Sweet grapefruit, salty ambroxan
Al Qiam Silver is a simple, linear grapefruit scent with a salty tinge. I wouldn't call it fresh necessarily, it's sweet and warmish in a way typical for Lattafa perfumes. It's pretty versatile, you could wear it in winter too. Personally I am not a fan of the salty ambroxan, which besides the grapefruit is the defining characteristic of this scent. The performance is very good, as I'd expect from an ambroxan fragrance. The warm/sweet citrus and the ambroxan aspects remind me of "Imagination | Louis Vuitton", though the quality gap is large. I haven't tried "Le Gemme - Tygar | Bvlgari", I'm curious how it compares. If you enjoy Sauvage, try this.
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Tropical fruits, better than the EDT
The One For Men EDP is a tropical fruits scent similar to the "The One for Men (Eau de Toilette) | Dolce & Gabbana", but softer, veiled, not as much in-your-face, and maybe fresher. Unfortunately for my tastes one apparent difference is that there's more cardamom, so I'll pass, but objectively the EDP is much better balanced and blended. If you're going to get this, get the EDP.
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Sophisticated, if a bit weird
This scent is not what I exptected. The first surprise was the lemon zest opening, which got me wondering if I got the right fragrance. The lemon recedes to the background in a minute or two and what is left is quiet, soft, somewhat green and not really warm, with a cool and sharp spicy top exuding an ozonic vibe.
There is spicy warmness to the scent, but it has a strong counterbalance. Overall L'Instant might be on the fresher side of things, with just a bit of cozy fuzzy cocoa. I would think it's way too cool for winter. It's like they went for sweet warm cozy and citrus green fresh at the same time, and didn't nail either. Connecting these two aspects is the overbearing spicyness drilling into your sinuses.
I was not smitten with this perfume. Besides the indecisiveness and being too spicy for my taste, the problem I have is similar to the one with Reminiscence Patchouli - it can smell moldy, although here it's less pronounced.
As time passes, the impression converges to the cozy cocoa side. Overall, a rather original scent, the only close one I know is "The Scent Private Accord for Him | Hugo Boss", which is a bit weird too. I'm not sure if I wouldn't prefer Boss, will probably test side by side.
The bottle looks too bright and warm in comparison with the scent.
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A better Scandal
I expected this to be another clone of "Le Vestiaire - Tuxedo | Yves Saint Laurent" (which I haven't tried), along with "Moustache (Eau de Parfum) | Rochas" and Kismet (which I have tried). It is, however, more sour than either of them, which makes it more similar to "Scandal pour Homme | Jean Paul Gaultier", in my opinion. As such, I don't like it that much, though it's good, better than Scandal. I'd prefer Mustache or Kismet over this anyway. Still, they are very similar in the grand scheme of things.
The performance is about the same as Kismet's. The bottle pretty much fits the scent.
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Great for layering with other cold weather scents
If you know the base "Encre Noire (Eau de Toilette) | Lalique" , you will recognize the similarity, but unlike the EDT, Extreme can be used like a normal perfume, not just in performance art. In other words, it's less extreme than the base version. It's warm, sweetish, and soft, but also has a hard aromatic/ambery side that smells like hard alcohol to me - vodka, brandy, something like that. I do not enjoy it, it's nauseating. Fortunately, it fades with time, after half an hours it's mostly OK. As a whole, Extreme smells medicinal, intriguing, but not necessarily pleasant at the beginning.
The interesting thing about Extreme is that it layers well with cold-weather perfumes, as people have noted. Whatever you mix it with, will probably work reasonably well. For example, one could say it makes "Dior Homme Parfum | Dior" better rounded and negates the excess sourness. When layering, the hard start is not a problem. As a stand-alone fragrance it’s not great for that first half an hour, unless you enjoy this particular niche.
The bottle fits the scent, that brown color is perfect.
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