Black Orchid Tom Ford 2006Eau de Parfum

Black Orchid (Eau de Parfum) by Tom Ford

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7.8 / 10 985 Ratings

Black Orchid (Eau de Parfum) is a popular perfume by Tom Ford for women and was released in 2006. The scent is floral-oriental. Projection and longevity are above-average. It is being marketed by Estēe Lauder Companies.

Scent goes well with Encre Noire (Eau de Toilette)

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Perfumer

David Apel

Fragrance Notes

Top Notes	Black truffle, Bergamot, Blackcurrant, Ylang-ylang
Heart Notes	Black orchid, Lotus wood, Floral notes, Fruity notes
Base Notes	Balsam, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Vanilla, Vetiver, Frankincense

Ratings

Scent

7.8 | 985 Ratings

Longevity

9.0 | 814 Ratings

Sillage

8.5 | 789 Ratings

Bottle

8.3 | 775 Ratings

Value for money

7.3 | 59 Ratings

View Video of Black Orchid (Eau de Parfum) (YouTube)

Submitted by Kankuro, last update on 13.04.2021.

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Reviews

03/28/2021

Dzejmi

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Dzejmi

Beautiful fragrance but a little penetrating

On my skin, it evolves...in a darker, deep direction. It's floral, but I don't mean bright flowers, I'm talking about a rose bouquet with dark red and black roses. It is a beautiful scent in itself for me, however really powerful, intrusive, nose filling and also kind of pungent. There is a pungent note that makes the scent seem penetrating. I find its sister ,,Black Orchid Gold" to be more pleasant, earthier and less pungent. Still, just as powerful. I will not be buying it.

03/24/2021

Lilith105

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Lilith105

I dream of Hawaii

To describe this fragrance is almost impossible! It is so complex and yet balanced. I can describe it best with a beautiful compliment I got:
In the elevator, a very well-groomed old lady stood next to me....she cleared her throat and said, "Excuse me for addressing you, but I noticed your perfume. Over 40 years ago I was in Hawaii with my late husband....so long ago I haven't thought about it, but the scent...that's what Hawaii smells like" I had a lump in my throat. Scents bring back memories and feelings, is there anything better?

1 Replies

02/18/2021

JGatsby
17 Reviews

JGatsby

Tom Ford Black Orchid

There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. (Herman Melville)
I have to confess: my world is sharply black or white. There is nothing I loathe as much as the omnipresence of compromise wherever I thread. With me it’s either war or peace. Adoration or utter disgust. Himmelhoch jauchzend or zu Tode betrubt. I am dreadfully split – and I am insane enough to love my own duality. Shades of grey depress me immensely – as do hesitations, musings and Hamlet-like intellectual indecisions. Things are pretty clear most of the time: it is only our own fear of taking responsibility which makes us see multitudes where there just simple binary models.

It took me some time deciding whether I should review Ford’s Black Orchid (one of my strongest fragrant passions) or his White Patchouli (an I-sometimes-long-for-you-but-do-not-bother-calling type of fling) first – the dénouement being naturally the decision to jot down a review of contrasts. Because I firmly believe that these two scents cannot be described otherwise than by relating them to one another.

My first (impulsive, heated, blind – but oh so fortunate) buy was, as you might have guessed, Black Orchid. I was completely mesmerized by both name and ad, and if such thing is still possible with someone owning more than a hundred bottles, I was convinced in an entirely Platonian a priori way that I had finally found my ultimate signature scent. Meanwhile I know better than to ever assume that I might bring myself to stay faithful to even a restrictive number of three or four fragrances. The composition’s tantalizing mix of dark chocolate, patchouli, vanilla and of course, exotic, carnal, abundant orchid made my imagination run astray. A devotee’s pilgrimage to Mecca would not have triggered such a wild extasis of anticipation as did my waiting for my beautiful black and gold bottle of seductress essence. And Mr. Ford certainly did not let me down.

Mr. Ford’s creations are, I’d say, a Midgaard of the perfume world. They are not weird and unconventional enough to be niche, but they are neither placid and common and “haven’t-I-smelled-this-before?” enough to be categorized as commercial. But, then again, this is Tom Ford we’re talking about here. If there can be and if there is genius in perfumery, the same in which it is in literature, visual arts or science, then the embodiment of geniality is beyond the shadow of a doubt Tom Ford. As compared to Lutens, who is unmistakably anti-perfume, he manages to appeal to the palates of even those who hate unconventionalism with a passion. His 19th century namesake introduced automobiles to the general consumer: the present-day, fragrant Ford will introduce non-believers to the sacrament of fragrant fantasies.
Black Orchid is, in the vein of Kilian (but much more palatable) bottled Gothicism par excellence. Envisage a dark forest, pale moonlight streaming from between the high branches of century-old oak trees (those of you who are familiar with Tomek Baginski’s The Cathedral, know what I’m talking about) – by the way, this one was Oscar nominated), somewhere afar wolves howling, the air pregnant with darkness, wonders and pathways of dreams. Across the dark tree trunks hundreds of black, velvety, juicy orchids, glimmering in the dewdrops of the emerging morning, move and whisper giving off sweet and poisonous odors: chocolatey smoke, incense, vanilla. From the very body of the night a beautiful demon is rising. Her long black strands of hair curl snake-like across her marble-white back, enveloping her ethereal gown, shivering in the humid night air. A raven shrieks and rises from a branch, pausing on her statuesque arm, then descending to her feet and in the rising mists it metamorphosizes into an ivory demon fit for the otherworldly beauty of his queen. They start dancing to a silent lullaby only they can hear…. Their ghost-like feet leave no trace upon the sleeping grass…
It is 10 A.M. in NYC and Carrie Bradshaw has just turned off her white Mac after completing her latest Sex and the City journalistic rambling. She is hastily digging out the keys of her SLK convertible from among the vast array of lip glosses, cosmetic tissues, mobile phones and Ipods in her white Prada hobo. Hurrying down the stairs of her apartment building, she realizes she will have to walk to her appointment. Fortunately, the outfit and scents she has chosen are perfectly fit for an early stroll through the Big Apple: white Marlene Dietrich pants, white vest, pink an white striped shirt, androgyne black silk tie, black Manolo Blachniks and a statement platinum ring. Her honey blond locks smell of white flowers, just hint of rose and the vintage sweetness of patchouli. Carrie is stepping out into the glistening sun rays. May another day of adventure commence….

If Black Orchid can be paired with a long black evening gown, silk gloves and no underwear except a huge Agent Provocateur bow garter, White Patchouli is the bottled equivalent of a tailored Chanel business suit and minimal jewelry. If Black Orchid is Notre Dame, gargoyles awakening at night, rosettes and pointed arches and vaults, White Patchouli is the MET, highbrow respectability, Doric columns and minimalist design. If Black Orchid is a dark Belgian truffle, White Patchouli is a fresh lime sorbet.
“Those who do not understand the nature of sin and virtue are attached to duality; they wander around deluded”, Sri Guru Granth Sahib said. I’d much rather say they wander around perfumed. And smelling exquisite, too.

02/16/2021

Vogue2011

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Vogue2011

Even the Orchid is black, you CAN SEE her in the Dark!

The black beauty soon celebrates 10-year anniversary with me ;-)

At that time, by chance, in a Douglas, times at the Ford fragrances strolled past and been in Schnupperlaune... After the successful defense of the also black dressed "perfume assistants" ;-) came at some point the bottle "Black Orchid" in my hands...

Cardboard strip in the hand, lid off, sprayer on it: WOW! Kawumm! Smell explosion up into the sinuses :-))
Intense fragrance experience without end, and today, after 10 years of Ford loyalty in different directions of his fragrances, accustomed to his creations are always very present (well, a few exceptions there are), but mostly, so the O-ton of a former colleague: "I smell you already when you drive into the parking garage." ;-)

Who would like it rather quieter and more delicate should fall back on his "blue" collection, which are more subtle and not quite as BAAM! as his Private Collection. Spraying instructions with the PC: times ansetzen on each side of the neck, otherwise unfortunately "From the sublime to the cheap is often only 1 step necessary (or 1 sprayer in this case).

Funny response: with men I almost always hear: smells really good! Women react strangely often with a "Puuh, was'n das fürn Pu..duft?" ;-) To the latter always shoots through my head. "It takes one to know one." ;-)

02/14/2021

8.5
Scent 10
Longevity 10
Sillage 10
Bottle 9
Pricing

Favea

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Favea

Top Review 10

Black Sun

"You invade the mind. You stun the spirit You enlighten my mind
You seduce and you desecrate
You are cold and have long since burned up
And inside
You heat me
Since forever
Black Sun"
"E Nomine"
This is the exact song I associate with Black Orchid.
Dark, mysterious, somewhat morbid.
Black Orchid is virtually an intersection between my musical tastes and my fragrance preferences of the darker direction.
I smell dark orchids/lilies surrounded by dark greenery - some already faded, some wilting, some freshly blooming. A few black berries and aromatic, damp woody plants frame it all.
Durability and silage are great.
Fragrance-technically great black cinema - who likes it, who likes it, and I like it very much so then and when the thoughts get dark.... ;)

4 Replies

02/04/2021

7
Scent 6
Longevity 5
Sillage 6
Bottle

Mina33

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Mina33

Beautiful winter fragrance with weaknesses

From this fragrance I had ordered me full of excitement a filling and was particularly looking forward to the fragrance notes in the base. He starts very floral soft, slightly sweet but not pappig and goes into a very warm cozy and slightly woody drydown. I think all the fragrance notes are blended together great, it's without edges and evolves nicely from head to heart to base. However, as taken as I was with the fragrance itself, I was unfortunately disappointed with the performance. The longevity is under 8 hours on me, the sillage is barely there, it's very skin tight and for the price. If I buy a fragrance in this price range, it must have a top durability and a good to very good sillage. With both of us it is therefore unfortunately nothing, the chemistry is somehow not right. Too bad, smells really delicious

2 Replies

12/29/2020

9.5
Scent 9
Longevity 10
Pricing

Sebastian80

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Sebastian80

Helpful Review 10

Beauty in cheerful melancholy

Orchid, queen of flowers.
Mysterious, delicate, and as in my ungreen hands, not really durable. No ordinary cut flower or common rose.
Probably for this very reason orchids exert a magical effect. Tropical flowers in all kinds of colors and shapes. Only one thing they do not have unfortunately, an inherent smell...

If I had to assign this plant necessarily a figure, then the orchid would be for me a petite, dark-haired woman with pitch-black hair, pale skin and red lips. A bit like Mortitia Adams from the famous Adams Family, or Angelina Jolie in her role as Maleficent, the dark fairy. (Ok, Angelina isn't really petite, but fits in all the better because of her tendency to be depressed)

Maybe some of the comments and statements here have shaped my image of it. From morbid, dark and wicked is here the speech.
At the same time, I must say that the fragrance on myself (male, also hardly petite, fair skin and light hair) initially seems relatively cheerful, bright and dazzling. There is a certain opulence to it that cannot be denied. After some time, despite everything, a fine melancholy resonates. The fruity decreases and darker, warmer tones dim the basic mood.

Over most of the course I take thereby the currant as a fruity, metallic note over a slightly sweet butter biscuit base.
I can't make out the other notes in detail, the incense completely eludes me.

Black Orchid is a fragrance that is so completely different: engaging, strongly present and somehow definitely a bit diva-like and melancholy. A little conceited, a little difficult, but fascinating. You're too special for every day, or every evening for that matter, but maybe that's not how you want to be - you're not made for housework, don't bother with gardening or even tax forms. Yours is the grand entrance, the evening, the fireworks, but also the contemplative silence, in which I have you particularly happy around me.

2 Replies

12/19/2020

10
Scent 8
Longevity 8
Sillage 10
Bottle

Ponticus

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Ponticus

Top Review 52

My father's new wife!

My mother passed away a few years ago, after a long, difficult illness as it is commonly called. She had cancer. But only my father knew how hard it was, especially for him. For a long time after that, Dad struggled with himself and life, couldn't get going, was listless and let himself go. He was no longer a pretty sight, and he refused help when it was offered. Then he met a new life partner and everything changed.

Now dad goes straight home after work immediately, always, every day! He unlocks the front door and goes straight to her room. There she sits in the high-backed armchair, smiling at him. She is already waiting impatiently for him to come. For him, this is the highlight of the day. The greeting is a gentle kiss, a fleeting caress and a catching of her friendly gaze and a breath of her fabulous scent. She smells so wonderful. Often he sits down with her and tells her about his day. Sometimes he nods away for a moment or grabs a beer and enjoys the quiet, relaxing time of the end of the day.

The two have been together for just under a year now. They have supper together at the dining room table, as they do every time, and then sit on the canapé in unison. The television is on in the background. She has thrown on a wide, fluffy scarf and wears under it, as usually, the skimpy, lace-trimmed "little black dress".

This "little black dress", he had bought her. He was very embarrassed at the time and to lighten up the awkward situation in the store, he asked the saleswoman for a suitable perfume. She seemed to have been waiting for it and very quickly brought a small black bottle with a golden ribbon and the smiling, as he thought, smug assurance that it was just the right thing. She had not been mistaken!

Today, the two, the black party dress and Black Orchid are one. He smells of her sweet fruity fruit, woody hay floral and musty flowery moss. He can smell a fleshy body, as well as the black, already somewhat stained dress and very clearly voluptuous sweat, although she never sweats. Thereby also sweet-berry juice, velvety wood and a strong flower. The notes to be described as dark, creamy-earthy, foul, damp-musty and mushroomy are the aromas that form the sinful background for this, to make the fragrance seem so passionate, mysterious and physical.

My dad doesn't really know all of this in such detail, but from the first spray he found the dense and dark scent very appealing and on his sweetheart the smell became more and more beautiful and enchanting. It's like she and the perfume are fused, alive, quivering and he's a part of it. It makes him very happy. Applied Black Orchid almost every evening before going to bed, Saturday and Sunday gladly in the morning and often a splash more.

Dad and his new wife are almost always together. Except for the time he spends at work, they both live their togetherness. They eat and drink together, watch television, and are there for each other. Most of all, they sleep with and with each other. His new love is of a quiet nature, she doesn't tell stories and she can't cook either. Nevertheless, he considers her his confidante, his dear wife.

Today I visit father as every week on Sunday afternoon for coffee, also to see how the "old man" is doing. These meetings are always nice hours and he looks forward to them. Gently he grasps his wife around the waist and carefully places her in the large wardrobe, far behind his suits. Never would he get the perverted idea of just letting the air out the way I often do with my Lisa!

With thanks and regards to my father.

Thank you for your companionship into a strange but imaginable world!

37 Replies

11/27/2020

8.5
Scent 10
Longevity 10
Sillage 8
Bottle

Alilove

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Alilove

Vampiric passion

White as snow, as red as blood and as black-haired as ebony...
A vampire's sucking off girls by the dozen. But his love belongs to only one: the black orchid, which is said to have youth and vitality. Soaked in noble patchouli, this fragrance is as mysterious, wicked, dark, full-bodied and intense as the atmosphere of the bedroom and the wine cellar of Count Dracula The wearer of this fragrance is seduced will-lessly into the dark world, where magic triumphs and everything is possible.
An opulent fruity orchid, tenderly coated in sweet vanilla and teasingly kissed by incense. Tender notes of ripe dark grapes, fine truffle and chocolate are in the air and take away the orchid's floral opulence. Very erotic, and noble for the big entrance or the big seduction. Not quietly, but loudly.

2 Replies

10/08/2020

9
Scent 10
Longevity 9
Sillage 9
Bottle 10
Pricing

TristanKalus

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TristanKalus

Top Review 18

Poison Ivy

I would like to introduce my femme fatale to you today. I must confess, love at first sight certainly wasn't this! A few times, before I smelled it for the first time, I had already heard of this seemingly very polarizing scent. One winter evening, while browsing for a fragrance for my girlfriend, I stumbled upon the rather meager Tom Ford department in a large perfumery chain. At that time I hadn't smelled any Tom Ford scent yet. TF - for me at that time an intangible topic, highly praised, glorified and far from any imagination how such a scent could smell. Then the first glance, the first interest in the shiny black bottle, the fine grooves running evenly from the lid along the entire bottle. The golden metal plaque, in which the promising letters "TOM FORD" are embedded, and the golden band under the bottle cap. A bottle design that has extraterrestrial features and is somewhat reminiscent of a vial from the alien universe. Timidly, but with burning desire, I took the bottle from the shelf, opened the cap and let the spray sink once, twice, three times onto the test strip. Even before I could get my nose close to the strip, a smell rose into my nose, which made me frown. "Please what" I thought. "Is this it?!". I now moved the test strip towards my nose and inhaled. To be honest, the first time I noticed the smell, it startled me. The first adjectives that came to my mind were repulsive, foul, heavy, morbid and disgusting. Qualities that you don't necessarily want to ascribe to a fragrance that you want to wear on a date or at a dinner party. Full of disappointment and disillusionment, I put the bottle back on the shelf and turned back to designer fragrances that were, in my opinion, more wearable.

It should now take quite a while until we meet again.

2 years later, high summer, 37 degrees Celsius in a gothic and brick paved small town in northern Germany. We just came from a wonderful holiday on the Danish coast and made a short stopover of a few days in the small town. After a relaxed breakfast, which was almost in the second half of the day, we strolled through the enchanting alleys and after a visit to the bookstore we went to the perfumery on the opposite side of the street. On a "I just want to test one or two fragrances" we went into the holy halls and after not too long it stood in front of me again, this bottle, which had stayed in my memory so much. What exactly was the impulse that made me reach for the bottle, I can't say anymore, but I was already about to grab a test strip and watch the spray mist sink onto the slightly rough paper surface. Again I led the test strip to my nose. But what follows now is absolutely inexplicable to me and in no way resembles what I smelled a good two years earlier. I closed my eyes and breathed in:

It started fresh, tangy bergamot and a few nuances of black sour berries. But the prelude only lasts a fraction of a second. Then something creeps up from underneath, from very far down. Opulent, heavy and dark. It doesn't want to reveal itself right away, but it makes it unmistakably clear that it is there, lurking among subtropical plants. But the black truffle is not the only thing that appears before you. On closer inspection, you now take in a whole bouquet of tropical, beautiful plants, of which it cannot be said beyond a doubt that their beauty and seductive smell do not want to conceal their toxic nature. And then it shows itself, the Poison Ivy in this beautiful, but also deadly greenhouse. The single black orchid, which claims the centre for itself with its presence. At her feet and somewhere in the dark, a heavy, sweet and balsamic breeze with a characteristic of incense makes itself felt, which unmistakably underlines the presence of the orchid and leaves no doubt about its sublimity. After some time, a slight hint of a soft, almost Bourbon-like vanilla can still be perceived, which must grow in the immediate vicinity.

I opened my eyes again, but by then it had already happened to me. Poison Ivy had managed to lure me into her garden and let me fall for her. Since then, Tom Ford's Black Orchid has been a very favourite part of my collection

Here in the following a short description without prose. ?

A very expressive floral fragrance, with a fresh, slightly citrusy and berry-sour start, which quickly expresses its heavy and floral opulence, through the black truffle and black orchid. As it progresses and dries, it becomes sweetish, balsamic with a hint of soft natural vanilla and a hint of incense. The shelf life is sensational and can be perceived on clothes well into the next day. The sillage is also very strong and you will definitely be noticed. The bottle is, in my opinion, a work of art that attracts all eyes without screaming "Here, here, look at me! Only the spray head could create a slightly larger spray mist. Like all TF scents, this one is unisex. However, I perceive this one more as a masculine scent with feminine characteristics than the other way around. However, I definitely recommend to test the scent before and maybe more than once. ?

4 Replies

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