One of my very favorite fragrances is Youth Dew Amber Nude. It’s one of the few that I really think I could wear every single day (though I’m glad I’ve never had to choose just one fragrance). It’s tragically discontinued, but I have three bottles in my perfume hoard (and a fourth on the way) and I’m thankful for that.

Recently I did a little series of photos on Instagram where I showed and talked about the perfumes that I love enough to have backup bottles. The whole time I kept thinking that all of them should have their own blog posts, and I’ve especially been meaning to write about Amber Nude for a while now. But when Christophe Laudamiel reposted my post and added some fascinating information about the fragrance, I felt like I had to sit down and give it a proper write-up!

THE BEGINNING OF TOM FORD INTERNATIONAL

After a decade as creative director for Gucci, Tom Ford left in April 2004. In March 2005, he opened a film production company (Fade to Black), and then in April 2005 he and (former Gucci president) Domenico De Sole founded Tom Ford International. The company opened with two licensing deals — one with Estée Lauder for beauty, and one with the Marcolin Group to create and distribute optical frames and sunglasses.

For their Estée Lauder beauty line, Tom Ford’s concept was Nude. Here’s the marketing copy for the makeup line:

Now, your skin and your senses are under the influence of Tom Ford. The message is nude. A makeup collection that reflects Tom Ford’s provocative philosophy. Real gold in the makeup gives it a gilded, glamorous edge. The Minaudiere limited edition comes with The Face and The Lip Polish.

Tom Ford on the Amber Nude Makeup Collection: It’s very much my philosophy of beauty…nude shades for the lips and nails. This is what I always really like…a neutral mouth, beautiful skin and a dramatic, strong eye.

To go along with the Amber Nude makeup collection, a fragrance and bath products were also released. The fragrance was an updated, modern version of Estée Lauder’s iconic scent, Youth Dew. The fragrance was called Youth Dew Amber Nude. The collection was released for the holiday season in 2005.

In order to update Youth Dew, which had a whopping 30% fragrance oil, Tom Ford decided that the new formulation must be lighter. He brought in perfumer Christophe Laudamiel, and since then this legendary pairing has produced many genius fragrances.

Laudamiel once talked about he and Tom Ford being in the kitchen of Claridges Hotel in London, trying sliced ginger with fragrances, when the 2005 terrorist attacks occurred there on July 7th. That experiment turned into Youth Dew Amber Nude.

Tom Ford oversaw the production of one other fragrance under the Estée Lauder brand, Azurée Soleil. Then Tom Ford Beauty launched its first fragrance as a brand, Black Orchid, in 2007. And the rest, as they say, is history. Tom Ford International now encompasses men’s and women’s clothing, accessories, shoes, bags, and eyewear as well as cosmetics, skincare, and fragrance. But it all started with Amber Nude.

Youth Dew Amber Nude had a very short run. I’m not exactly sure when it was discontinued, or if it was only ever intended to be a limited-edition scent. I’m not sure if people understood at the time (or even now) how marvelous Youth Dew could be.

In perfume discussions at the time of its release in 2005, some people cried, “I hate Youth Dew and I’m not interested in trying any flankers!” And other people cried, “What a sacrilege to remake Youth Dew, it’s an icon!” So, while the scent is brilliant, remaking a very famous and equally polarizing scent was a difficult task. Tom Ford is always ahead of the curve, maybe the world just wasn’t ready in 2005?

Youth Dew Amber Nude smells like a super-chic, unisex, luxury perfume. If it were released today, people would go nuts over it. Luckily there are still bottles available on eBay for pretty reasonable prices. My advice is to get it while you can. I’m holding onto my three bottles, and often wonder if I won’t regret not buying more.

YOUTH DEW AMBER NUDE FRAGRANCE REVIEW

Amber Nude comes in the sleek, iconic ribbed and cinched Youth Dew bottle. For me, that’s pretty much where the true similarities end. The fragrance does pay homage to its roots in the deep, dark drydown, but any family resemblance between the two is generations apart. Like, Amber Nude is a swank young socialite, and original Youth Dew is her great-great aunt in regency clothing over on the settee kind of separation. (As someone who wears all the iconic vintage Guerlains and Carons with great aplomb, I have to say that Youth Dew is the one and only fragrance that I associate exclusively with elderly women).

Youth Dew Amber Nude starts out with a blast of tart, juicy grapefruit and ginger. Immediately it smells so rich and so — smart. It’s young and fresh, but not in a juvenile or “girly” way. It’s quite sophisticated and confident, and very, very chic. I get the impression of rose hips, and black cherries macerated until they’re almost like a thick syrup. Christophe Laudamiel says that peony also adds to the freshness of the ginger and grapefruit. I would have never picked this out on my own, but now that he’s mentioned it — yes, there it is! Tom Ford also said (in 2005 interviews) that there is magnolia present.

This bright and sharp opening, like biting into a wet slice of fresh ginger combined with the tart astringency of grapefruit, is what I think gives Youth Dew Amber Nude its youthfulness. It smells like vitality — this is a combination of smells you’d find at a wellness spa, perhaps in a cleansing juice blend or a sugar scrub. And the florals, magnolia and peony, have an air of lightness and innocence that lift the whole composition.

The heart of the fragrance is a deep, jammy rose, along with the carnation, jasmine, and ylang-ylang you’d find in original Youth Dew. These florals are fabulously balanced, they have a presence but never overpower the sharp ginger as it slides, sensuously, into the base notes. There is a touch of cinnamon and clove, but the spice is quite restrained compared to the original. I think of it as a rose and black cherry chutney with chunks of fresh ginger.

This floral heart echoes the beauty of original Youth Dew but gives it a modern update by really emphasizing the fruity aspect of rose. I’ve spent countless hours marveling over this black cherry-plum-rose accord as it morphs back and forth between fruit and flower. It’s a really clever way of appealing to more modern tastes for fruity florals without compromising the sophisticated character of the predecessor.

In the drydown, there is magic. And this is where the secrets shared by Christophe Laudamiel from my Instagram post come in. Amber Nude still has the sandalwood and vetiver from original Youth Dew, but it’s joined by an insanely rich dark chocolate and patchouli that runs like an erotic syrup through the base of the fragrance. Laudamiel wrote:

key in this fragrance a dark bitter cocoa resin so dark and thick the first time around it clogged the IFF factory pipes, as well as a very dark patchouli quality unique to IFF and historical perfumes

Come to mama….. <swoon>. This is a callback to the darkness of original Youth Dew. Instead of making it heavy, they dialed up the darkness. In the place of balsams and vanilla, they give us dark chocolate fantasy. The combination with the deep cherry-rose is so sumptuous, with the lingering bite of ginger to keep you on the edge of submitting to being washed over by the richness.

YOUTH DEW AMBER NUDE IMPRESSIONS

There are so many levels of genius going on in this fragrance, it’s hard to describe them all. It would be best if you just go out and buy a bottle for yourself. (Since I started writing this blog post last night, I won a one ounce bottle of the EdP plus a 3 ounce bottle of Amber Nude “Satinee Lotion” for $20.52 on eBay, so it’s definitely still available and affordable). But in case anyone is still dithering, I’ll continue…..

First of all, despite ALL of these food references and descriptions, Youth Dew Amber Nude manages not to smell like a gourmand fragrance. It’s insane how something so blatantly delicious also does not smell “foody.” In fact, there is something about it that really conjures up images of smooth, tanned skin, rather than any of the fragrance’s individual constituents. It sounds like a black forest fantasy, but it’s really a gorgeous abstraction of that.

It doesn’t smell too old — or too young. It’s a spinoff of Youth Dew that added fruit and chocolate, and yet it still smells decidedly sophisticated (and expensive) but not at all stuffy or old. It is more demure than the original, but that just seems to make it all the more sultry and appealing.

It’s absurdly sexy, but not at all in-your-face. I feel perfectly comfortable wearing this to work, but it’s also one of the most truly sensual perfumes I can think of. It makes me feel more put-together AND more seductive, at the same time. It’s like wearing fetish undergarments with a power suit. Tom Ford and Christophe Laudamiel seriously made a legitimate boardroom-to-bedroom scent, on their first try.

When I think of “the girl who wears this” I get pretty detailed image — it’s a very tanned, leggy woman in the prime of her life (maybe Giselle Bündchen, for example) wearing a camel-colored power suit that shows just enough skin, hair in a messy bun, making executive-level decisions while chewing on the eraser end of a Blackwing pencil…. perhaps I’ve thought about this too much. But hopefully you get the idea?

If I think about an idealized woman, who could be a “Tom Ford” woman, she’s young, sophisticated, and beautiful, with a sexy edge. That’s what Youth Dew Amber Nude smells like. And yet, the final piece of genius is that this fragrance is also totally suitable for a man. Tom Ford and Christophe Laudmiel made Youth Dew sexy and gender fluid, at the same time, back in 2005. Mind blown. It’s sorcery, but OMG It works.

The word that I always find myself coming back to when I describe this fragrance is “smart,” so that’s where I’ll end this review. I feel smart when I wear it. It’s a power fragrance that’s also sexy, I could be getting ready to dominate a business deal or an intimate rendezvous. It makes me feel youthful and invigorated but not immature or “cute.” It goes with my best dress clothes, as well as casual clothes (or no clothes at all).

The concept of the Amber Nude collection was smart, and the way that the perfume echoes the best parts of Youth Dew while completely modernizing it is genius-level smart. I do believe that it might have suffered unfairly from the association with Youth Dew, but I find it amazing that this fragrance was discontinued after such a short run. I still believe that if it were released today in the Tom Ford fragrance line, it would be a winner.

DETAILS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Youth Dew Amber Nude was the beginning of Tom Ford Beauty, and almost 15 years later it’s still one of the most “Tom Ford” scents I can think of. It’s a pity that it was discontinued, and I was thrilled to learn the secrets about the cocoa resin clogging the pipes and the special patchouli from Christophe Laudamiel. For all the ways that I believe perfumery is suffering at the hands of social media, there are also interactions like this that would have never been possible before.

Amber Nude is a smart, sexy, modern fragrance for women and men. It was sold as an EdP in 30 and 75mL bottles, a solid perfume, and a parfum purse spray, as well as in some bath and body products. It has a moderate projection and lasts for about 12 hours on my skin. I enjoy wearing it both day and night, in all seasons, but it’s rich, caramel color and deep cocoa-patchouli base make it feel extra-special in the fall.

I’m not exactly sure when Youth Dew Amber Nude was discontinued, but I’ve bought three bottles on eBay which all had batch codes from November 2005. The top notes are all remarkably intact and the fragrance shows no signs of deterioration that I can detect. If it smelled any better, I’m not sure I could stand it! I still see bottles for sale all the time on eBay. Go get some.