Vanilla Sex

Vanilla Sex is one of Tom Ford's more recent Private Blends and the name is doing what the name always does. The All Over Body Spray keeps the composition: Tom Ford lists vanilla tincture India, vanilla absolute, sandalwood essence, jasmine absolute, orris accord and an animalis accord as its key materials. Using two vanilla materials is the whole point of the fragrance. The tincture is the brighter, boozier, slightly smoky reading of the bean, and the absolute is the dense, dark, resinous one, so the composition has vanilla at two different altitudes rather than one flat sweetness. Jasmine absolute sits between them, adding an indolic warmth that pushes the fragrance toward skin rather than dessert, and orris brings a cool powder that stops the whole thing collapsing into syrup. Sandalwood gives it a creamy woody floor, and the animalic accord is what earns the name: a low, warm, faintly sweaty note that reads as body heat. At aerosol concentration it is intimate almost immediately and it stays that way, which for this style is arguably an improvement. Two hours of clear scent, no trail worth the name. Autumn and winter, evenings, and layering under the Eau de Parfum if you want it to travel.