Having read reviews stating this was a very realistic Guava scent, I was excited to get my hands on it! This isn’t anywhere near as fruity or as juicy as other reviews would lead you to believe. It’s also much nicer, lighter and quite different in my opinion to any of the scents it has been compared to. I’d pick this over the heavily aquatic Porthole or cloying Pacific Chill day. To me this is way better than anything it’s been compared to.
Tales from Zanzibar is a very wearable, inoffensive, clean, refreshing, light, airy, relaxing, uplifting scent that would be absolutely gorgeous in summer or really hot weather. It’s definitely unisex. It isn’t anywhere near as strong or as fruit heavy as Id expected it to be. It creates a nice scent bubble, but turns into a skin scent quite quickly for me. I can smell the Guava faintly, but it’s mixed with the other notes of lime and mint. I do get a good bit of Ambergris, which makes this more of a fruity oceanic scent. I’m not keen on scents that are heavy on Ambergris, such as Nassau which I currently find unwearable due to this. Tales from Zanzibar has a nice balance. If you’re an Oud hater like me, don’t be put off by this note. It’s completely undetectable here… thank god! Tales from Zanzibar gives me a picture of sitting by the ocean and drinking a light fresh fruit cocktail, but the fruit juice has been diluted in quite a bit of ice. I just wish it had been stronger on the Guava. I’d say this scent is 35% fruits and 65% ocean vibes.
Is it worth buying? Honestly I’m not sure …. I think the 75ml bottles are much better value than the previous 50ml, however I’d rather have bought a 50ml for less! I do love it and bought it anyway, because it’s unique to anything else I own. I feel torn on its worth due to finding the performance weak. Maybe it’s my sense of smell, maybe it’ll do better in high heat, time will tell. Either way, if you’re expecting a juicy Guava forward scent like I was …. this isn’t it. However it is a gorgeous scent.
