Quick Sniffs: Tom Ford Private Blend Champaca Absolute, LesNez Manoumalia and Aftelier Parfum Prive

TOM FORD PRIVATE BLEND CHAMPACA ABSOLUTE: Leave it up to Tom Ford to produce the only champaca fragrance that smells like it belongs in the Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil series, which means it's a smashing success in offering the consumer a familiar trip down the mainstream aisle even if it doesn't smell anything like a champaca flower.

If there's one thing that Ford knows how to sell, it's the familiar, and especially when it's all gussied up in big sister's clothes.

While the majority of the Private Blend series are decidedly musky and/or woodsy, Ford's Champaca Absolute gives the candyfloss & white floral crowd a huge shout-out, not to mention a high-five, a congratulatory handshake and a chummy pat on the back.

Almost syrupy sweet at the onset, then just vanilla sweet and blatantly feminine thereafter, it reminds me somewhat of Profumum Confetto: one part sticky sweet to one part vague floral, plus some white musk tossed in to suggest a certain va-voom sexiness.

The only thing va-voom about Champaca Absolute, however, is the price. The fragrance itself, like most of Ford's creations, is pretty much a rehash of better things that came before it.

Out of Ford's Private Blend series so far, I'm a fan of Amber Absolute and Italian Cypress -- I can easily live without all the rest, including this Champaca Absolute.

LESNEZ MANOUMALIA: I can't help but think that Manoumalia is everything that Ford wanted Champaca Absolute to be: unusual, singular, exotic -- but the difference between Ford and LesNez is that Ford calculates his self-worth in relation to his net worth, while LesNez just likes to go out on a limb and produce good perfume.

Where perfumer Isabelle Doyen created three light, shimmering fragrances for LesNez that wear like nearly transparent veils, the Swiss fragrance company brought in a new perfumer, Sandrine Videault, for Manoumalia, and the direction in which she steers LesNez is like the next rung on Jacob's ladder . . . I kind of figured we were heading somewhere special, and now we're that one step closer.

At first, I was a bit startled by the salt and sand opening of Manoumalia, not really understanding where to place it in context to their other fragrances, but after giving it about twenty to thirty minutes, the pieces clicked into place and I "got it" -- or, at least, I think I got it.

Ms. Videault appears to be paying a slight homage to the terrific work that Ms. Doyen produced for LesNez while still setting out on her own path. The dust, the light muskiness, the sweet flowers -- Let Me Play the Lion, L'Antimatiere and The Unicorn Spell, respectively -- but Videault anchors the fragrance with an expertly crafted base of grasses and island woods, essentially creating a bridge that connects Doyen's sheer, airy style to the island paradise Videault would like us all to live on.

The blog I Smell Therefore I Am states: "Manoumalia includes the green plants, the woods, some dirt and earthy dimension along with the gorgeous sweet tropics," which is a sufficient summation in and of itself, though I'll just add that it's pretty enough for the girls, and spicy enough for the guys.

Without a hint of a trumpet blast or a single PR chest-thump, LesNez just released a new fragrance that isn't a copy of every other trendy perfume release from the past five years. If only I could say the same about Tom Ford . . .

AFTELIER PARFUM PRIVE: Mandy Aftel is in a league of her own. One of the best all-natural perfumers working today, her works have the heft and density of full-on perfume masterpieces without including a whit of synthetic material. How she does it, I don't know, but if I were an all-natural fanatic, I'd be commissioning a monument in her honor about right now.

As it is, I'm perfectly fine with synthetics in a formula (as long as they're not screechy and cheap), so I'll skip the monument building and stick with rhapsodizing about how terrific her fragrances are.

In an interview with Basenotes, Ms. Aftel said that she created Parfum Prive originally for herself, but so many people liked it and wanted to purchase it for themselves that she began offering it for sale in her shop and on her website.

After applying Parfum Prive to my skin and letting it sit for a while, I took a deep sniff and realized that I was smelling an animal -- a deep, musky scent that reminded me of sweat and skin and hot breath due to its use of genuine ambergris: "It's got "break the bank" ingredients in it . . . the osmanthus, the orange flower, the ambrette seed and the priceless ambergris," she said. " I was so pleased to get some ambergris, I thought I would put it into something and people could smell the real thing. I think it is the ninth wonder of the world or something!"

I'm tempted to agree.

I also picked up a tiny bottle of her Leather Essence accord, a scent that's meant for layering with either her own work or other fragrances. It's a rich, smoky scent that smells terrific even on its own. When used with other perfumes, it imparts a sense of depth and complexity.

Below are some photos of the Aftelier fragrances, and the horse they rode in on: