Black Violet
Tom Ford (2007)

I read that this was being pushed by the brand as unisex, and, if anything, leaning masculine. So, with a name like Black Violet I was assuming something deep and dark, inflected with a good amount of the fuel-like accords you get from violet leaf. If this perfume were a color, I pictured royal purple swirled with jet black ink (or black petroleum, more appropriately). That's not what you get. On the opening you are pounded with fleshy and sweet fruits, like black currants or black grapes, and other fruity accords. Tinges of citrus and bergamot add sourness and bitterness. The violet heart explodes with a powdery floral quality. It was not what I anticipated at all, and I was certainly very intrigued. Then, after about two hours, after the fruity top dried down and the violet heart began to calm down, the mossy and sandalwood base is allowed to speak. The perfume totally transforms. It's not royal purple inflected with black ink or oil, but perhaps more of a dark navy blue: it is the violet flower showing it's darker and more mysterious side without losing its floral feminine beauty. The dry down is, without a doubt, the most interesting part of this perfume; it is evocative, provocative, and highly addictive. The powdery and slightly fruity floral violet is still there, but in a femme fatale way that is helped along by the chypre-like base.

Black Violet is like a noir film. I cannot help but think of Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Black Dahlia, or L.A. Confidential when smelling this perfume - it smells like those films look. Maybe a touch light-hearted and fun at the beginning, but immediately goes dark and brooding, sleek and mysterious, feminine and dangerous. This perfume has its own very confident yet understated personality that is not likely going to fit many people, but it has pulled me right in. It's one of the best perfumes I think Tom Ford has made.

A dark, powdery, medicinal, yet candy-like-sweet violet along with some woods and oakmoss. It smells very serious somehow, fit for a tuxedo on a night-out. Intoxicating, yet knows its limits.

Dark, purple florals, smothering a woody base that's overgrown with moss. The composition is nice, but ultimately comes across a bit too powdery for me to love it.

It's a nice scent, though personally I didn't find it to be rife with violets as I'd hoped.

Tom Ford's Black Violet - now discontinued - was created by perfumers Clement Gavarry and Pascal Gaurin. It has a woody-mossy-floral chypre quality to it, with a moderate violet presence in the heart (I take it to be the flower, not the leaves), with its earthy powdery iris-like charm...jumpstarted by a citrus fruit medley and surrounded subsequently by nondescript spices and woods.

Very clean and wearable, with plenty of sillage and decent longevity to be sure. Yet...I don't know if I'd consider this a convincing ode to violet all in itself: More so, an homage to it with other fragrance notes adding their flair to create a creature dissimilar to the individual notes used. A composite, generally nice scent that just happens to have violet in it, too.

Still I enjoyed it, and my thumbs up is not a weak one. It's great for either gender, and occasion-wise works nicely as a cooler temp evening scent, IMO.

I don't find anything sweet or candied in this scent at all. Rather I get a subtle green mossy woody accord that is pleasant, but not in any way remarkable or outstanding. If there are violets here, my nose is missing them.

Turin goes on for almost a page in is tome, providing an interesting essay on the structure of true perfumes, but tells us little about the scent itself and no notes are provided on this Basenotes page. Therefore, it is difficult to discuss any of the ingredients.

If there is violet here, it is violet leaf, to my nose, not the flower. Perfectly pleasant, but not worth the price.

Those Parma Violet sweets that was the staple of every cheap variety sweet bag from poundland that you would get every Halloween.

Pure candied violets.

I sprayed my gf with this and asked her opinion, she said exactly the same.

From opening to dry down it smells like those 1p for a packet sweets.

Never worn outside sampling my own bottle in my room.

Sickly, sweet, disgusting.