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Private Blend: Jardin Noir

Ombre de Hyacinth Tom Ford 2012

7.9 / 10 92 Ratings

A popular perfume by Tom Ford for women and men, released in 2012. The scent is floral-green. The production was apparently discontinued.
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Main accords

Floral

Green

Fresh

Powdery

Spicy

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Violet leaf

Galbanum

Magnolia

Frankincense

Heart Notes

Hyacinth

Jasmine

Pink pepper

Base Notes

Galbanum

Musk

Benzoin

Perfumer

Calice Becker

Ratings

Scent

7.992 Ratings

Longevity

7.371 Ratings

Sillage

6.674 Ratings

Bottle

8.287 Ratings

Value for money

6.518 Ratings

Submitted by Kankuro · last update on 09/18/2025.

Source-backed & verified

Interesting Facts

The fragrance was part of the collection Private Blend: Jardin Noir.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Bas de soie

Grey Flannel Eau de Toilette

Chamade Eau de Parfum

Reviews

5 in-depth fragrance descriptions

04/12/2013

8Scent 7.5Longevity 7.5Sillage

Sherapop
1240 Reviews

Sherapop

4

Where Heure Exquise and Grand Amour meet...

Tom Ford OMBRE DE HYACINTH is a fine greyish-green chypre which reminds me a lot of a couple of the Annick Goutal perfumes: HEURE EXQUISE and GRAND AMOUR. The chypre quality leans more toward the former, and the declarative hyacinth toward the latter. There is also a touch of nuttiness, which reminds me of Creed IRISIA.

Needless to say, given all of these comparisons, this is not at all a sweet perfume, and the drydown is even rather soapy. Nor does OMBRE DE HYACINTH remind me of much that I've tried before in the Tom Ford line. Most notably, there is no patchouli anywhere here to be sniffed. And no truffles, either!

I quite like OMBRE DE HYACINTH, but I like classic chypres. I see that galbanum is listed as both a top and a base note, but to me this perfume is more gray than green, and I'd have guessed the presence of oakmoss, though it is not indicated either in the hierarchy or on the manufacturer's card. I also believe that I detect something akin to lily of the valley in this composition.

OMBRE DE HYACINTH is unquestionably a well-made and pleasing soapy chypre perfume, but I believe that I can achieve the same effect by mixing a spritz of GRAND AMOUR with a spritz of HEURE EXQUISE. Yes, I'll have to give that a try!

04/24/2023

10Scent 9Longevity 9Sillage

Nikander
17 Reviews

Nikander

2

Gateway drug

Ombre de Hyacinth is the scent that got me into fragrances. I randomly applied it on myself, visiting a beautiful perfume shop in Rome, and from then on I felt enveloped in a dark, purple cloud of beauty and joy. I use this fragrance now only very very rarely because firstly it has been discontinued and I'm fearing the moment that bottles get rarer and rarer and secondly this fragrance has an almost hypnotizing effect on me. I can't trust myself in traffic wearing this. :) I haven't come across anything like it since. Utter love.

06/26/2018

8.5Scent 7Longevity 4Sillage

Aventurin
7 Reviews

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Aventurin

Top Review 27

Every magic has an end

Green fragrances often touch me a little more than purely floral, citrus, oriental, or even gourmand ones.
They are often serious and a bit aloof, melancholic and reserved, especially the darker, sometimes harsh representatives - with plenty of galbanum, moss, and forest accents - are rarely shallow and cheerful.
The somewhat milder, lighter ones - grassy and green-leaved - are more lively and airy, they are the cheerful, spring-fresh scents.

Ombre de Hyacinth is one of the melancholics, yet it is touchingly porcelain-like fragile. One hardly dares to expose it to the hostile world; a breath of wind could carry it away, fatally injuring it.
It is as if one has stripped away ten masks, especially those of heaviness and bitterness that galbanum can radiate, leaving only the very bottom one, the one that separates the soul as thinly as parchment from the body.
Ombre de Hyacinth thus presents itself as contemplatively introspective as it is weightlessly fragile. It oscillates between delicate violet, powdery flowers and dark green, ethereal depth, like a pale cool morning under densely packed tree shadows.

We humans are also fragile. Some more, others less. Our hearts sometimes appear stronger than they will ever be, ultimately they are just like a thousand layers of leaves, and each individual leaf is highly vulnerable, quickly crushed by a raindrop, torn by a gust of wind.

“Every magic has an end” is the title of a piece of music by Bersarin Quartett.
And here it is very fitting, because Ombre de Hyacinth is no longer available.
And in its fleetingness, its last slow breaths remind one of all the good that passes, fades away, and perhaps falls silent forever.

(I thank KatharinaG and Achilles)

10/19/2014

6Scent 7.5Longevity 7.5Sillage

Kugeldistel
101 Reviews

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Kugeldistel

Top Review 7

Grandiose Blender

Ombre de Hyacinth from the Jardin Noir Private Blends line makes a spectacular, promising start for me, namely green-floral with a beautiful, very natural hyacinth note, which - energetically supported by the harsh violet leaves and bitter galbanum - deepens into a dark, herbaceous floral scent. I am already mentally justifying the very high price to myself - but before I convince myself to invest nearly 200 euros in 50 ml, Ombre de Hyacinth loses its strength. The scent noticeably weakens and no longer holds what the grandiose opening promises. It noticeably declines, becomes flatter, and develops in a more masculine, aftershave-like direction. In the top and heart notes, it seduces and enchants with its harsh, dark-floral sensuality, but in the base, it disappoints immensely and is simply boring aftershave.

12/08/2014

7Scent 7.5Longevity 5Sillage

loewenherz
917 Reviews

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loewenherz

11

The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Work Magic

So goes the title of the third of seven stories in Hans Christian Andersen's epochal fairy tale of the Snow Queen, equally rich in pages as in metaphors. Metaphors that I, as a little boy, of course did not understand when I first heard about little Kay, who fell under the spell of the demonic queen - and Gerda, his companion, who set out to find him - a long, arduous journey, always northward, all alone, facing uncertainty and snow, with nothing in her heart but her confidence and hope. I remember that the story both frightened and fascinated me at that time, already in the aforementioned third story, at the beginning of the great search:

'What did the hyacinths say? 'There were three beautiful sisters, transparent and fine. One wore a red dress, the other a blue dress, the third a white dress; hand in hand they danced by the quiet lake in the bright moonlight. They were not elves, they were human children. There it smelled so sweet, and the girls disappeared into the forest. The scent grew stronger; three coffins, in which lay the beautiful girls, glided from the thicket of the forest across the lake; the fireflies flew glowing all around, like little floating lights. Are the dancing girls sleeping or are they dead? - The flower scent says they are corpses; the evening bell tolls the funeral song!' 'You make me very sad,' said little Gerda. 'You smell so strong; I must think of the dead girls! Oh, is little Kay really dead? The roses have been down in the earth and say: No!' 'Ding, dong!' chimed the hyacinth bells. 'We do not ring for little Kay, we do not know him; we only sing our song, the only one we know.'

Ombre de Hyacinth, one of four from Tom's dark garden, the labels here pale mauve. None of them in my very first row - they all remain a step behind their brothers in the brown bottles. And yet here, the hyacinth manages to extract a new, an exciting note. Not dark, yet fascinatingly dark-surreal - moonlit - a bit like the dead girls in Andersen's wonderful story. Nothing here of the sweet cheerfulness and bright friendliness of the hyacinth, as we know it, for example, from Penhaligon's Bluebell. Here it is heavy and dragging, accompanied by a diffuse earthiness and the shadowiness of long-standing water - and fleeting, unexpectedly fleeting for a Private Blend.

Conclusion: faithful Gerda will find him in the end, her Kay. He was not in the realm of the dark hyacinths.