Makan Blend

Makkah Blend

Abdul Samad Al Qurashi Perfume Oil

Makkah Blend by ASQ is a sweet spicy blend with Oud, Musk, Coffee & floral notes added to enhance its depth and complexity. Top Notes: Bergamot, Lavender & Herbal, Middle Notes are Patchouli & Coffee & Base Notes are Agarwood, Musk, Vanilla & Caramel. For those in the West beginning their journey into Middle Eastern perfumes, Makkah blend is one of top choices to start your collection. It is one of the best Mukhallats made by ASQ. Projection & Longevity is Excellent. It comes in both Oil & Spray. Have both but I personally like spray over oil due to longetivity & projection. My Rating is 4.00 out of 5.

A 9.5 out of 10 ratings and still no comment? I feel responsible. Especially since I just received a package from Saudi Arabia, only 5 days after placing my order. This gem cost $44 on sale 5 days ago, so I just had to grab it. There are 12 ml of pure perfume oil or the 75 ml Eau de Parfum variant, I have the latter. In the above fragrance summary, it says "oriental-sweet," which is quite accurate here, but since I occasionally compare, and it could very well be "floral-fresh" tomorrow, I want to note: oriental-sweet is a bullseye, perhaps also oriental-powdery or oriental-spicy. So here’s my brief pragmatic overview:

The opening features green, powdery, fresh notes and an unusually strong lavender scent for the top note, which doesn’t come off sour or typically lavender-like, but rather elegantly flanked and embedded with noble spices and green shrubs, perhaps with crushed coriander.
The heart note is surprisingly delicious, caramel macchiato? Definitely coffee, just not a hot strong black espresso, more like a rather robust milk coffee. Meanwhile, oud rises up quite hastily, straight and confident, alongside an equal vanilla and other gourmand notes. The almost sharp, but not disturbing lavender and coffee notes yield to the heavenly base.

The scent gets sweeter and sweeter, more intense, stronger, you want more and more. It’s incredibly delicious, like a candy you can’t stop eating even when you’ve already overindulged. With too much load on the upper deck, it floats excellently here, while others would have sunk long ago.

Deer musk, as a fascinatingly animalistic attractant, winks at you a bit devilishly and reveals the sex appeal of this fragrance; it certainly must play a significant role, because usually such sweet scents are just sweet, fizzy, fruity juicy or whatever, but this one is crowned with a beautiful depth and a dreamily silky triad of oud, musk, and gourmand notes towards the base. It remains intensely sweet, oriental, oudy, creamy, soft, strong, all at once for hours... also a bit dirty with coffee notes flashing back.
But it is definitely an oud scent; oud is not just an embellishment here, but rather the main actor with many excellently cast supporting roles.
If you like oud sweet and aromatic and at the same time sexy, and not dry, smoky, dusty, amber or rosy, you should definitely test this one. I don’t know anything comparable, or I’ve forgotten it. Absolutely unisex, by the way.

Addendum: I was also able to test the attar (perfume oil), which resembles the EDP but is much denser, darker, more robust, and more masculine. The EDP is clearly looser due to its bright vanilla/lavender/coffee notes, while the attar is more oud-heavy and much "thicker."