Paco Rabanne Black XS

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After two fails on me with Paco Rabanne, I had to wonder why I keep coming back to the brand since nothing they put out really interest me. Black XS has an enormous rose on the bottle which made me a bit leery about what I would get.

Black XS

Black XS

In Bottle: Slightly woody, creamy scent with a dish of flowers and some slightly tart berries.

Applied: On application, it almost smells like Christmas dinner. You know with the festive spicy smell and the little bit of cranberry? There’s sweetness in here almost immediately and it’s a pleasant little party. I admit, it is a little weird to feel like it’s Christmas all the way in July but hey, it’s fascinating at least! But Black XS quickly sheds its festive cheer and heads into a fairly banal floral mid-stage with a creamy and rich cocoa note adding a bit of interest to it. So far I’m pleased with the cocoa but pretty bored with the floral mid-stage that pretty much adds nothing new or interesting. I get more woods in the dry down, the cocoa note is still present and there’s always that looming sweetness that stuck around. Black XS lacks in a lot of departments and originality is one of them. I’m not all that pleased with this unfortunately.

Extra: Black XS was clearly not for me as it is marketed toward a young audience with a specific taste. I like to call them the Flowerbomb demographic.

Design: The bottle for Black XS is actually pretty nice–until you get to the huge rose on the glass then everything just kind of focuses there. I suppose that’s what they were going for and I suppose the demographic might appreciate the design but I don’t particularly like it.

Fragrance Family: Floral Gourmand

Notes: Cranberry, pink pepper, violet, rose, cacao, patchouli, vanilla, woods.

So I didn’t have a really bad reaction to Black XS. It was all right but like I said, there’s nothing original or interesting about this. It’s definitely wearable but it’s not at all artistic.

Reviewed in This Post: Black XS, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille

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When I ask people what fragrance can be a stand in for Spiritueuse Double Vanille, people often say try Tobacco Vanille. But when I tried Tobacco Vanille, I found these two fragrances too different.

Tobacco Vanille

In Bottle: Seems Tom Ford fragrances have a tendency to be on the strong side. Tobacco Vanille is a sharp smoky vanilla upon first whiff. The first whiff was all it took for the scent to travel up my nose. I think one of those cardinal rules you learn in middle school science class applies here; waft, don’t whiff.

Applied: On the skin Tobacco Vanille behaves a bit better for me. This is all tobacco and vanilla that sort of smoky, warm, creamy scent that’s sort of echoed in Spirituese Double Vanille. Unlike in SDV, Tobacco Vanille has a less woodsy and less boozy smokiness to it. This smokiness is coming from a pipe tobacco scent. And let’s not confuse tobacco used as a fragrance with the often sour smoky smell of a cigarette. This stuff is smooth and clean and smells a bit more like burning leaves with a very nice smooth character. As the fragrance ages, I get a bit more of the other notes in this, particularly the hints of woodsiness here and there and occassionally a good sniff of spices. There isn’t much else I can say about Tobacco Vanille. It’s a smoky vanilla scent, a couple of notches away from SDV though these two could be pretty close cousins. I still like the touch of booziness in SDV and the more woodsy character in that fragrance though.

Extra: Tobacco Vanille is a member of Tom Ford’s premium line of fragrances called the Private Blends. I had a devil of a time tracking down an actual bottle and didn’t end up liking it enough to drop over $300 on a bottle.

Design: The Private Blends are bottled a bit differently than other Tom Ford scents. I’ve seen various styles and all of them are very pleasing. There’s the style shown above that I see most often but the bottle I sampled out of had a square cap instead of a round one. I believe the style of bottle differs depending on how much juice you’re getting.

Fragrance Family: Smoky Gourmand

Notes: Tobacco leaf, spices, tonka bean, vanilla, cacao, wood sap.

Lovely as this is, it didn’t sway me from the SDV crowd. I’m still a big fan of Spiritueuse Double Vanille. Though Tobacco Vanille can scratch a very small itch if it came down to the wire.

Reviewed in This Post: Tobacco Vanille, 2009, Eau de Parfum.