As a preface, I own and love Bottled Absolu, and I should mention that I feel like Lattafa is one of those companies that really misses the mark far more often than not. There have been very few of their creations that have truly impressed me, and I have tried dozens and dozens. This also has absolutely nothing to do with the original Asad besides sharing a name and bottle design. I tried this recently at a local fragrance shop. I had heard of it prior and I knew it was inspired by BBA. I had rather low expectations, but I was actually blown away by how good they did.
The opening is very sweet, dense, extremely high quality smelling. It is similar to BBA but much sweeter. I did not detect any off-putting synthetic notes, which are usually apparent even in Lattafa's best offerings on initial spray. The dry down starts a couple minutes in it becomes almost indistinguishable from Bottled Absolu, maybe a bit airier, more less dense, but the notes are all present and balanced.
Longevity seems very good at over 9 hours on skin, with 2-3 sprays, with strong projection in the first 2-3 hours, gradually receding closer to the skin and finishing off as a pleasant skin scent for the last few hours. The performance is not as good as BBA, which is to be expected as BBA honestly has beast performance for being a designer release. But, at this price you can afford to give a few extra sprays. It's also possible that the Lattafa's performance will increase over time as it matures with air in the bottle.
I think this is an absolute triumph as I wouldn't be able to tell them apart, you just need couple extra sprays of the AE compared to BBA to get similar performance.
It's crazy that you can buy this for around $30 shipped to your door. This is honestly Lattafa operating at the top of their game.
it really can become beast mode if over spray. Foolishly did 5 sprays and it still is projecting 6 hours later and based upon past experience expect it to be a strong skin scent on me for at least 10- 11 hours later. Need to appreciate less is really more with this one.
CRuss65 18 days ago
