Segel

The fragrance starts out citrusy-fruity-sweet. It becomes neither very citrusy nor extremely fruity, but a balanced mixture of both + sweetness. I don't mind the opening, I personally find it very pleasant.

After about 30 minutes, the roses start. No, it's not a sweet rose like in Oud Satin Mood Extrait de Parfum, but also not a fresh green rose like in "Rose Gold | XerJoff". The roses + rose water are "calm", gentle. The fragrance is very easy to wear.

In the base, the amberwood and musk give a slightly cozy effect. I can hardly perceive vanilla. The roses are still present.

The longevity on my skin is good, after about 8-9 hours I still perceive the fragrance. Sillage is not extreme, but comparable to its predecessor Rosa Moceniga.

Overall an interesting release. Now that the warmer days are coming (hopefully), I see the fragrance as ideal for summer evenings. Age group? Maybe 35+.

These would be my first impressions of the perfume. Thank you for your patience!

The Asad Zanzibar was released this year. Initially it cost around €60 and was hard to find. Anyone who has smelled "Asad | Lattafa / لطافة" knows exactly what to expect, or at least that's what I thought.

If you like Sauvage Elixir, you will find a very solid boudget version in "Asad | Lattafa / لطافة". And right, since the Asad copies the Sauvage Elixir by about 90%. The "problem" (with Dior) is that Asad also performs well. Sure, it will never reach the level of its "idol", but for the price it is a real treasure.

That said, I'll tell you more about the Asad Zanzibar .
Even from the fragrance notes, you know what it's about. A tropical, aquatic fragrance, with (hopefully) the same performance as its brother (?) And when you read Zanzibar, you already think of summer, beach, relaxation.

And here comes the disappointment...
(I fell for the hype of the original, but not here, thank God).
As you would expect from its brother, that a good performance doesn't necessarily have to cost a lot, you expect the same here. But that's not the case here.
Right from the start, I smell this coconut water note, which is too sweet, penetrating and annoying. I found such a synthetic kind in "Invictus Platinum | Paco Rabanne". No, I definitely don't like it. I gave the fragrance 20 mins, kept smelling my skin, unfortunately I was supposed to wash at the end. I can't say much about H/S because I didn't give it that much time. However, it had a good sillage in the first few minutes, which probably bothered me even more.

I have come across other fragrances so far, such as Malibù - Party in the Bay and Potamoi, which present the coconut note in such a beautiful and noble way. (Here, however, the fragrance note is called coconut water and not coconut).

Malibù is very noble, fine, a real coconut, a dream. Zero synthetics.
Potamoi, even if initially minimally synthetic, develops in the heart note into a very beautiful coconut, somewhat more complex than Malibù, which becomes very seductive when worn by a woman.
However, I am aware that we are talking about other prices in a different class here.

Even if the Asad Zanzibar is now very cheap to find, currently around €25, I still wouldn't buy it. Instead of cheap and bad, I'd rather buy something more expensive but good. Pinch your teeth, save a little and maybe buy another coconut fragrance (e.g. Malibù - Party in the Bay, my favorite coconut).

With Asad Zanzibar, Lattafa has tried to create new hype. I think that's a failure.
But this is not the only case where the flankers do not reach the level of the original. Lately, more and more attempts are getting weaker. Some good, but still weaker.
And here I can name a few examples: Oud for Greatness Neo, "Deified Tony Iommi | XerJoff" and the whole X-series of Nishane fragrances, which were rated worse here than the originals.

That's my experience with the fragrance so far. My opinion: No, a clear, unequivocal "no"!

When the original "Oud for Greatness | Initio" came onto the market, I wasn't even born yet (here on Parfumo). I only had the opportunity to smell it last year in the Wigger perfumery in Dortmund. The first time I sprayed it, I was totally shocked, but I took the fragrance home with me. I kept sniffing it on the way home. By the time I got home, I was so in love that I bought the "Oud for Greatness | Initio" here straight away.

The original "Oud for Greatness | Initio" is pure greatness. I won't say much about it here, as many of you know it (and probably like it - I certainly do). I associate it with a young, mid-20s, energetic "me", a "me" who always wants to party, always wants to be in the spotlight. For me, the original has the same energy of, for example, Ombre Nomades.

Between the original and Neo, 6 years passed quickly - the "me" got a bit older, calmer. He works and likes to look for an everyday fragrance, perhaps a signature fragrance, one that is not so loud (disturbing), but which nevertheless does not lack that "quelque chose". This is where the Oud for Greatness Neo comes into play. Not every flanker is as good as the original. And it's about the same here. The magic is half gone here. The beautiful nutmeg opening is gone. But wasn't that what made "Oud for Greatness | Initio" so special? Instead, a citric note, here called bergamot, is perceptible at the beginning, paired with a masculine lavender. I continue to smell the lavender over the next 2-3 hours, with an oud in the background. In the middle I smell a saffron, but not a strong one like in BR540, rather shy, well blended between the other notes. The whole combination is extremely masculine, well balanced between fresh and sweet. Very elegant, serious, I dare say even sexy.
Later, I smell a warm mochus and the fir balsam.
If I were to organize the fragrance notes, it would be like this: Top notes: Bergamot, lavender; heart notes: Lavender, saffron, oud; Base notes: Fir balsam, mochus.

Performance, eternal comparison to the original.
The sweet, spicy, gourmand notes are "always" stronger than the fresh notes. This is also the case here, so the Oud for Greatness Neo loses out from the start. The lavender-saffron-oud combination is somewhat weaker than the nutmeg-saffron-oud. And I noticed it in the sillage. Good at the beginning, but not as loud, it wears off quite quickly. The longevity is there, comparable to the original. You can still feel it on my skin for hours after spraying.
(Helpful info: the initial "Oud for Greatness | Initio" had an alcohol content of 77%, nowadays it is marketed at 80%. The new Oud for Greatness Neo has 78% alcohol content.)

The Oud for Greatness Neo is trying, in my opinion, to become all-season. While I would rather wear the original in the evening, when going out or on colder days, I can also imagine wearing the Neo on warmer days and at work. I think it's ideal for the office. It could even become a signature fragrance.

I'm totally in love with the original. I gave it a solid 9. I would give the Neo an 8. The longevity is comparable for both, maybe 0.5 points less for the Neo. Sillage also 1 point less for the Neo.

Price/performance - buy/do not buy, yes/no/maybe.
Here I would give the Neo a 7. Good fragrance, but the price cannot be explained.
It currently costs 315€. The original can be found at around 200€. Given the performance, I personally wouldn't buy it (yet). Maybe at half the price.

Here is a paranthesis about the P/L:
many fragrances are rated as 10 and 9 for the fragrance-sillage, then get a 6, 7 as P/L ratio. Wrong, I think. If I find a 9 to 10 fragrance that is really very good, lasts a long time and radiates strongly, then it is completely worth the price for me. Even if it would cost €2-3, even €400.

Thanks for your patience! It would be nice to read several opinions about the new Oud for Greatness Neo here.

Greetings, Segel

Arge, Aurelia, Ceo, Crio, Dasos, Phoebe, Hadès, Herà, Hestià, Hyades, Iperione, Kronos, Mnemosine, Rea, Stereope, Teia, Thetys, Themis - all characters from Greek mythology, all perfume names by Giardino Benessere.

And finally, the last one, Potamoi - part of the "Titani" collection - was released in 2024.

In Greek mythology, the Potamoi (ancient Greek: Ποταμοί, romanized: Potamoí, literally "rivers") are the gods of the rivers and streams of the earth.

The river gods were the 3000 sons of the great earth-circulating river Oceanus and his wife Tethys, as well as the brothers of the Oceanids. They were also the fathers of the Naiads. The river gods were depicted in one of three forms: as a bull with a human head, as a man with a bull's head and the body of a snake-like fish from the waist down, or as a reclining man with his arm resting on an amphora jug pouring out water.

"Terenzi, really? What do these names have to do with your scents?" Is there a real explanation?.

Back to our topic, the new 2024 release.

Nicely packaged, just niche quality.
The bottle looks better in real life than in the picture posted by Parfumo. (see my picture of the bottle). Dark green, matte, almost the shape of an alcohol bottle, fits very well in the hand and is easy to carry. The spray head is good to very good, almost comparable to the sprayer of Dior bottles, I would say.

The fragrance
Here at Parfumo, in the fragrance direction, it impresses in the middle, with a large dot in the front, almost like an attention!, SYNTHETIC.

The first spray is dominated by a lavender note. Initially very fresh and yes, slightly synthetic. Not synthetic like "Invictus Platinum | Paco Rabanne", for example, which I can no longer smell after I got to know the sneeze fragrances, but not extremely bad either.
On the contrary, the lavender from Lavender Extrême, for example, smells like freshly planted lavender.

In the first 2 minutes, everything here becomes fresh and sweet, my nose takes on the cardamom. All at once, perhaps too sweet. I keep smelling my wrist and reading bergamot and suddenly I start smelling it. At the very back, shyly. I wish cardamom hadn't made its presence felt here. I would have preferred the bergamot to be stronger.
This whole fresh-sweet-synthetic (but not very synthetic) etc. combination only lasts about 15 minutes. Combination only lasts about 15 minutes.

Over time, the scent gets much nicer. What I smell the most here is the coconut and already I can remember Malibù - Party in the Bay. But it's not just that, it's even more. The fragrance is not as sweet as the one mentioned above. Mainly the peach that I perceive here and the rest of the notes, listed here but of which my nose only perceives the rose in the background, make the fragrance complex but somehow calmer (less coconutty). Since I know and miss the Malibù - Party in the Bay, I would have loved to have more of it here.

With about 5-6 proper sprays over skin and clothes, I get a subtle sillage in the first 2 hours. After about 8 hours later, I can't say anything more about sillage. What remains is a pleasant sweet-slightly woody note, my nose suspects, of caramel and sandalwood.

A summery fragrance? Yes, perhaps, but rather in the evening and not in the heat, as it can easily become suffocating. It remains a fresh-sweet but more sweet fragrance. Called unisex, but I prefer to see it worn by a lady.

P/L: mMn, it is not worth paying 235 € for the fragrance. For that price I would rather get 2 bottles of Malibù - Party in the Bay. (personal opinion only). - less complex, but significantly more coconut.

Finally, I would like to thank Kai Porten for offering me this perfume at a more than perfect price.

If you've read this far, thanks for your patience! :D

Special, complex and expensive, that would be a summary. But I don't want to stop here. The fragrance deserves much more attention.

Today, 24.03.2024, a rainy day here in NRW. Cold, a little dark, luckily it's the weekend. Today is an ideal day to relax, cook as a family and perhaps try out a fragrance. One that you can't wear for every occasion.

3 sprays and a lot of movement in the kitchen are enough to diffuse Overture Man abundantly in the air.

From the first seconds, cognac and cumin notes explode in my nose. I can't detect much grapefruit and ginger here myself. Some more spices, probably cardamom. My nose can't understand why saffron is listed there.
In any case, the fragrance is heavy and smoky right from the start.

for 1-2 hours, Overture Man remains just as serious as at the beginning. However, a certain sweetness comes here, I assume, through patchouli. Furthermore, I can actually smell cinnamon here. But it's not a (sweet) cinnamon bomb, it's shy, somewhere in the background.

The fragrance slowly loses its smokiness over the next few hours, becoming a little sweeter, more pleasant. Sandalwood, is that you?

Overture Man is clearly an art, not one for every occasion. I wouldn't wear it to work as it's difficult to understand by a nose not used to Nieche fragrances. It's not sweet enough to attract attention in a pleasant way. This is no Layton or "Naxos | XerJoff". This is a fragrance you wear for yourself, not to please others. And again, don't wear it at (office) work, as it could easily become a nuisance in small rooms.

The House of Amouage do not discount the quality of the ingredients. Overture Man is an example of this: strong to very strong, 3 sprays easily last the whole day. The sillage around 30 cm away is easily perceptible.
So for me, it's clearly a good fragrance. One bottle will definitely last me for several years because:
1. because it is strong, I only need 3 sprays once,
2. i hardly ever find an occasion to wear it.


A beautiful and complex experience, in a rainy day..
Thank you for your patience !