Aaron Terence Hughes
Aaron Terence Hughes
118 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Raw, almost austere tobacco leaf dominates, its sharp greenish-brown character immediately assertive. A crackle of spice underscores it—not pepper, but something closer to the dry heat that clings to tobacco leaves themselves—whilst the vanilla waits patiently beneath, barely perceptible.
The rose emerges softly, its damask character slightly tart, acting as a foil to the bourbon vanilla which rises to meet it. The tobacco softens incrementally but never retreats; instead it becomes rounder, almost leathery, as the woody notes begin their ascent. Ambergris lends a subtle warmth that makes the composition feel suddenly intimate and skin-like.
Cedar and oud crystallise into a smoky, resinous base where the vanilla reads as creamy sweetness threading through wood smoke. What remains is tobacco's final act—not the opening's sharp declaration but a lingering, slightly powdery warmth that hovers close to the skin for hours.
Aaron Terence Hughes' Tabac Tobacco, Oud & Vanilla is a composition that refuses gentility. This is tobacco as aperitif rather than afterthought—a full-bodied leaf note that arrives with the gravitas of a lit cigarette held between deliberate fingers, immediately establishing itself as the fragrance's spine rather than a fleeting top note. What prevents this from becoming a one-dimensional tobacco study is the interplay between the bourbon vanilla and damask rose in the heart, which together create something unexpectedly baroque: the rose doesn't soften the tobacco so much as it complicates it, adding a faint powdery tartness that makes the sweetness feel less like indulgence and more like counterpoint.
The base is where the composition's ambition becomes unmistakable. Burmese oud enters not as the typical animalic, funky presence many expect, but rather as a darkening agent—it deepens the woody accord and lends the ambergris a slightly resinous, almost medicinal quality. The cedar grounds everything, preventing the vanilla from ever reading as gourmand despite that impressive 88% sweet accord rating. Instead, the creamy note materialises as smoke—tobacco smoke, specifically, thickened and warmed by vanilla but never cloying.
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3.8/5 (264)