Asad

أسد

Lattafa

According to the general consensus, this is supposed to be a clone of Dior Sauvage Elixir. I haven’t smelt Sauvage elixir, though, so I’ll review this one as its own thing.

From Lattafa’s website:
Top Notes: Black pepper, Pineapple, Tobacco
Middle Notes: Coffee, Patchouli, Iris
Base Notes: Amber, Vanilla, Dry woods, Benzoin & Labdanum.

I seriously don’t know how Lattafa supposedly cloned Sauvage Elixir with whole different and unrelated notes! Makes me think they lie a lot about their notes.
I digress...

Now, Lattafa Asad opens up with a warm spicy accord, some dose of sweetness and a great amount of lavender.

As it begins to develop, it gets sweeter and sweeter. I get a slight feel of cinnamon in it.

When it starts to dry down, that’s when I get a shadow of the Sauvage DNA—I feel there’s ambroxan in this fragrance. It’s pretty obvious.
At a point, it’s asif the sweetness is toned down, and you’re left with a matured, unapologetic dark patchouli and a low dose of Vetiver, mixed with a noticeable woody note. But then again, it becomes sweet.
There’s also something in this, that vaguely and briefly reminds me of the baccarat rouge dna(maybe it’s the ambergris/ambroxan?)

On the deep dry down, it starts to mellow down into this kind of smokey and creamy sweetness with a very noticeable Amber accord.
This fragrance transitions so well, from sweet-spicy to woody, back to sweet, with lavender anchoring the whole sequence.

Lattafa Asad has quickly moved to being one of the tops on my list. It would comfortably make my ‘Top 5 fragrances in my collection’ list, currently. The scent is massively addictive.

Longevity on Asad is superb. I got 8hrs on my first wearing. Subsequently, I started to get 10hrs+ with a great amount of projection/silage. No issues with longevity here.

PS- To me, fragrance reviews are ‘fantasies’, as one can’t actually describe a smell to be fully understandable to the public. You’ll need to actually smell the fragrance to get the complete picture and grasp the ‘reality’ of the composition.

Thanks for reading.

Fragrantica rating: 4.43/5
Sweet, warm spicy, amber, powdery.
Initially, it doesn't t smell pleasant but it gets better and better as it dries down.
I could not find any performance issues. Easily lasts for 6 to 8 hours.
Overall, not something groundbreaking, but at the same time, not that bad either. This is surely a great value for money.
One thing that I don't understand is why people go to the extreme ends, some will go to one side of the extreme end claiming it to be the best clone of xyz ever and some will go to the other extreme end claiming it to be the worst perfume ever created in the history of mankind. Why is it so difficult to be reasonable?

I’m not sure if I got a bad decant of this or what. The decant I got was from a very reputable Decant company but this smells very cheap and does not even compare or come close to how great Dior Elixir is. I know it’s not supposed to be the same as Dior Elixir but based on so many positive reviews I thought this one was going to be a great fragrance but in my opinion this is horrible.

I picked this fragrance up because I really love Sauvage elixir, but i couldn't see myself paying that much for a department store fragrance, it better be niche if I was going to do that. However on to this fragrance from the house of Lattafa , this is a dead on copy of the original, with this being a little harder around the edges. You get the same spices and dark notes and for only 1/4 of the price.. Another stunner from the house of Lattafa, well done once again!

It's been like 3 months after I gave up my fragrance hobby and sold most of my collection, but I couldn't help it when I saw this one on the shelf for 30 bucks. Well, I am satisfied of my purchase but there's always a room for development. Asad opens with the spices from the Sauvage elixir, even though it is not listed I get a lot of Cardamom alongside pepper. Pineapple note is also skeptical, I would say it is a bergamot-y citrus note instead. It is very similar to elixir but more synthetic and sweet on the opening. on the drydown, you smell nutmeg and other spices blending in with a subtle note of tobacco and sweet base notes, which I would prefer over the elixir's liquorice. After the spices dries out, only thing you will smell is candle vanilla and benzoin with some woods. Overall, while it is around %80 precent close, it is slightly darker and sweeter Sauvage Elixir. What Asad lacks is entirely on the personality department. Adding a lot of notes while trying to clone Sauvage elixir (which is already a complex fragrance) strips Asad of the bright and sharp DNA of Sauvage elixir. Think of Elixir as a nice, medium-cooked steak while Asad as a steak stew with every single ingredient you can find at home, no matter how relevant they are. However, Asad comes of lot more versatile compared to elixir thanks to it's less projection (which I prefer) and added sweetness (makes it more round). Asad's performance is also satisfying, lasting and easy 8 hours with 2 hours of good projection.
overall points and final verdict:
smell: 8/10, it still carries Sauvage Elixir DNA somewhere inside.
Performance: 8 for longevity and 7.5 for sillage / projection.
price: 10/10, you can literally buy more than 5 bottles of this for the price of elixir.
versatility: 8/10, even though it is still somewhat challenging for everyday wear, it is much more reachable.

Overall, Asad is a different take on the Sauvage elixir DNA, for better in some ways and worse in others. I think it is a reachable and worthy addition to any fragrance collection.