Forbidden Plum

Beautiful scent. Never smelt TG Plum Japonais but ive read Forbidden Plum is more spice laden and less subtle. That is an understatement. Im a tobacco, leather and oud guy. By Oud, I mean REAL oud attar, not this "Oud Wood" western craze. Bit i love spices and i read so many amazing things on both the OG and Forbidden Plum. I had to try it and perhaps make it a layer to mt tobacco scents. The opening spray is sweet plum and cinnamon. The hint of oud is there though subtle. Masked by the spice and plum. Agyer about 10 minutes the amber and saffron statt showing themselves, melding into the plum spice. From paper i assumed a very holiday christmas smell. Being of a different faith, i definitelt am not a fan of "holiday smell." But this is not that. As the drydown continuea, it almost has a potpourri smell but not in an old lady way. Its rich, warm, spicy but its refined. I start getting a light tea and tobacco smell, likely the Immortelle coming out of hiding. Not strong but just enough that my tobacco infatuation senses a semblence. I am happy. I dont smell the vanilla too strongly, actually pretty weak. (which im happy about, as i find vanilla VERY cloying). This is a surpise of a scent for me. I expected spicy christmas plum, i got somethinf completrlt different. I will definitelty will be experimenting with layering with tobacco scents. 10/10 i absolutely love Forbidden Plum. It lasts an immensely long time. This stuff is just amazing.

Alexandria Forbidden Plum was inspired by Tom Ford Plum Japonais - read ‘inspired’ as a euphemism, because it is an almost literal copy. Since I have a TFPJ decanter, I was able to compare them directly. I applied AFP to my left arm, and TFPJ to my right arm. Well, the difference is most noticeable at the outset, because they open a little differently; namely, AFP is a little sharper and more woody, also with a more pronounced brandy component, while TFPJ is a little softer, warmer and sweeter - it's an overripe plum that has not yet turned into jam or schnapps. After half an hour, AFP settles down, and by then they are 95% identical. The difference becomes apparent again after 3-4 hours, as AFP becomes much stronger - namely, Plum Japonais becomes muffled skin scent after three hours, while Forbidden Plum continues to project like crazy. Almost 8 hours since I applied them, TFPJ has completely evaporated from my wrist (and I can barely feel it on my elbow), while AFP still throws a punch. Now, of course, the presentation and packaging cannot be compared, as the TFPJ is much more luxurious, while Alexandria fragrances come in standard, simple bottles. However, if you don't care about fancy packaging but solely the juice inside, then Forbidden Plum deserves all the recommendations. Not to mention the price difference...

This is outstanding stuff. I don't own PJ unfortunately. But was given a 1ml blotter of FP as a bonus with an order of decants from Fatboy Fragrances. I was completely enchanted by the stuff in that 1ml, and purchased a full bottle from Alexandria the following week (my first fragrance from the house). The bottle seems spot on to the blotter I have (which still has some left). So I don't know what that says about macerating time or whatever. Anyways, I am totally in love with Forbidden Plum, and it even has a note in it familiar to me only in Tom Ford's Noir Extreme, one of my other all-time favorite scents within my collection. Therefore, to say I'm happy with this is an understatement. I am straight up ecstatic. I also think their presentation is literal 10/10. I will be deep diving in to Alexandria after this. EDIT: My bottle is of the newer label.

I have a 5ml decant of the OG and I just bought this one. Comparing side by side in the opening, the original smells more fruity and juicy while this one is a little sharp and smokey but not in a bad way. After a few minutes, you will notice the similarity. I also heard of another PJ clone called Plum Harajuku by Insider Parfums and said to be much closer to the OG but I can’t find that one here in the US. This dupe has pretty good longevity and performance and may be great for layering as well. Surprisingly, the dry down is glorious and stays longer on my skin. Not a 1 to 1 clone but decent enough to get that PJ vibe in the dry down. I’m happy with this 😉 8/10 👍

I got the solid perfume on this beauty and I think it performs to the standard of a bottle spray. However, if I sniff the tin side when enclosed, I can smell the scent faintly leaking out so not sure if this medium will store long term as well as a spray. Scent is intoxicating, dense, and mysterious. Spicy, beast level plum, opulent oud goodness. Gives me a weekend night vibe of quiet contemplation, reflection, recreational study/reading. If this were a game of Clue, it would be Professor Plum in the study with the candlestick knocking 'em dead with his sophisticated smell.

A warm boozey spicy plum. I picked up a bottle just a week ago from the website and I love it. I don't have the original to compare this to but it's just...delicious. A spiced mulled plum cider wine, I kind of want to eat it! So perfect for fall, equal parts spicy and sweet. I don't personally get too much oud from it. I bought this and another Tom Ford dupe, Fructus Virginis and I am sooo satisfied with these two blind buys. I don't find these to be overpriced for clones either because I have found most lower priced clones are not as high quality. 9.5/10

LAYERING Forbidden Plum (Alexandria Fragrances) 1 spray vs. Encre Noire à l'Extrême (Lalique) 2-3 sprays Today I accidentally discovered that when the above perfumes are layered, something special emerges. Forbidden Plum is dominated by ripe plum and Encre Noire à l'Extrême by dry vetiver. It turns out that this a wonderful unisex combo. Because Forbidden Plum is quite intense (EXP) it works best (I think) when you apply 1 spray of Forbidden Plum per 2-3 sprays of Encre Noire à l'Extrême.

A successful blind buy, the spice and plum combo really caught my attention with the arrival of Autumn and I'm really impressed with it. For those who don't detect oud, it may be a batch issue as I definitely do, reminiscent of the oud in YSL M7 or Gucci Intense Oud for me. It's not heavy, but enough to provide a bit of oomph, and a stable backbone to keep things together as the spice and plum push off. Feels like quality stuff, as with most Alexandrias.

I have Plum Japonais and this and I can't think of a single reason that I would recommend somebody plum japonais over forbidden plum, especially now that PJ has been discontinued. While they do smell near identical (FP a bit spicier to my nose) and are both absolutely fantastic, FP has significantly stronger projection and longevity and is one of my favorite fragrance as of right now. Beautiful work. Final verdict: 9.5/10

I really really really love this (can ya tell!). I’m a woman and find this to be my preferred unisex balance - undertones of spicy and amber balancing a plummy, almost powdery waft. Longevity seems good and has moderate projection for me - my skin eats fragrances, so this could even be work appropriate if you’re the same way. I’ll be buying a full bottle of this after I finish my decant.

Top quality product. Stunning projection and longevity. I would say this is almost identical to TF Plum Japonais. I find Hany's work to be top notch. I don't mind this is a clone/dupe or what ever you want to call it. This is AWESOME! Sixty dollars (US) for 2 oz is a fare deal for this juice. Amazing work Hany. Keep them coming. Enjoy!

Sprayed it out of the box around 12:30pm. It is 6pm now. Still strong. Wonderful plum, aromatic spicey immortelle.. I was looking for the Tom Ford, saw 300$ immediately went to dupes. I'm a big fan of alexandria, but with no stake in them, I want to be honest. This, and the green envy (greenly) dupe are very very good. Great job Hany

Starts with a nice ripe plum note with very fruity vibe perfectly balanced with the oud and Amber with spices on the top. Very smooth, soothing with an great scent trail. It was appreciated by all my colleagues in the office I got a full day performance with projection up to the 9th hour and being noticeable.

Very nice. Not really a dupe of plum japonais which I already have. It's not as sweet and actually sort of boozy at the start. A spicy plum scent perfect for chilly weather and spot on unisex. It doesn't really develop either. Good sillage and longevity.

Smells better than Plum Japonais in my opinion. Sweeter plum, louder, better performer. Plum Japonais is a skin scent upon application and the plum is a bit more source. You can buy this clone with confidence.

I have this and Plum Japonais. The opening of Forbidden Plum is different, it goes straight to the dry down. It smells almost identical 10 minutes in but Forbidden Plum has better projection and longevity.

After a year of maceration, this has turned from a harsh fruity mess, to a dark and seductive plum bomb. One spray is all you need. 10hrs+ on skin. 24hrs on clothes. 8.5/10

This is such a sexy scent! I wear this sparingly cause it just smells so seductive and elegant! Sweet spicy plum and cinnamon. It is absolutely potent as well. Love this!

Never had the honour of trying the OG but I'm eternally thankful that forbidden plum exists. It is exquisite and one of the best fragrances in my collection.

Having my expectation up high surely spoiled it for this perfume. But after having MCD Tobacolor and Proad Kytoto by Night, this has become rather mediocre. It’s still nice and likable, the plum rather strong and delectable. But MCD Tobacolor mixed the plum with tobacco, making it sweeter and much more wearable while Proad Kyoto by Night made their boozy and very warm and alluring. I haven’t had the chance to compare it with Plum Japonais yet as I only recently bought a small sample of the discontinued TF perfume. Edit. After 11hrs I can hardly smell it off the sprayed spot.

Very seductive and elegant. Definitely get the saffron and plum off the first spray. Sweetness tones down and turns into a really nice dry down of plum and vanilla with cinnamon. Last really long and smell awesome. Grab this stuff up ASAP.

When I first got this, it was just overwhelmingly woody. A couple weeks later, still woody. It is now about a month later, I tried it out one more time... and it is wonderful.

Great versatility with layering. This thing has so much weight. It will add a heavy punch to whatever you are layering with. Fun stuff.

Too spicy. Too...zesty. Too harsh! Has a good aura. It’s just good. Somewhere between 😑 and 🙂

Spicy ambery plum. Very nice, but not for me.

I recently decided to explore plum-centric fragrances. I read about Tom Ford "Plum Japonais" as the Holy Grail of plum fragrances. I could not (and would not) ever put out the asking price for Plum Japonais. I also learned Alexandria Fragrance "Forbidden Plum" is an acceptable clone of the Tom Ford fragrance. As an aside, I own and love a few Alexandria Fragrances. Directive 46 is gorgeous. I do not have much to add because Forbidden Plum simply does not resonate with me in the way I hoped. Forbidden Plum opens as a tart, very spicy, dried fruit/dried plum fragrance. The perfume quickly develops and becomes VERY boozy and balsamic with fir, immortelle, benzoin, cinnamon and lots of agarwood most evident. I dislike "gender categorizing" fragrances but as a woman, Forbidden Plum holds minimal appeal. I think Forbidden Plum leans masculine. The fragrance is okay. But on my skin, Forbidden Plum is too woody, too balsamic, way too spicy and super-boozy.

This is just about OK but Insider Parfums do a better copy of Plum Japonaise. This seems far to ramped up and you don't have the nice balance from the original. This is where I feel the Insider Parfums does it better with this. Still not as nice as the original though.

On the initial spray it’s a very strong old lady mothball scent. But I can tell it’s going to open up more. It’s still not my favorite an hour in dry down but I saw another review said it’s different for them after a while month so I’ll continue trying it out.

So I’ve been wearing this fragrance for almost a year now, and I do feel that falling in love with a scent is a pretty quick affair; you shouldn’t have to convince yourself for so long. For reference, I feel like I tried Tom Ford’s Plum Japonais once at a department store back in 2016 because I liked the name, but I wasn’t blown away, and forgot the scent after all these years. It was for two reasons that I went and purchased a small bottle of Forbidden Plum when it was back in stock on the Alexandria website: because I had already purchased and loved Anubis Kiss, and from genuine FOMO through reading all the reviews online. On my skin Forbidden Plum is a sweet and spicy scent. It opens strongly with cinnamon, but not the warm and comforting sort, more so the sharp and pungent kind found in cinnamon-flavoured sweets, gum, and liquor. I also get a medley of other spices such as medicinal cloves, camphoraceous green cardamom, and a hint of syrupy fenugreek coming from the immortelle. Within a few moments, the sharpness is mellowed by the fruity sweetness of prunes and resins, not unlike fruit molasses and labdanum essential oil. The scent stays linear on my skin, only slightly softening around the edges, but doesn’t have a richness to it, in that I find the spice notes quite brash and tenacious, and the amber notes overly sweet. Yes, there is a freshness somewhere in the background, like menthol or eucalyptus but it is so faint that it gets overpowered by the sweetness. To be honest, it may be a beautiful fragrance but it reminds me a lot of my Nan’s mango pickle. It’s actually more of a spicy jam from Gujarat that is eaten alongside meals. My Nan would make it with grated unripe mangos, sugar, and spices such as cinnamon, cloves, and I’m pretty sure fenugreek and chilli powder. Forbidden Plum, to me, smells like this spicy, syrupy, tart, and fruity jam. Apart from Immortelle, the other notes are amongst my favourites in perfumery, but all I get on my skin is mango pickle drying down to sticky sweets.

I really hate to say this, because Alexandria is an overall incredible clone-house, and we all deserve the chance to experience what TF Plum Japonais accomplished without having to sell the kids... But Forbidden Plum getting praise as a commendable clone is the surest sign yet that COVID has utterly ravaged the fragrance community. Forbidden Plum lacks the subtlety and smoothness that made Plum Japonais such an artistic and seductive masterpiece. While the strength and longevity of Forbidden Plum are definitely higher, that is also a signal of its shortcomings. The spicy notes in Forbidden Plum are much too amplified to be able to appreciate the fruity nuances of the plum. It leaves the fragrance smelling like a loud cinnamon-toasted almond bomb, rather than the superbly balanced fruit-oud-spice trifecta accomplished by Plum Japonais. The fact that Plum Japonais wasn't a loud performer also suited its scent profile's intimate and romantic character, whereas Forbidden Plum's loudness sabotages its intimacy. If an assertive spicy-nutty fragrance is your cup of tea, then by all means try Forbidden Plum. If you're trying to rediscover that deeply sensual magic of Plum Japonais, however, you're better off finding a hole somewhere and trying not to cry yet cry anyway.

I had so much hope on this one! But smells like something my father would use, like Aramis for men or something for older men, i hate this one, maybe my batch is bad or something like that. :(

Biantrek85’s review below is dead on, and I applaud them for putting together such a succinct, well worded approximation of Alexandria’s clone of Plum Japonais. However, as an avid Plum Japonais lover myself, I wanted to throw my own two scents (get it? haha... ha... ha) in. Forbidden Plum takes the DNA that PJ is built upon and makes it overly loud and overly sweet, while removing all of the balance that made PJ a successful fragrance. Let’s be very, very clear. Forbidden Plum contains no oud. I’ll say again. Forbidden Plum contains NO oud. And the oud was absolutely critical to balancing out PJ. It provided a dark, heavy base that the plum sat upon. That heaviness is what made it distinctly Tom Ford, and it’s what drove PJ from smack bang in the unisex range to leaning masculine. Forbidden Plum smells more like a plum jam. Overly sweet, crammed full of preservatives and palatable only in small quantities. Some people WILL prefer the juicier, sweeter plum and the removal of the dark oud, but I feel like they’re going to be in the minority. People buying this fragrance are looking to recapture the magic that was Plum Japonais and, unfortunately, this fragrance falls shy of the mark.

BEAST of a performer for sure. I tried one spray to see how I liked this and had a significant cloud around me just off the single spray! I don't have much of an opinion on FPs scent profile, to be honest. I'm certainly down for Unisex fragrances, but this never stopped wearing as one of the loudest masculine scents I've ever smelled! 😂 I gave this a good 3-4 hours to develop before washing off, but unfortunately this one was clearly not meant for me. Ah well.. 🤷 I can definitely see how this would perform best in cool weather! I think for me I'll probably need to track down a $$$$ bottle of the real deal to get what I was really after here. 😭 OG seems more up my alley and subtle.

Avoid batches with the old label at all costs!!! I had a decant from the older label and bought a full bottle and both were bad. Now maybe they both went bad but they were from different sellers and purchased months apart. They have very sour plum note that was screechy and synthetic. Seems like they may have used a cheap oud in the past. Current batch is much better and a closer approximation to Plum Japonais. This one is a little more boozy, maybe again using a cheaper oud. Also doesn't seem to be quite as sweet but at least the spice plum is there. Given that Tom Ford's PJ is discontinued and commanding a very high asking price you are better off buying this.

Of all the alexandria fragrances I've tried, this is probably the only one I would recommend instead of the original fragrance. Alexandria claims to draw inspiration from fragrances and is therefore not a "clone house." In reality, their directional changes are rarely appreciated, and often underperform. This though, has genuinely strong performance/longevity and smells well made.

I've loved samples of Plum Japonais in the past, but my bottle of Forbidden Plum doesn't do it for me at all. I've read that these fragrances need weeks to settle, but just one spray immediately reminded me of my grandfather - sickly sweet candy covering up whisky. I have a large bottle that I'd be happy to unload for the price of a small bottle if anyone is interested!

very good stuff.. its masculine and fem at the same time. whatever it is its freakin me out.

Smells exactly like Juicy couture Glistening Amber.

Way too expensive for a clone.