For me, the only question when I am trying out a new Tom Ford Private Collection perfume, is not if I will like it, but how much will I.  Because let’s face it, most perfumes I don’t like are the ones who bore me, and Tom Ford never does – there’s always something there that’s interesting, and even if I know it smells like something else, he always puts something in there that either elevates it, or makes it turn somewhere else. And I always always want them, although we do know in life we can never get everything we want.

And I love Vert D’Encens, truly. What strikes me most about it is that it reminds me of Christmas, because it smells like a combination of chocolate and pine, and almost always at Holiday time those two are entwined in my life.

The scent starts in the forest, with some smoked woods, and some smoked leaves, and pine. Lots of lotsof pine. I remember there was a year I was selling fresh wreaths for charity and I overdosed on pine scents – the real one, not Lysol – and to this day whenever I get pine, I go back to that time in my life (there were other significant things happening in my life then, of course) So this initially brought me back then, but then a rich dark coco note comes in, and those two intermingle seamlessly, and as I sniff myself just right now, all I could think of is chocolate covered pine. There’s a certain melancholy feel to this perfume – it’s somewhat somber, and definitely heavy, but it is also very subtle, and personal – it’s a little bit of a wallflower, and doesn’t really project. I can even imagine what I would wear with this – a tweedy something or a corduroy jacket perhaps. It skews more gentlemanly, and I feel like can only be smelled by someone close to the wearer.

I am glad I tested this now, because I feel like this would be the perfect Holiday scent for me.