Atlanta Home Design: Tom Ford

When I spray Tom Ford’s Costa Azzurra I am immediately whisked back to the pine-filled salty woods of Costa Brava. The first spray reminds me of a salty breeze floating gently through the pine trees on a morning after it has rained and the sun is just beginning to warm the wet ground.

I’m not a trained “nose” and I don’t know how to analyse perfumes – I can’t pick out complex notes and or discern different strings of scents within one single perfume. However I do know that I am extremely moved by scent. Sometimes it brings back hauntingly vivid memories and other times it simply transports me to another place, fills me with joy or sadness, tranquility or chaos.

I don’t try to think about fragrance mechanically – when I smell something I’m either moved by it or I’m not. I’ll often go to a perfume counter and try on a scent various times before actually purchasing it. I like to see how the scent weathers on my skin, how it transforms throughout the day and holds up to my daily routine.

Costa Azzurra was one of those perfumes that moved me tremendously – it instantly took me somewhere beautiful… a stony beach surrounded by the heady scent of verdant woods with waves crashing on the rocks.

This perfume has had some reviews referencing it as “too commercial” or geared towards the masses. Perhaps my untrained nose is too mainstream and commercial. All I know is that this perfume kept drawing me back to the Tom Ford counter over and over again for months just to get a little spritz of this fragrance that so captivated me. It would slowly settle over the hours and become lighter and more subtle, but every so often I’d get a ghostly breath of salty sea spray and be reminded of the woody and sun-drenched beaches that I’ve come to love so much.