Tom Ford: Private Blend - Arabian Wood

As stated in an earlier post (or so I believe), I am a HUGE Tom Ford fan, so much so as to my personal fragrance collection now consists solely of his perfumes. It is then with great displeasure I must announce: I do not like this scent. At all. And do you know what? I really wanted to! 'Mystical. Eternal. Urbane.' - or so it is described in the Private Blend 'catalogue', if you will. I have a different three words: 'Chanel Pour Monsieur', which is to me, exactly what it smells like, the latter being significantly cheaper. Indeed the similarities extend even to the colour of the liquid itself! Supposedly inspired by the extraordinary confluence of ancient and modern culture in Arabia, this 'Timeless Chypre' boats notes such as aromatic lavender, galbanum and countless unspecified 'exotic woods and spices'. The result for me is an extremely herbaceous even bitter scent which reminds me of the miniature cologne selections my Grandfather would wear. This leads to the classification of Arabian Wood as an 'old man's' fragrance in my eyes. The floral notes seem lost entirely on my wearing, which is rather disappointing. My main disappointment however was the lack of an authentic woodsy smell which featured so fabulously in Oud Wood and Bois Marocain. Perhaps I should be fair here and say that it may well suit some people (although I would like to point out that this is one of the 'unisex' Private Blends that is perhaps not suited to women). For me, it is possible for a scent to be 'too manly', and by that I refer to the ubiquitous yet undefinable heavy spice smell in male fragrances, which I do not like, but as have mentioned, others might. The longevity and sillage are also quite poor, but perhaps that isn't entirely a bad thing with a fragrance as heavy as this. For me, of all the Private Blend, this is one which I do not believe warrants it's luxury price tag (which, for those interested, is 50ml £118, 100ml £165 and 250ml [decanter] £265 - yes, recited off by heart).