Tom Ford Violet Blonde Eau de Parfum

Tom Ford Violet Blonde Eau de Parfum ($100.00 for 1.7 oz.) is a new pillar of Tom Ford’s signature collection for women. It joins Black Orchid and White Patchouli. The notes include: violet leaf, Italian Mandarin, baie rose, Tuscan orris absolute, Tuscian orris butter, jasmine sambac, benzoin, cedarwood, Haitian vetiver absolute, musk, and soft suede.

It opened with strong burst of floral notes with a sweetened, fruit-laced edge over a backdrop of peppery greens. There was an inkling of the greenness from the violet leaf when it opened, but it quickly transitioned to fragrant, floral jasmine, which was the prevailing note on my skin for some time. The jasmine blended with the rooty qualities of the orris (iris root), so it was cool and just softer than crisp; like the first few days of fall, where the air coolly caresses and you realize the seasons have just changed.

I appreciated the damp, mustiness the orris notes imparted–they enhanced the depth and added another layer of nuance.  It made it distinctly autumnal for me and suitable as the weather slinks into sunny but cool afternoons.  Autumn is my favorite season, especially the precious few weeks, because it’s blissfully temperate with leaves just beginning to change and no fireplaces have been switched on.  It’s fresh and green and lovely.

Violet Blonde encapsulates some of those qualities–the freshness and green crispness of autumn–but it is more floral than anything else.  It never turned achingly sweet, which is a direction that tends to remind me of youthfulness, and instead, it evolved to an earthy jasmine with soft, creamy woods that took away some of the edginess of the opening of the scent but made it more wearable.  Violet Blonde reads elegant, polished, and subtly feminine–ultimately, a sophisticated, layered scent that’s not as heavy or as daunting as Tom Ford’s Private Blend Collection, but in some ways, more refined.