Bois Blond (Parfumerie Generale, 2007, Pierre Guillaume)

The perfume opens with light early summer grass, hints of citrus and fresh wood shavings. There is a note of very green, sappy wood and a hint of spice. This is a heady mixture, it is much brighter than I had expected given the strong presence of cedar. The spice remains and is joined by musk and a more aged wood as the perfume really dries down and warms to skin temperature. The mixture of wood, spices and musk almost evoke old-fashioned wax furniture polish, a rich scent with a little astringent sharpness. This sharpness mellows after an hour or so though a certain spice element remains. Though it isn't actually an ingredient I perceive a coriander undertone: spicy and deep yet not too obviously comestible. This combines with the cedar and musk to create a warm, slightly sweaty skin scent, which for me epitomises the height of summer. The smell of my own skin on a long, hot summer day is a constant source of satisfaction and this perfume really captures the masculine aroma and the spice of drying sweat.

As the day and the season wear on the scent settles with wet hay. It still has a hint of sweat though this element no longer comes to the fore. The whole fragrance settles for the rest of the day and toys with that boundary between perfect ripeness and the onset of decay. Towards the end there is a hint of the sweetness of silage and hay barns. This scent gently fades out as the night itself draws in.

L’Autre (Diptyque, 1973)

Mr Atrocity has ranted most excellently below about the affront to sensuality that is Tom Ford For Men. In the course of trying to create a sexxayhott smell, Mr Ford inexplicably forgot to include any ingredients reminiscent of the human body. There is an obvious reason for this, which can easily be deduced from a glance at the advert: Mr Ford does not understand the difference between sex and pornography. Poor thing. This is a bit like not understanding the difference between eating a fabulous, imaginative and perfectly-cooked four-course meal, and looking at a photograph of a tub of supermarket margarine.

For those who like their pleasures first-hand and real, L’Autre is much more the thing; perhaps the sort of thing, in fact, that Mr Ford would have created were he not scared of his own penis. Because L’Autre is actually sexy, in a real, earthy, unashamed, all-consuming way. It smells of two things: man-spice and man-sweat. It is devastatingly uncomplicated. Spray it on, and it’s cumin. (Sorry.) Heavy, heavy garam masala, cumin-centric, with hints of coriander, ginger and black pepper. And then, after about five to ten seconds, comes the first hammer-blow of pure armpit. WHOMP! Oh God. It’s wonderful. You wait and sniff again. WHOMP! Grrr. WHOMP! Again!

L’Autre is the smell of the wolfman, if the wolfman lives in Peshawar and rarely washes. It is the smell of an Afghan spice market after a long summer day, while rugged tribesmen stand guard, using their Kalashnikovs to pick their teeth. It is like dancing all night with an awesomely muscled and shirtless Bollywood superstar, and burying your nose in his furry chest hair. It is sex. Sex and curry. And sex.

The fact that such a balls-out scent is made by Diptyque, more famed for producing ludicrously overpriced though unfortunately irresistible scented candles, comes as some surprise. Still, it was 1973 when they made it, and people were still prepared to smell like people then, rather than scrubbing feverishly at their denuded pubes with chemically-synthesised watermelon.

Naturally, the Basenotes page on L’Autre is full of people writing “ZOMG WTF it smells like vindaloo and hell and a crotch!!!11 yuk man pass the Clinique Happy!!!” Most people won’t like L’Autre, but then again most people don’t like subtitled films, opera and having their steak served blue. We can safely conclude that most people are idiots. For those few who actually enjoy life’s pleasures, it is a truly luscious discovery. If you’re one of them, you may also relish a deep sniff of Serge Lutens' Santal de Mysore, which is either a rip-off or an even more perfected version of L’Autre, depending on how you feel about Christopher Sheldrake.

Tom Ford For Men (Tom Ford, 2007)

Tom Ford For Men is Mr. Ford's company's first foray into the world of male perfumery. Together with knowledge of the perfume's title, the print ads (see above) suggest one of two things. One, this perfume smells of lady's undercarriage or, two, smelling of this scent will gain one access to a lady's undercarriage. Given the staggeringly nonsexual smell of the fragrance I must assume it is option two that Mr. Ford's advertising agency is attempting to persuade us is in prospect. That said, returning to the advertisement for a moment, quite who would like to spend any intimate time with a hairless, oiled up anorexic I cannot imagine, certainly no-one with a penchant for sensual delights. And perhaps that's just it, here is a perfume aimed at people who like to think of themselves as deeply sexual and sensual but actually aren't, they need to be explicitly sold a product which puts vagina and perfume in as close physical proximity as mainstream publishing will allow to get through their heads: "Oh this is the sexy one. This one will get me laid". They must lack the capacity (or interest perhaps) to smell the array of profoundly sexy smells that perfumers have created to delight our noses, summon our blood and stiffen our sinews. What kind of mind sees this advert and buys this scent I wonder? It can only be someone for whom the vapid objectification of women, the rendering of the act of sex itself in its most artificial manner combined with the removal of any passion or emotion appeals. There is no humanity, no warmth and no sensuality. I don't doubt that people exist who get their kicks from such empty idolatry but marketing to them makes me almost speechless with anger and disappointment at my fellow males.

Returning to the product itself I had personally hoped, given the photo (setting aside social and political objections for a moment), that it might smell of ladies' undercarriages but my disappointment in finding that it did not was as nothing compared to the disappointment that it did not stir the slightest twitch of excitement in my nether regions. There are so many scents competing in this perfume that it is almost as if the perfumer, unsure of what Mr. Ford wanted for his first masculine fragrance, decided to put them all in just in case. Allow me to list them for you: citrus, lemon leaf oil, bergamot, mandarin zest, basil, violet leaves, ginger, orange blossom, black pepper, tobacco leaf, grapefruit blossom, amber, cedar, patchouli, vetiver, oakmoss, leatherwood and cypriol. It is the latter that all the fuss is being made over. Mr. Ford has commented that cypriol, a root from India, is the vital ingredient that gives, "that slightly dirty, sensual, sexy smell...It's not the same as natural musk used to be, but it has a bit of something that some people would think slightly dirty...I think it's warm and sensual." I think it's insipid and weak: semi-skimmed musk at best. To be honest, to my nose the scent it recalls most is that cheap soap that Boots used to sell, the allegedly unperfumed sort that instead had a slightly soap flakes kind of pong to it, not acrid nor pine-fresh clean but still a long way from a dirty tussle in some damp sheets. This scent has no libido at all; I really can't find anything animalic in this fragrance. Actually looking back at the compendious list of ingredients, the reason I can't get any sexy animal scent is because there is indeed no sexy animal ingredient to be found. And here is where this fragrance falls apart for me given the pure sex hyperbole of the advertising.

There is nothing offensive about the perfume itself, it is quite clean and fresh smelling, there is a hint of Earl Grey in amongst the citrus and gentle spices. But musk? No sir, nary a hint. This is no perfume to widen the nostrils; it would suffice for meeting ,and not frightening, an elderly maiden aunt perhaps, but not one's paramour. The deliciously sexy Musc Ravageur from Editions de Parfums which, despite Mr. Ford's placement of musk in the past tense, is positively engorged with the stuff is described thus on their website, "No flowers, just a refined and exalted skin scent." And that's what you need to get you horny. Lemons, violets and bergamot all have their places (in a martini, the garden and Earl Grey tea for example) but it is the smell of sweat and human skin that is arousing and Tom Ford For Men lacks any sense of it.

Tea for Two (L'Artisan Parfumeur, 2000, Olivia Giacobetti)

When I squirted myself with Tea for Two this morning, I wasn't impressed. Smoky to the point of caustic, like standing next to roadworks. I thought I'd made a dreadful mistake putting it on, but, over the next few hours, the fragrance matured and Olivia Giacobetti once again proved her worth. I can smell cloves and nutmeg, honey and cinnamon. I can smell the deep smoke of lapsang souchong and the delicate bergamot of Earl Grey, as well as the honey spice of Indian chai and a touch of orange blossom.

This is a deep, dark, sensual smell, and I love it. I might even love it more than Dzing! although that's a little like trying to choose your favourite child.

Musc Ravageur (Frédéric Malle Editions de Parfums, 2000, Maurice Roucel)

Musk, cinnamon, tangerine, bergamot.

Musk Ravageur is a gloriously complex frangrance: all day long it evolves and matures through different, fascinating stages. I can't possibly put into words how interesting and multi-layered it is. What I can put into words, though, are the two notes that keep coming back and back and back, which are:

• one of those oranges with cloves stuck in it; and
• sweaty animal.

If that sounds disgusting, this perfume probably isn't for you, but I think it's wonderful. I'm going to stop wearing it in summer, though, since I keep reminding myself of Christmas.

Dzing! (L'Artisan Parfumeur, 1999, Olivia Giacobetti)

I hope Ms Kolinsky, Ms Sutphin and Mr Atrocity aren't too peeved that I'm bagsying Dzing! as my debut fragrance. To my knowledge, they're all fans.

Back in the days of Roman imperial decline, the satirist Juvenal opined that the people had lost all interest in the serious matters of war and governance, distracted as they were by the pursuit of bread and circuses. But even Juvenal would not have been able to stop his grumpy mouth watering as he strode through the forum in the morning and the smell of hot stonebaked ciabatta briefly overpowered the stink of unwashed slave and regurgitated dormouse. So, too, may we admit that the smell of circuses is a powerful evocation.

As the plumed showgirl riding a tiger on the bottle implies, Dzing! is intended to smell of circuses. Mainly, this means sawdust and tiger armpit. The practised nose (or imagination) may also detect traces of toffee apple and greasepaint. It was concocted by the sublimely imaginative Olivia Giacobetti, whose various creations for L'Artisan - including Premier Figuier, Tea for Two and Safran Troublant - have all broken new ground. For me, though, Dzing! is her masterpiece. Spraying it on yourself is like putting on a motheaten but extremely lustrous fur coat made from something horribly endangered. It's bold, shocking and totally conspicuous. I won't wear it in the day unless I really want to fuck some mad shit up.

If you wear Dzing!, you can expect a variety of passionate responses. Certainly it will not pass muster with the Terrence Howard school, which regards women who do not rigorously disinfect their undercarriages as filthy sluts. Mr Howard is exactly the sort of freak that Dzing! will handily scare off at 100 paces. Other reactions are diverse. Dzing! is one of a few scents that has provoked a total stranger to come up to me and ask what I smelled of; I think she was being appreciative. More than once, a gentleman has sniffed my neck for rather too long trying to place its elements. And, just a couple of weeks ago, a friend greeted me with "What's that fabulous smell? It's gorgeous; really clean, somehow." I told her that I actually smelled of pies, leotard crotch and raggle-taggle gypsy child, but she didn't believe me.

It warms and mellows a bit, like everything else, but Dzing! is actually remarkably consistent: still hitting most of the same notes four hours after you first drench yourself in it. It's a unique, heavy and borderline-dangerous scent. As the victorious Roman gladiator staggered forth from the Colosseum, having shown a bunch of big cats the business end of his toasting fork, you can bet the back of his knees smelled like this. Grrrrrrr.