I shopped in the Lattafa online store. I found a lot there that I should like, at least from the description. I'm a fan of oriental perfumes. It's reasonably priced anyway and there were discounts and goodies too. Exactly my playground if you want to try out different things, even blindly, without plunging into financial misfortune.
Well reviewed here at Parfumo is the
Asad a men's fragrance classified as spicy-sweet. Almost 3000 Parfumo users have this fragrance and it is rated 8.0/10 points. Not that far behind the
Sauvage Elixir with 8.1/10 points, with which the
Asad is often compared. There is almost a factor of 10 in the price between the two perfumes. The price difference to
Apex Eau de Parfum, which is also classified as similar here, is even a factor of 15. Although
Asad is declared as "apparently discontinued" here at Parfumo, it was still listed as normal.
The fragrance pyramid looks like this:
Top notes: black pepper, pineapple, tobacco
Heart notes: patchouli, iris, coffee
Base notes: benzoin, amber, dry woods, labdanum, vanilla
So let's get to the bottle ...
When you sniff it, which is always what you smell when the atomization is still incomplete, the first thing you smell is a tart, fruity note.
When you spray it on (full aerosolization), the black pepper really gets going. Does anyone here know the pepper pretzels from the station restaurant Yorma's? The pineapple and tobacco really have to work hard to keep up at the beginning. Yes, but the tobacco note also slowly comes in and overtakes the pineapple. In my opinion, the latter is actually somewhat underrepresented. Fresh but also somewhat alcoholic/soapy in this phase. I drift off into an early morning after-shave mood in the bathroom or the aforementioned barber store.
After about 30 minutes, the heart note emerges, with the iris standing out first. No coffee, little patchouli, at least after about 1 hour. Then at least patchouli catches up a little, I can only guess at coffee because I read it in the fragrance pyramid.
So far, the fragrance experience with
Asad has not been to my taste, too much alcoholic aftershave, pepper overdose and not enough oriental perfume. Now I'm hoping for the base note. Let's see what the drydown can salvage.
After about 2 hours, the fragrance is still not my friend. Too much pepper, the fragrance has not yet found a balanced base. The drydown that follows is fairly linear, there is less of everything, a touch sweeter and the dominance of pepper diminishes somewhat. Ok, I can detect some balsamic and dry woody notes.
Longevity and sillage are average to good for me. As soon as I move a little, a new cloud of pepper drifts past my nose even after 6 hours.
The bottle is black and made of plastic with gold-bronze elements. Only looks good on the cosmetics shelf from a distance. The details are not of high quality.
As fresh and spicy as the fragrance comes across, I don't quite understand Parfumo's classification as fall and winter. In my opinion, it is also absolutely suitable for spring and early summer.
Summary
The fragrance is a pepper bomb, spicy and fresh, later also woody. The predicates sweet and oriental are misleading from my point of view, however, and Asad promptly falls out of my prey scheme. A certain oriental appeal comes from the association with one of the Turkish/Arabic barber stores that can be found in the pedestrian zone of every major city. Apart from that, I miss other spices besides pepper and a little more "flowers" to classify it as "oriental". Well, then there are the Arabic characters on the bottle :-).
Asad fills the spicy-fresh-woody role well, even if it is perhaps a little one-dimensional in the direction of black pepper. Nevertheless, I don't think Asad has the high fragrance rating here at Parfumo for nothing. Unfortunately, the perfume does not suit my taste. To what extent it can keep up with much more expensive perfumes in this spicy-fresh-woody class is for others to decide.
p.s. I am looking forward to the Asad Zanzibar
p.p.s the late drydown has reconciled me somewhat with Asad, but 5h too late :-)
Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
Topfpflanze3
Laurentiu
AFROSCENTS
Hgscent
Oct8gon
