Oud Wood

Oud Wood has been Tom Ford's best-known Private Blend for nearly twenty years, largely because it is the oud that does not smell like oud. The All Over Body Spray follows the same logic. Tom Ford lists cardamom, pink pepper, patchouli, amber, oud and tonka bean as the key notes for the can, and the balance is exactly what makes the original approachable: the agarwood is present but sanded down, sweetened and surrounded, never given the barnyard or medicinal edge that real oud can carry. Cardamom and pink pepper open it with a dry spice fizz, warm rather than sharp. The oud sits in the middle, smooth and slightly smoky, propped up by patchouli that adds earth without mud. Amber and tonka finish it soft and faintly sweet, which is the part most people actually remember. Tom Ford's own copy calls the spray light, invigorating and cooling, and that is fair: at this concentration the fragrance is intimate within half an hour and gone within two or three hours. Use it under the Eau de Parfum to extend it, or on its own as a discreet office wood. Autumn and winter, though the reduced weight makes it more forgiving in mild weather than the Eau de Parfum is.