Plum Japonais Tom Ford 2013

This is not your standard super fruity plum...this is a very leathery, lowkey plum with a decadent luxurious combo of spices, resins, flowers and woods. This is the most dressy, gorgeous and grandiose fragrance i ever tried. Top 5 Tom Fords, without a doubt. Im on my first wear, and what i get is a gorgeous cinnamon opening with saffron in the background, you can feel the plum coming out, then in the drydown, you get a smoky, resinous oud with an amber accord, and some piney/fir dark green-ish feeling. Ive seen that this is compared to some other creations, but this stands on its own two legs loud and proud.

Fortunately, you don't spritz on a marketing campaign. You spritz perfume. Set aside the nouvelle orientalism of the Ford 'Atelier d'Orient' collection. But do smell Plum Japonais if you get the chance.

More than most fruits, the plum is about the relationship of the skin and the flesh of the fruit. A thin, intensely acidic skin layer is the first taste of the plum as you pierce the skin with your teeth, but the rush of sweet flesh overwhelms the tartness quickly as you continue to bite. In your mouth, the experience reverses and the sweetness washes away as the meat of the fruit gets swallowed, leaving the skin and its sharpness. Tart, sweet, tart. Each bite is a little opera.

The salty, acidic slap of the pickled umeboshi plum is one of my favorite tastes. The experience is huge and invigorating. It’s the gustatory equivalent of jumping out of a sauna and into the snow. Plum Japonais plays with these fluctuating facets of the plum and makes a woody-plum perfume that is both bold and nuanced. Plum could be a thorny note, given that Edmond Roudnitska claimed the plum as his own with the brilliant Rochas Femme. The reformulation of Femme, with cumin standing in for no longer available animalic elements, kept the plum alive and in the chypre territory. Serge Lutens and Christopher Sheldrake used the plum as the starting place for a wholely new fruited-wood amber genre. Feminité du Bois and its successors have claimed the rights to a plum-cedar empire. Any perfumer hoping to make a principally plum-scented fragrance cannot help but see some big shoes.

Perfumer Yann Vasnier takes the plum into new territory with Plum Japonais. The previous pairings, plum/moss in Femme and plum/cedar in Feminité du Bois, were enormously successful and so is Vanier’s. He matches plum with a fir note, making a sweet and syrupy perfume that doesn’t fall into the gourmand trap. I’ve seen oud, spices and all sorts of things listed in the notes for Plum Japonais, but the overall effect is a sweet, cool woody tone similar to that in Fille en Aiguilles. (Take that, Sheldrake!) In both cases you can embrace the sweetness without reservation and never fear falling into a dessert. Even with notes of cardamom and cinnamon, the perfume still leans more toward the Christmas tree than the dessert table.

Vasnier creates a dynamic similar to the tart-sweetness of eating a plum by focussing on the tensions between spiced sweetness and cold balsamic resinousness. And he manages to do it without stealing from either Roudnitska or Sheldrake. This alone is remarkable. Plum Japonais has an unrestrained opening that is appropriate for a fruity fragrance, but settles comfortably into a dusty wooded-fruit balance that remains strong but close to the skin. The drydown is spectacular, more poised than tempting, and is would be a great treat to reconsider on your wrist at the end of a long day.

(I'm just being introduced to perfumer Yann Vasnier's work and am enjoying it tremendously. Can't wait to try more.)

from scenthurdle.com

I couldn't wait to add this Plum Japonais to my collection !!
This is a very interesting scent. (And probably one of the most underrated of the sumptuous Private Blend collection).
Japanese plums, spices, candied fruits, incense...
All of this "jam" sounds a bit odd, but the final bouquet is well worth it.
We are dealing here with a very powerful olfactory substance !!
Like a fruity, heavy, candied Japanese plum, all enhanced with a sublime touch of fresh Oud to which we would have added a bouquet of floral, amber, sweet notes...
It's powerful, complex, and it smells really really good.
It's not a sweet sticky plum.
She is here a little drier, without being too much to remind you of a tropical plum juice.
A bit like an Oud Wood, a multi-layered fragrance in its complexity.
Speaking of Oud, (one of my favorite ingredients), i find that this one is hiding in the background, wisely waiting to make its appearance.
As the plum note gradually withdraws from the scene, while playing a very subtle role in drying out to remind us where this little olfactory gem comes from.
Plum Japonais is one of those rare perfumes that keeps evolving over and over again without the fear of ending up with something horrible !!
I will highly recommend it to lovers of oriental fragrances.
A sort of paradise in a bottle, as sensual as Noir de Noir...
So beautiful that it is almost moving.
The kind of scent that could make your knees weak.
A dark, mysterious, smoky, juicy, exotic, sensual, almost solar juice in its opening.
A real olfactory delight !!
The opening is a spicy Japanese plum followed by a rather heavy incense.
The weight and depth of the top notes immediately indicate a "masculine" scent.
Plum, cinnamon, vanilla, benzoin are a real treat.
To once again give you an idea of ​​this olfactory jewel, it oscillates between the interior of a Buddhist temple, smoked incense, or even a sweet and juicy Japanese plum that has ripened under the sun...
Being aware of the power of this juice, do not have a heavy hand when spraying, otherwise you will find yourself suffocated by its intoxicating scents.
All the notes blend wonderfully and will be trapped on your skin for over 12 hours.
In other words, longevity is substantially eternal...
You will receive a lot of compliments on this Plum Japonais.
I really really love this perfume.
Conclusion: TOM FORD has taken a note that was once massacred and made it an absolutely incredible perfume, totally essential.
A very, very high quality Japanese plum.
Special mention to drying, which is absolutely beautiful.
Record longevity, quality ingredients, divine drying...
PLEASE NOTE: Olfactory masterpiece !!
My rating: 10/10

Plum Japonais opens with a splash of relatively sweet fruity plum before quickly transitioning to its spicy heart. As the composition enters the early heart the sweet plum moves to a supporting role as it joins a powerful cinnamon and saffron spice starring tandem with a tinge of dark green fir balsam and slightly rubbery Oud. During the late dry-down the composition moves away from most of the spice and plum as an extremely potent sweet amber takes over as the star later giving way to slightly powdery dry vanilla and benzoin completing the development. Projection is average and longevity slightly above average at 8-10 hours on skin.

Plum Japonais' open and middle phases are incredible smelling. While others have likened the composition to several Serge Lutens compositions I rather find its spicy nature to more closely resemble Clive Christian's X for Men, with Plum Japonais swapping plum and Oud with X's jasmine. The heart phase of Plum Japonais is far from an X for Men clone, but there is no denying the similarities (and that is a good thing as X for Men smells incredible). As a plum, cinnamon and saffron lover I was ready to buy a bottle for my collection after enjoying an hour of plum-laced spice heaven. Unfortunately the early heart is as good as it gets, and things start to unravel shortly thereafter as during the early dry-down the plum-laced spice slowly fades, giving way to simplistic cloyingly sweet amber that ruins it. The powdery dry vanilla driven finish ends the composition as mundane as its open was enticing. The bottom line is the $210 per 50ml bottle Plum Japonais got off to an extremely strong start but in the end disappointed big time, earning a "good" 3 stars out of 5 rating on the whole but is not recommended due to its incredibly disappointing finish (4 stars+ for the plum and spice focused early heart and 2 for the cloying amber driven lazy finish). If you enjoy the early heart of Plum Japonais I recommend sniffing Costume National Homme and X for Men that are more complete and successful options with similar profiles.

Sometimes being a fragrance enthusiast can be very stressful: There is this one fragrance that is on my to-try list since years and I simply never did try it. Recently, rumors occurred that the fragrance is going to be discontinued and it immediately sold out everywhere. I was afraid that I will never get a chance to try the mentioned fragrance and after a few weeks, I finally found it back in an online store, even at a discounted price. I pulled the trigger before it’s too late. And now I own Plum Japonais by Tom Ford - another blind buy.

Although I don’t find the Tom Ford Private Blend packaging special, it’s still kind of unique in its own way and hence it feels kind of special when unboxing a new TFPB. After I opened the box of Plum Japonais, I was excited to finally try it, knowing the risk that blind buys usually carry with them. So I immediately sprayed it on my arm and what can I say... it’s good, very good actually, but not what I expected based on the name „Plum Japonais“. I was expecting more of an Asian Style of fragrance, fruity-floral, more lightweight. What I got is an oriental style of fragrance: sweet amber and vanilla, spicy cinnamon, oud and plum.

Now, based on the notes I could have known how this fragrance smells but I last checked them years ago and kind of ignored them ever since.

Am I happy with the blind buy? Yes. I do like lighter scents for spring and summer but I also love oriental perfumes and this one smells just very good. If I would have to describe the smell I would say it’s about 30% of Tobacco Vanille, 30% Tobacco Oud (both without the Tobacco) and 40% plum with a Tom Ford-ish base.

I can’t say too much about the performance yet because I simply haven’t given it enough full wearings. But based on the style of fragrance and first wearings I don’t see any reason to complain.

I haven’t got any compliments or complaints either. But that’s also due to a lack of wearings and Social distancing (Covid-19).

I’m excited to wear this fragrance more often in the next few weeks and months and happy to have it in my collection before it’s (maybe?) gone or re-released in a more expensive product line.