I can’t detect the tobacco in Ambre Narguile, and Tabac Blond is to blame. In the varied and illustrious history of tobacco-based perfumes, this is the 900-pound gorilla. When the writer of One Thousand Scents wrote his own entry on Ambre Narguile, he emphasized the tobacco. I commented on his post that I didn’t notice tobacco in it much. In my own post on Ambre Narguile, I focussed on its foodier aspects, I didn’t mention the tobacco because, to me, it was so non-existent and fleeting.

That’s because Tabac Blond is a Virginia tobacco barn full of the lightest, sweetest, richest, Grade A tobacco leaf hanging to dry. No tarriness, just sweet, sweet, mellow, unburnt leaf. There’s maybe a bit of musk and definitely some orris, a touch of some white flower accord, but everything else is incidental to the point of the scent, which is tobacco, and nothing but. It’s so strong I expect to find nicotine stains on my fingertips every time I apply it. The blond in the name refers more to the shade of the tobacco, and only metaphorically to a Veronica Lake-style femme-fatale  …one who’s about to light a cigarette, raising one deadpan eyebrow at the leading man’s best pickup line, nullifying it.