Tawaf
AbdesSalaam Attar Profumo (2012)

The opening is pure jasmine sambac with a touch of turpentine (not in a bad way). The rose opens a bit for me but not much, and the opoponax can be smelled in the bottle like an old friend whose face you can't quite remember.

I love this fragrance but wished it lasted longer. I find myself dumping this all over myself only to not remember if I even put it on an hour later.

I had imagined being enveloped in thousands of jasmine petals. I thought I would be choking on the rich scent of rose interacting with jasmine and melting into myrrh.

I feel left out of the joyous experience that so many have participated. Why can I not smell this? I purchased my sample thru TPC, and I don't have any reason to think they sent me the wrong thing, but I thought this was an attar, and it seems much more liquid than I expected...so perhaps this is wrong??

I am truly sad. I went into this test with the highest of expectations. I don't understand.

All the stinkiest facets of jasmin gather in the opening of this fragrance: a thick, milky sourish oil note, like freshly crushed green olives, pungent nail varnish and hot plastic, and a dose of indole that seems more likely to make insects flee away in terror rather than attract them... After this chemical feast- chemical not in the sense of synthetic of course, but in the sense that all these bizarre smelling natural molecules seem to have their five minutes of fame here- the fragrance settles on a very natural, rich and smooth jasmin. It stays then quite linear, pretty and rather well mannered like a jasmin shrub in the sunshine, slightly radiant with a now toned down dose of indoles, eventually getting sweeter and more resinous in the drydown. (As a side note, how curiously olfaction works: I couldn't detect the opoponax accord properly until, while reading about a monastery in Kefalonia, Greece, I suddenly recognized the warm, sweet, powdery note remebering the smell of another church I visited last year).
After an hour or so, smelling very close, I could detct quite clearly the narcissus note, with its interesting horse manure undertones, complimenting and amplifying both jasmin and sweet resins. A really gorgeous fragrance, with a single, predictable flaw in its lasting power.

So first notes heavy Middle Eastern spice and smell with a LOT of Jasmine... Not a big fan of Jasmine. As sillage softened I smelled more rose. I see reviews about the longetivity not being strong, smelled it all day into next norning. Same with anything new, give an hour or two so mellow out and then it was fabulous!!1

Easily my favorite jasmine scent, Tawaf just might be my favorite floral fragrance. Super rich, complex, indolic, natural jasmine essence is dominant, with a very realistic rose note in a supporting role. The oppoponax is almost not there--just barely enough to anchor the composition, and not a drop more.

No laundry list of lab made molecules here, Tawaf features just a few carefully chosen naturals, blended with an artist's touch. Wow! Outstanding.

Pros: best jasmine out there
Cons: short lived (3-4 hours for me)

5 stars

The Tawaf's hyper realistic golden jasmine/rose combo is by soon as much pure (such like inhaling real vegetal pollen-nectar) to appear somewhat honeyed, romantically indolent, languid, soapy and Victorian. One of the veritable dreamy and romantically indolent fragrances of the worldwide market. Enjoying La Via del Profumo Tawaf is like walking along the tracks of an english nobiliar garden with on the side a white laced clothed cultured young mademoiselle under a celestial soporific afternoon sky. Pink roses and brilliant (lacteous) sambac jasmines shine under sun and your heart beets of innocent joy for an upcoming new summery love. The floral "miasm" is typically (but barely) dirty in undertone as normal for purely natural floral absolutes but the remote fecal (stale flowerpot water-like) spark disappears by soon in order to leave the stage to a marvellously honeyed floral concert. Rattles and hums resound around in the "populated" afternoon celestial air. The powerfully odorous narcissus contributes to enhance the stunning (and incessant) floral valzer while soft balsams, waxy honey, light myrrh and faint musk soothen the indolic aroma leading it down the way of a pure rosey lacteous silkiness. The note of myrrh is not deeply resinous or heady but just accessorial to Queen sambac jasmine and gently soapy as perfectly joined with the general softly "chyprey" soapy/powdery radiant dry down. The aroma lingers as an obsessive ghost over your "shade" despite you can't detect it anymore after a while. Don't worry, people around you will detect this "aereal/molecular" holy potion unfolding incessantly its melody by your skin.