Italian Cypress Tom Ford 2008

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7.8 / 10 313 Ratings

A popular perfume by Tom Ford for women and men, released in 2008. The scent is woody-spicy. The longevity is above-average. It was last marketed by Estēe Lauder Companies.
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Main accords

Woody

Spicy

Green

Citrus

Resinous

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Mandarin orange

Bergamot

Galbanum

Peppermint

Heart Notes

Cypress

Basil

Carnation

Patchouli

Base Notes

Moss

Labdanum

Ratings

Scent

7.8313 Ratings

Longevity

8.1242 Ratings

Sillage

7.4242 Ratings

Bottle

8.2246 Ratings

Value for money

6.468 Ratings

Submitted by Kankuro, last update on 05/08/2025.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Apex Parfum

Halston Z-14 Cologne

Apex Eau de Parfum

Italian Decorum

Italian Forest

Cipresso di Toscana

Reviews

7 in-depth fragrance descriptions

01/18/2012

7.5
Bottle 5
Sillage 7.5
Longevity 8
Scent

Flaconneur
49 Reviews

Flaconneur

Very helpful Review 4

ITALIAN CYPRESS by Tom Ford

Italian Cypress does a little time travel—back to the masculine fragrances of the 1970's, that is. It evokes a woody, resinous, herbal feel, all stuffed inside a musty leather jacket. This profile was very popular and saturated the market at the time. You might remember one of the elders of this fragrance group, Ralph Lauren Polo Green. Italian Cypress picks up where Polo Green left off, but it's far less aggressive and pungent than grandpa Polo.

Italian Cypress starts off with citrus top notes that are slightly sharp and very pleasing. The citrus flirts briefly with peppermint, giving the opening a fresh quality. The freshness is dirtied up a little with the addition of galbanum, which gives it just a little musky edge. As the top notes dissipate, the heart notes introduce a bit of southern Europe, with the robust scent of cypress. This beautifully aromatic coniferous tree blends easily with some herbal friends, clove and basil. Who doesn't love the smell of resinous herbs laced with citrus? The addition of patchouli grounds this otherwise excessively green mix with some earthy warmth and character. Cistus continues this scent trail with more warmth but with a touch of spicy essence. It blankets this fragrance as a whole supporting the masculine statement Italian Cypress was probably intending. The labdanum deepens the fragrance and give it a fantastic resinous quality. The base is topped off nicely with a little mossiness. A nice finishing touch to the spice and woods.

Italian Cypress has a very masculine feel and will please most masculine tastes. Women that love a great resinous, deep fragrance with a touch of evergreen might go for this as well. The longevity on this fragrance was moderate and sillage was fine but not extremely strong. Italian Cypress is comfortable, masculine and a good substitute for your beloved Polo Green.

01/26/2016

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM

Helpful Review 5

Brilliant!

Bingo! My favourite Private Blend scent so far. Or better say, the only one I would say I truly like. I wouldn’t ever spend that money for this, but let’s be honest – this is very good. It’s basically a better (way better) Ralph Lauren Polo Green, which is a scent I moderately admire and really wanted to like, while I couldn’t really – pardon the blasphemy, but I find it (in both its vintage and new versions) too dry, unbalanced, screechily macho and almost vile. Italian Cypress just tweaks the right knobs and fixes that same concept to perfection, creating a very handsome, mature scent with a brilliant masculine vibe miles away the idiotic baseball-hatted “bro” attitude of half of the rest of the Private Blend line.

Basically it’s a very compelling, “virile” and old-school yet somehow totally contemporary green-woody fougère with an amazingly crisp sort of leafy-earthy feel of balsamic greenness and smoky woods. It covers the whole spectre of aromas you’d encounter in a forest, basically – from the thin fresh balsamic air, to the damp smell of woody roots. It may sound nothing special or new, but instead it manages to present such a conventional structure under a very different, and ultimately quite distinctive light. Probably the cypress accord is the key, as it’s green, minty and woody in a very peculiar way – a sort of bitter, watery, rooty, exceedingly realistic smell of crisp green woods. Now take that, surrounded by a half-macho, half-gentleman fougère-inspired aura of smoke-infused darker woods (slightly birch-y, too) and topped with an added dose of more rarefied citrusy greenness. Nothing really Italian actually, this smells more like some German forest to me, like in some Prussian area – it feels quite balsamic, uplifting, but at the same time somehow cold, dark, archaic. More “viking” than “macho”, so to speak. “Italy” shall mean probably more citrus, more herbs, and a more friendly, affable, laid-back mood, while Italian Cypress has some fascinating feel of dry, austere breezy darkness that definitely moves the inspiration way “more up-North”, in my opinion.

Anyway, inspirations aside this is a very well made scent, not overly creative but really impeccable. It smells just great: refined, quite natural, fascinatingly complex, subtly austere, it manages to do something I always love with fragrances – making you feel “home” with an apparently conventional structure (the early Eighties green fougère here) but yet refreshing and playing around with it a bit, just enough to smell distinctive and show some, say, “up-to-date” personality. Plus it also checks all the relevant performance marks – lasts well, projects well, no unpleasant surprises, very decent materials. Well done.

8/10

05/31/2013

jtd
484 Reviews

jtd

Helpful Review 6

truth in advertising

In a wonderfully straightforward manner, Italian Cypress does in fact smell like the cypress tree. It manages to capture the entirety of the tree: the green stiff briskness of evergreen, the pine-like moisture of the wood, the soil and air and sunshine. It’s unabashedly What It Is. It reminds me of Caron Yataghan, Paco Rabanne pour Homme in genre and character. The linking of herbal, woody and balsamic notes is effortless. This baby has nothing to do with the muscled, depilated, excessively groomed, self-conscious male fragrances of the 21st-century. It's animated, sweaty, and spits on sidewalks. It’s uninhibited in a way that might not fit easily into a social media framework.

Current men's perfumery is still saddled with vestiges of 1990s apologia. It supports aspiration, the desire to fit in, the pathology of conspicuousness. I tend to think of Tom Ford brand style, from my cursory views of it since the 1990s, as aspiring to uniformity and a bland, unexcitingluxury. A world where the White Party is an ideal, and the best manicure wins. It's as if he took the worst from my people, the clonishness and used it with neither irony nor higher purpose. All anonymity and no identity.

But credit where it’s due. Italian Cypress is a beautifully rough ride. It’s expansive and brash, but completely charming. Italian Cypress captures that 1970s good-old-bad-old days feel perfectly.

from scent hurdle.com

12/10/2020

Kike
21 Reviews

Kike

Helpful Review 1

Buen trabajo

Perfume que abre con notas cítricas y verdes.
Más verde se pone cuando se le une el ciprés que llega para quedarse.
Es un perfume elegante y con mucho cuerpo.
Buena duración y proyección.
Ideal para otoño e invierno.

12/21/2012

10
Bottle 5
Sillage 5
Longevity 6
Scent

Drseid
821 Reviews

Drseid

Decent Scent; Terrible Value...

Some say this is a modernized version of Polo Green, but apart from them both being green fragrances, I don't see it and quite frankly the original Polo is light years better than this for a heck of a lot less money. The comments elsewhere about it being a revamped Rive Gauche are closer to the mark, IMO, but I prefer Rive Gauche (also a heck of lot less money). Bottom line is Italian Cypress is a pleasant scent that is worth a sniff but I cannot in good conscience recommend a buy on this one. 3 stars out of 5.

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