Habibati
Abdul Karim Al Faransi

Habibi = dear, or darling in Arabic when talking to a man, Habibati = dear, or darling when talking to a woman. Anyway, Habibati is a pleasant, feminine-leaning mukhallat revolving around sweet vanilla fluffed up with iris and white musk. It opens on a rather unfortunate accord – a clump of clotted cream coated in the hard spackle of Ethyl Maltol, the molecule used in Angel and other gourmand perfumes to create a cotton candy or caramel note. However, the candy floss impression is brief enough not to leave any lasting trauma, and soon disperses to reveal the bone-pale dustiness of iris. This splices the heavy vanilla with splinters of dust and root, in effect kicking its arse and getting it to move a bit. A weightless white musk wraps around the vanilla and iris, giving them a pillow-soft texture. In the far reaches, there are glimpses of a sandalwood with the silky delicacy of peanut shells. Very nice, overall, and quite close in theme, if not execution to Ormonde Jayne’s Vanille d’Iris. I recommend Habibati to women who are love clean, fluffy musks but either cannot stretch to the (much better quality) Ormonde Jayne or believe any of the Narciso Rodriguez ‘cube’ perfumes to be below them.