Al Ghar Blend
Abdul Samad Al Qurashi

Soft musky dusty dessert spices, powdery amber (not overly sweet), and a woody non-stanky style oud outline this oil. I feel wrapped up and warm as after a good massage. There's an oiliness about it and it feels a little more like a massage oil than a personal fragrance, but that in no way gets in the way of the golden sandy tinged comfort this oil provides. It's not high art, but it's hitting those dopamine receptors. Good at the price point.

Al Ghar is beautiful and I'm more than a little obsessed with it. Perhaps it's the recent shift of weather into autumn coolness, but I am craving scents like this - creamy, ambery, warm, and maybe a little bit spicy. Be aware, though, that this is a very subtle scent, and takes a long time to unfurl into its full beauty. It is so quiet and well-blended that it took me several wears of it to be able to identify and place all the disparate elements. But this is a scent that rewards your patience and time to understand it. I have ended up falling in love with it.

The oud, saffron, and rose opening feels fairly medicinal, but not in the least bit challenging or surprising to anyone who has ever sat out one of the Montale openings. The oud here, I believe, is the real stuff, although it has a similar band-aid feel to the synthetic oud used in most Western and Montale fragrances, as opposed to the smoky, deep oud oil extracted from the wood itself. As it happens, there is only a touch of it, but saffron adds to the dusty, medicinal feel, extending it for a while. The rose I smell only as a slight rosy, woody sweetness peeking out from behind the oud-saffron combo.

A couple of hours in, and a subtle creamy, ambery warmth starts stealing over the medicinal opening - it flickers in and out over the top, like someone spreading a lace cloth over a table and then flicking it off again. The hints of it are delicious and sweet, like caramels or honey logs, and when combined with the medicinal aspects of the oud and saffron, feel simultaneously honeyed and salted. At this point, I can only identify a hazy, golden oud-amber-saffron accord. The amber accord, when firmly settled at the core, also has a nicely-judged sprinkle of spices added to it - I pick up a tiny bit of black pepper or clove perhaps - not enough to make the scent spicy or fiery, just enough to add warmth. The saffron mostly contributes its creamy-medicinal qualities here, but perhaps also some spiciness.

Slowly, the scent unfurls even further, and checking back with my wrist an hour later, I see that a creamy, sweet sandalwood has joined in from the base, adding a warm, milky feel to the entire experience. I am not sure if Mysore or Australian sandalwood has been used here, but for once my inner sandalwood snob is silenced, because here the sandalwood is called upon only to lend a textural creaminess and silkiness to the main accord of oud, rose, saffron, and amber, rather than the full range of olfactory tonalities sandalwood usually brings. The total effect is a smell that approximates the comfort you get from sipping a spiced pumpkin or caramel latte you start to see in the coffee shops once the first leaves have fallen. Except, because this has oud and saffron in it, it is more adult in feel than that. Imagine a latte with salt, and you are halfway there.

I think this is a beautiful, subtle, complex blend that would work well on anyone - man or woman - who is looking for a bit of creamy warmth from their scent this autumn. It wears light, but its development is complex, so I imagine this would be a great scent for the office place and daytime. The oud element is not challenging or funky, and is a sort of oud-on-trainer-wheels familiar to anyone who has ever worn or loved a Montale oud. Lovers of Red Aoud and White Aoud from Montale would feel right at home with this - it has a similar, creamy, diffuse warmth to it, as well as spiciness from the saffron (White Aoud) and sweetness from the sandalwood (Red Aoud), while all the time retaining that faintly pleasant medicinal edge from the oud. And for lovers of the great Bois des Iles, which by the way contains not a drop of Mysore sandalwood but is a great reconstruction of the Mysore sandalwood smell, Al Ghar could be an excellent way to dip your toes into the field of Arabian perfumery - it has the comfort of a sandalwood-type creaminess with just a touch of oud to break you in.

My fifth sample from the Exotic Line and the fifth one created for ASAQ's Diamond Jubilee. They must have gone crazy creating so many blends for the same event. I have mixed feelings about this one but my strongest opinion is one of disappointment because it is supposed to have sandalwood in it but the presence of sandalwood is about as strong as the presence of oud, or perhaps less. Descriptions vary on what it includes but I get pretty much all the notes mentioned from sources I've found: amber, sandalwood, oud, saffron, musk, and rose. I get rose right from the start. As soon as I apply it there is rose, then saffron, then musk, all three. It's a tad screechy but not bad. I can then smell the amber trying to beat its way in, but not a rich, warm amber, something lighter. At this point the whole thing smells like a cola - and the sweetness starts to ramp up. A little later I can smell the milky-woody note of sandalwood and then this is followed by a clean, crisp oud note, and the whole thing has a translucent kind of leather and powdery rose thing going on with that cooling naptha note I smelled in Heritage Blend. But the sandalwood and oud are gone almost as soon as they appear. There's a lot of quick shape-shifting that goes on from the beginning up until this point when it starts to settle in to a fuzzy vanilla and musk again, not unlike Al Lolo al Maknoun. Al Ghar has a strange "dusty" thing going on on one hand but on the other it is interestingly peculiar, like finding a treasure in an antique store. On top of that is this feeling of familiarity that I can't shake, like I've smelled this before, just as it settles into a drydown of sweet vanilla musk again. Another very interesting and well-made introductory blend for those looking to ease into eastern blends without being overly challenged.