, neither soft nor feminine like you'd expect it to be. Noir de Noir has guts and masculine tendencies, it's fascinating but a little too much for me sometimes.

For some reason the vanilla note is sharp on my skin, perhaps even a little medicinal. I think I'll blame the spices and saffron for making this an odd yet strangely desirable fragrance.

The drydown is the best part in my opinion. It's here that the rose takes on a more traditional role and the heavy earthy notes mellow ever so slightly. I am able to breathe and sigh with relief upon discovering that this fragrance can be polite and friendly at times.

The longevity is excellent, as it should be, and the overall impression that it gave me was a good one. It's not for me, but this fragrance has been worth discovering.

This is something to put it as simple as possible - Playboy's Cologne. No matter who wears it, it just turns the person into a womaniser. All the girls stare, and lean over to get a nose full of the orgasmically narcoleptic potion.

Once you smell the opening notes, your pupils dilate, and they also dilate after you glance at the price. :D The price is a benefit IF you're looking for something which will set you miles away from the 1 Million/Issey wearing punks :)

Yes it has flaws, but what beautiful thing doesn't? I wish the longevity was for 2 days instead of 10 - 12 hours, I wish there was more oud and I wish there was more patchouli, but oh well!

If you want to nose f*ck the masses, I'd recommend layering this over a little bit of attar, something called Tom Oudh (e B a y) and you will be amazed at what heavenly orgasmic fumes you get, but please don't over do it as you will destroy your nostrils.

longevity 10/10
sillage 9.3/10
scent 10/10

I hardly expected to find love on the tube in London...but my heart missed a beat!

The tube is a good place to encounter smells, but usually they are not the pleasant kind....this time I got lucky! A striking, long-limbed, beautiful black woman was sitting not far from me. She was captivatingly beautiful in an androgenous, artsy, Shoreditch way.

I was deep in conversation with my boyfriend when my head snapped round, my nose on full twitch... a stunning deep, treacly, oud rose with a woodsy twist filled my nostrils. The dark bottle she was holding was unmistakably Tom Ford.....but which??!! Poor girl. I hope I didn't come across as too much of a perfume psycho.

I received a beautiful bottle of Noir de Noir this birthday - some love from my love. To me this is a scent of real, deep love. Not first love or infatuation, not maternal love, nor passionate love, but intense, romantic love. Beautiful. Timeless.

The scent is blended to perfection & smells like liquid gold pouring over molten woods & love letters scattered with the darkest of rose petals. The oud is present, but not over-powering & the deep, ambery sweetness is tempered by some patch-love & an earthy herbal twist. I am an oriental-lover & chypres can sometimes turn my stomach, but when they are done well I tend to adore them. Noir is mixed perfectly.

Great sillage & lasting power - but not to the point of vulgarity. Just enough evolution & interest to keep you on your toes but not so much as to be loud, unclassy or confused. Inky black with a touch of scarlet, flecked with gold leaf. “The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.”

A dark beauty & a real heart-stealer.

Gypsy parfumista put it best in her (?) review below that Noir de Noir is "the queen of flowers...in her darkest aspect". This is ROSE, but a dark, brooding, foreboding rose with no hint of romance whatsoever. Vanilla and saffron swirl beneath the surface and restrain NdN from going despairingly dark, but the patchouli and oakmoss keep the blend in its entirety thick, rich, and with only a pinprick of light. This is not Cinderella, this is her evil stepmother: cruel, haughty, and without remorse or regret. The sweet and innocent best keep away. Noir de Noir layers quite well with Tuscan Leather if you wish to make it more masculine (NdN is too feminine on its own to sit well on a man) and/or you wish to quash that last remnant of light and make it completely dark.

This one smells identical to West Side by Bond No 9

This one reminds me very much of Midnight Oud by Julliette Has a Gun or even Midnight Poison with an extra touch of oud. More feminine than masculine but as the two scents above, it can be worn by a man. Lasting power is good, but not as good as some other ouds in the same collection.

I like it, but I'm not a big rose fan and it's pretty loud and heavy handed in this one, so I'll pass.

This one is more feminine though, deep floral and gourmand sweet; little bit strange on a man.
I test it many times but it's not on my taste. Only for indoor night parties in a highly formal suit.
Opens and ends with same pattern; sweet, deep, floral with some powerful undertone of honey. But rose is bolder at the opening as agarwood and vanilla are in dry out. Still can't catch enough saffron. The only perfume that has considerable amount of saffron spice - which is my profession - is Arabian Nights by J del POZO.
But although its name is so attractive, its scent is not that much. So ancient style like Egypt or norther African regions. They could balance it with more patchouli or something cooler and less sweet.
Not bad at all, but don't deserve the price. Too dense and heavy. Over-feminine.

longevity 10/10
sillage 9/10
scent 4/10

Black of Black (dark of night, maybe?) is, I believe, what Noir de Noir means in French. This is (to my nose, at least) first and foremost a rose perfume, but something about it is dark and haunting and almost mystically surreal...

I received this as a gift from another member as a nice sized decant (@ 4ml of EDP splash/coffret) so when I unscrewed the lid and sniffed it I just sat back and thought: "Gods, that is gorgeous!!" and then just put it in the armoire with Black Orchid (one of my favorite perfumes), for some "fancy" evening out, and thought to myself maybe (just maybe) I have misjudged this Tom Ford fellow!

Today, I actually dabbed some on and was very very impressed with it!! Is there such a thing as a night-blooming rose? Well, there is now! Here the queen of flowers shows her darkest aspect, as she saunters in robed in cool silver and black silk and sprinkled with saffron, crowned in sacred moss and bejewelled with golden vanilla and exuding a very dark and heavy patchouli. In her delicate, but powerful, hand she bears a staff of ebony and oudhwood; cool and polished. She is utterly ancient, yet ageless and very regal. She is not malevolent, but will scare those who have never appreciated the "darker" side of life and some may run, screaming, for the light of day, fields of sunlight flowers and the like. I, for one, am content to sit at her feet, in thick swirling shadows, and listen to her tales of ancient wonders and get "lost" in her nocturnal beauty.

Sillage: good
Longevity: very good
Overall: 4.25/5

Here is the high priestess of some ancient forest, she knows all about life and death and can walk freely between them, with no fear. Here are revealed all the secrets of nature...open to any who would look deep within and know themselves and realise all is ONE, and light and dark (love and hate, male and female) are just opposite sides of the same coin (or horns on the same goat, as my Gunda *grandma* used to say)...

Here, in this dark temple, words like "his" and "hers" are lost in eternal and immortal energies where such things are merely manmade words and everything just IS!

Divine! I can't express my love for this perfume in words alone. When this is on me, I smell my wrists all day and can't stop talking about how incredible it smells ; it just takes my breath away and makes me buckle at the knees. Yes, I love it that much.

On me it smells very feminine. The rose notes being most prominent but mixed with this deep dark brooding sensuality. It's whimsical and mystical. Gothic, floral and decadent all at once. Tom Ford has conjured up a masterpiece. For me, it really is perfection.

As the name suggests this scent is dark, dark, dark.
But more so it is delicious in more than one way. On me dark chocolate and roses show and melt into each other.
Very strong from start to drydown (as most Private Blends) but as we say here in my country "It is the dosage that makes the poison."
Use only little of it and your environment will surely notice a fine and expensive-smelling scent with star qualities. You can simply smell the exquisite composition and it is rather unlikely you will meet anyone wearing this.
I must admit that it really is similar to Black Orchid but imo NdN is less "loud" and less sweet. If you do not like BO at all then NdN is not for you, I believe.
On my skin NdN does not explicitely reveal the patchouli but I notice it in the very background, just as I like it (too much of it makes frags earthy and I am not so fond of that) and the famous oud ? Well, this mixture smells so divine that I simply do not care how much of it is in there. If I want to smell oud clearly then I will choose other perfumes.
Enjoy NdN for what it is : an exquisite semi-gourmand chypre fragrance. Bold and outstanding - a typical Tom Ford masterpiece.

B-Boy93: I have both Noir de Noir and Black Orchid and I find both quite similar... I could say NdN is a more intense version of BO... maybe less sweet, more dense.
I suggest you get a sample first before getting a full bottle. (From the private blend my favorite is Tobacco Vanille) regards, Ricardo

Tell me, is it only I who thinks this is perhaps rather similar to black orchid? What with the truffle notes, and that same dark oriental/chypre fragrance. I do think however, that what makes Noir de Noir stand out over Black Orchid is that powdery rose note and the edition of a subtle saffron. Do you think, if I own Black Orchid, that it is worth purchasing Noir de Noir? Or am I better of trying a different Private Blend fragrance?

I have mixed feelings about Noir de Noir.The perfume looks like it wasn't completely made for humans but for some types of creatures such as Batman....yeah Batman the man who couldn't get rid of his second nature,the nature of mammal.Comes out from its crypt,a cold wet basement in the rocks,as saffron sprouts on a hillside and rose gently caresses the dark and medicine note of oud.I find the perfume suitable for women too,after an hour I get a sweet rosy spicy feeling,it's really sexy.....

Gorgeous. Definitely a cold weather fragrance as it envelopes you in a thick fog of scent. I loved it at first sniff. Would be great on the right man too.

I consider this my signature scent!it is rosy boozy leathery very erotic simply fantastic. I got the 250ml decanter.not easy to use but the juice in it precious.LOVE IT.(bye bye Armani..at least for a while).

Noir de Noir is one of the most haunting scents i own. For some reason something about it is slightly eerie... that sounds bizarre but it must trigger some distant memory in my brain or something!

Its really beautiful. I get a very powerful rose note, very fermented and boozy. Soon after the oud comes into play adding a slightly earthy quality. There's a lot going on in the background that my untrained nose cant detect. This phase lasts for hours and then its a woody vanilla skin scent. I can detect the rose throughout the whole development. I know its classed as an oriental chypre, but its definately more oriental than chypre.

Lovely on its own, but layered with amber absolute it blows me away.

Easily unisex.

I got to try this one today and it leaves me confused a little bit: the initial phase is very heavy and dense, but after a few hours i can hardly smell it. The presence of aoud is strong and intoxicating, but not in a pleasant way. On me, the scent reminds of the baking dough with those artificial flavours for cookies and sour vinegar... this makes my stomach turn slightly))
it's warm and somewhat cloying, suitable for winter, but not good for my body chemistry. I'll have to pass on this one, unfortunately...

Update: my friend commented that the scent was actually good, even though no suitable for summer, but my nose just can't accept it...*sigh*

When i was in Granada, i bought my grandmother some rosary beads made from rose petals (im not religious, but she is).
They smelled just like noir de noir. My admittedly unskilled nose can only pick up on the thick, boozy rose for the first few hours until it settles down into a subtle vanilla woods. There is always a slight, unclean tang (the oud i assume) but i cant particularly smell that, i can just get a hint of it.

It's truly beautiful. Somewhat more feminine than most private blends, but a man can easily wear it.

I don't get rose at all in this, so I'm not sure what Doc Elly is talking about. It's basically a cleaner, spicier Fumerie Turque on me; a little woody, spicy, clear tobacco notes. There's a slightly honey edge that sweetens it up, but overall it's warm and rich without being suffocatingly sweet or cloying. Very lovely and yes, unisex.

Delicious! That was my immediate reaction on opening up the little sample vial. This is an oriental rose perfume, a dark and complex rose framed by saffron, vanilla, and other things that aren’t really obvious. Are the truffles that are supposed to be in there the chocolate kind (most likely) or are they the pungent, sulfurous mushroom kind? In either case, I didn’t detect them. I think all of the excitement is in the beginning, because the scent eventually dries down to a slightly almond-y candied rose similar to several Arabian perfumes that I have. Whatever is revealed, hidden, or absent entirely, this is a very good rose scent.

Love this scent! JUST discovered it today but did not want to pay $180 for it :( luckily the S.A. hooked me up with a huge sample bottle of it!! along with a few other of his scents!

The scent notes call it a chypre—okay, fine, I won’t argue. But most chypres, in my experience, are about contrasting, almost warring smells—the citrus getting a rise out of the florals while the oakmoss ties them both to the ground.

Instead, I immediately experience “Noir de Noir” as fully shaped and stable with no sharp edges—harmonious rather than atonal, a major rather than a minor chord: dark caramel, vanilla, roses, freshly-cut blond tobacco leaf, yummy woods, rum. If there’s a citrus in there, I don’t find it. And then, as promised, black truffles over the top, and a curlicue of saffron. After 45 minutes and for the next 4-5 hours, the gooey center of a vanilla-saffron rum ball.

This is a scent to wear when you want someone to taste you. I’ve got another name for NdN: “Man Candy.”

this is one of my favorite scents from this line, but not in a 'I want to wear it' kind of way. This is too masculine, in my opinion.

But Gents- if you are perusing for a fragrance will make women's heads snap, check this one out. It is very seductive and intoxicating. Whatever Tom Ford does he does not well, but exceptionally well, as this chypre proves. I really love it (just not on myself).

Just by reading the description, I confess I expected "more." What more? Hmm, more patchouli, more oud, more tree moss. I expected to find more of the chypre qualities of a fragrance. Don't get me wrong. I still like Noir de Noir, but I find the name of this perfume to be somewhat of a misnomer. On me, Noir de Noir is not dark at all. In fact, it starts fairly brightly with the spicy note of saffron, which I happen to love (so no problem there). A gentle rose develops soon after, and then it is quickly enveloped by fairly sweet vanilla. I detect something like chocolate: It could be the combination of vanilla, patchouli, and truffle. Not a bad one, by all means, and, overall, the effect is quite pleasant. However, if you crave a true dark chypre with the earthy notes of black truffle and tree moss, look elsewhere.

I've got it. That's pure beauty. Warm, dark, rosy, but not oily or fatty. Incredible.

I thought i'd like that because it seems to fit the name perfectly and although it does i can't call it extremely interesting. This is saffron patchouli with rich undertones. I find it denser that i like it and it reminds me of a enjoyable museum piece like an Egyptian mummy.

I found this description: (oriental-chypre) with notes of saffron, black rose, black truffle, vanilla, patchouli, oud wood, tree moss.

I find it very warm and cozy and definately unisex.