The opening is salty and mineral and seaweedy. This isn't the still scent of a tropical beach somewhere, it's somewhere more exposed, on a north sea coast, sliding shingled stone underfoot, and with a bitter wind blustering around you, the sea blue-black and choppy.

That briney, somewhat vegetal tang never fully leaves throughout the scent's lifetime. It does grow darker though, definitely a heavy woodiness, but it's decaying driftwood, drenched in the ocean and thrown up in a coastal cove somewhere, still cold and wet, and with the sea's scent permeating its structure. It's very musky too, the combined effect of artificial oud and ambergris, I guess.

Revived for the third time, quite how this distinctly polarising creation ended up in Tom Ford's Signature Collection must be down to the fact that those who love it REALLY love it, and the company forsee this group driving sales for the forseeable future. Though, frankly, I would not be at all surprised if it it falls by the wayside yet again.

Which would be a proper shame: it's my favourite of the current Tom Ford line, by several light years, and a reminder that the house used to take really quite bold risks with their releases. Savour it while you can.

Almost archetypal CDG cedarwood, mixed with pine, frankincense and patchouli. The obligatory obligatory house style left field notes come into play as well, in the form of a grey, metallic tang, and something that reminds me of nearly-dry gloss paint.

If you are at all familiar with the CDG range, there aren't many surprises here. It's pretty linear, obviously designed to appeal to a fairly mainstream audience, but is none the worse for that. Apart from an uncharacteristically strong opening, it has the airiness and lightness you would associate with the brand, and it while it won't revolutionise your world, it's still an attractive, slighly off-kilter scent. Suitable for most occasions, apart from the height of summer.

The more I sample ELDO fragrances, the more I come to realise that, although the house projects an image of producing work that is adventurous and edgy, their scents are actually really rather conventional, but given a mild twist (I haven't, to be fair, sampled the notorious Secretions Magnifique).

This image seems to infect reviews of their perfumes too. Case in point: Archives 69. There are so many that class this as being unwearable, whereas I smell this and think, that's really nice. And then I think, do I just have a tolerance for really weird shit?

Whatever. This is peppery camphor at the outset, and it settles down to a frankincense- floral core that at times smells oddly like rose, though the notes list it as vanilla orchid. Not that I would have the slightest idea what that particular flower smells like, but it smells like a rose, apparently. There are sweet fruity notes too, with the prune especially evident, along with the odd whiff of orange. Finally, there's an animalic, musky patchouli to earth it all down and stop it being a disparate, unconnected mixture of scents. By the end, it settles to a mild, powdery incense.

I like this a lot, and it's my favourite ELDO creation by a very long way. It still doesn't strike me as being particularly experimental, and this may in part be because it's supremely well blended. Kudos to Christine Nagel for managing to pull that off. Possibly a full bottle purchase is in the offing, once my little sample is finished.

Cheapo alternative to Wood Sage and Sea Salt, sharper in tone and with more pith. It's a clean and minimal vetiver, bitter and a little herbal, with the salty sea air vibe of the original.

Relatively short-lasting (also like the original) No, it's not as subtle, and the sharpness threatens to become headache-inducing, reminding me of whatever ingredient it is that's in some Issay Miyake creations that produces the same reaction. Still, it's very pleasant and ideally suited to the warmer summer months.

I so wanted to love this. Marine smells are a positive weakness of mine, as long as they don't stray into dreaded blue territory, and the scene this is intended to evoke (walking along the beach on a cold, breezy day, the waves all dark and choppy) seemed right up my alley.

And it does evoke that scene to a degree: there's an ozonic quality, an airy freshness, then it dries down to a salty wood base that combines with something that reminds me of candlewax, for some reason. It smells very pleasant: and that's the problem, namely it never moves beyond the realm of pleasant. I wanted to be wowed, transported, to be faced with the sea in all of fury and glory, but it's too tame for that, too insipid, and then it dissipates so quickly that even those initial associations are gone and what remains is an agreeable vetiver-wood combo that isn't a million miles away from so many other scents on the market.

TX Maxx bargain bin special. Citrus infused cedar wood and leather with a pleasing, slightly bitter pine backdrop morphs into something lighly spiced and floral. The base is a pungent patchouli that is not dissimilar to an unwashed metal ashtray.

This is lot better that it need be for its price point. There's nothing terribly radical here, and at certain points it veers towards Ombre Leather territory, but it has more development and interest. Not at all bad for a cheapie and worth investigating.

This is magnificent, but far removed from what I had anticipated. I had expected to smell like an unfeasably wealthy Arabian prince who chain-smoked his way through 60 Marlboro Reds a day. Instead, this is oddly close to a gourmond, especially in the opening, which is a blast of fenugreek, aniseed and liquorice, mixed with soft caramel and chocolate. It's Amouage, so it's very powerful, undoubtedly too potent with even a hint of warmth in the air, but it positively unfurls in colder weather.

As it settles it mellows to a birch tar amber incense, heavy on the frankincense, mildly animalic, mixed with musky rose. It's still sweet, still herbal and spicy, but much more reserved ( and hence, wearable in general company). Oddly, I don't really get much in the way of tobacco at all.

As with most Amouages, its stength means spare application is necessary, but it's one of the more approachable house creations, and one I would wear in most situations.

Someone is wearing Tobacco Vanille, which they insist has been reformulated by aliens and, smelling it, you are not certain that it hasn't.

At the same time, they are crushing gabalnum in an unwashed metal ashtray, before suddenly abandoning it, deciding instead to recreate Ken Russell's Altered States by clambering into an empty galvanised water tank.

However, this fails miserably as they forget to actually fill it with water. Defeated, they lie there on the floor staring up at the grey, polished walls and decide to burn some incense before passing out.

You suspect said person may have been ingesting sizeable quantities of hallucinogens.

This is such an odd perfume. It uses several ingredients you would normally associate with a warm, comforting scent, but offsets them against the prominent copper note to create something that's cold and distinctly unsettling. I don't wear it often, but when I do, I kind of love it.

Imagine someone has taken several kilos of the cheapest smelling pot pourri, distillied it down to a few drops of the harshest and most intense scent imaginable, one that makes your nose hairs combust if your dare apprach it within a 50 meter radius, and you have Oud al Layl.

So it was a scrubber. In fact a five times scrubber, because that's how many attempts it took to get rid of this unspeakably vile, tenacious concoction. By the fourth attempt, it diminished to a level where it was bearable and there was the suggestion that somewhere in amongst this hideous, beyond beast mode creation, there was the beginnings of a mildly tolerable perfume. But frankly, that's about the only positive I could find: there are some fragrances that are challenging but which reward investigation, and there are others that are just nasty, clumsy and cheap. Oud al Layl falls in the latter category.

Reader, I hated it (if you hadn't gathered that already).

Someone has crushed up a tube of parma violets sweets, poured them into a full makeup bag, then has given it a good shake, the contents spilling into the interior in the process.

This done, the entire concoction is tipped over you while you sit in the shade of a lilac tree, sipping orange juice.

This is sweet and floral, very powdery and more than a little sickly at times. It's partly redeemed by the patchouli-amber base and had this been given a little more prominance, it would have provided more balance overall.

Marketed as a perfume for young, carefree women, it remindes me instead of the sort of thing Are You Being Served's Mrs Slocombe would douse herself in, in preparation for a day of standing at the store counter, looking at all the customers with a supercilious expression.

I didn't completely dislike this, oddly enough, but as perfumes go, it's a competent but rather unremarkable creation, one that doesn't really distinguish itself before fizzling out in a dusty pink whiff of anonymity