Hafez 1984

Hafez 1984 by Alexandria Fragrances Reviewed from 30ml atomizer bottle Summary: a mature and masculine dose of sweetness and spices presented with a weighty, lavish feel Hafez 1984, the namesake fragrance of Alexandria founder and perfumer Hany Hafez, arrives with a bright, golden wave of sweetness countered lightly by mysterious, Middle Eastern spicing. Shortly into its wearing, the sweeter notes meld softly with the heavier, creamier base and leave a welcoming, uplifting vibe of golden warmth. While the sweet notes are in the forefront, Hafez never feels like a sugary or syrupy scent – the feeling is more like a roasted honey or caramel used in combination with some mildly darkened spice. What the scent achieves for the wearer is a sense of luxury without excess, freshness in spite of its warmth and golden sensibilities. The most commonly-known point of comparison for Hafez may be Parfums De Marly’s Layton for how both balance bold, daytimey woody notes with a non-cloying sweetness but Hafez exhibits a more solidly Oriental array of spicing than Layton’s famed apple-cardamom highlights. Technical: in intended by its creator, Hafez 1984 projects mightily but never in an obnoxious way. Its scent cloud is omnipresent but respectful – the scent is human in a way where it bonds with its wearer to surround him or her with a welcoming aura, not an oppressive theme of trying to overwhelm a room. While it goes on strong and sweet, it settles back into a comfortable and sensible sillage for several hours, leaving a thick and honeyish after-effect on clothing. Colors evoked: reddish, earthy spice; warm, golden syrup being heated in a stone vessel; the edges of a lightly burned and browned piece of wood Musical accompaniment: The Jacksons - “Find Me A Girl;” Bobby Oroza – “Should I Take You Home;” Rhye – “Count To Five;” The Jones Girls – “When I’m Gone” Timing: surprisingly, while the elements of this scent usually lend themselves to colder weather, Hafez works endearingly in warm to hot temperatures as well. Cold air brings out the wood and spices of its base notes while warm, daytime air bring forth the sweetness and brighter aspects

This and Borouj Perlador have a huge overlap. I'm surprised no one commented on that. Or the other way around - I think H1984 came out first. They're too close to be flankers if we can image that scenario. This is like a re-balanced, a touch smoother Borouj Perlador (... or the other way around lol - sorry, I just bought BP first). The red-tobacco accord is amped up and a lot more noticeable in H1984, and it holds for much longer. Perlador is quick to go into the rest of the notes: vanilla/tobacco/incense/leather etc., with the vanilla in particular ramped up on my skin. Altho Red Tobacco has a similar red-hookah-tobacco accord (I pick up more apple in it than H1984), the overlap between those two is not as prominent as BP. So if you disliked the red tobacco accord in Red Tobacco and wish it was gone or greatly lessened - Perlador might be for you. If you liked it and you're missing it in Perlador (... like I did!) : H1984 I'm happy owning both BP & H1984, but I got rid of the Mancera ... yet I'm weary owning both might be redundant for most people! The smoothest of the 3 mentioned is H1984 to my nose, but not by a lot. If you own one of the others - don't worry, you're good. I prefer the blend here, but take my advice - sample first if you can :) This is stellar, amazing quality. To me: H1984 : 9/10 Borouj Perlador : 9/10 Red Tobacco : 8/10 I'll macerate this and see how it opens/changes, as this often happens with similar brands/perfumes. p.s. it does need ~25-30 mins or so to settle so the tobacco & booziness come out 🙂 /edit oh for some reason I can get away with wearing BP in a chillier spring. This... I'm not so sure. It's not denser, heavier, or anything. Hard to explain.

I got a decant soon after it came out. It the Cali heat in the summer it was too much, the booze was too strong. I recently went back to it and am really digging it. This is not unisex to me, straight grown man type of smell. My wife doesn't really dig tobacco row Busey type fragrances. She's not a fan of my pure havane or anything else I got this tobacco Based. She told me today this one smell good which is amazing for me because she doesn't like a lot of my winter fragrances she's more of a Citrus Freshy type of person. Nice and sweet in the opening for 2-3 hours on my skin. I then get a dry tobacco and slight vanila scent that sits a bit closer to the skin after the 4 hour mark, but that scent last for the rest of the day. On clothes that sweet scent last all day. I literally asked my wife to smell it on my wife beater 10hrs after I sprayed it while I was changing to go out to dinner to see if she digged it before respraying. I will eventually end up with a bottle but right now I got too many cold weather fragrances and it only gets cold here for about 3 months. Maybe I will get a full bottle next winter depending on how fast I go through this decant. Might have to bump something off of the rotation. Defiantly a unique scent that smells good. A conversation starter for sure. This is better fit for cool weather and slightly warm but not for weather above low 80's for me. This can be worn casually but also dressed up. Smells like 25 and up for me but I can see a college guy pulling this off to rock on a night out. Longevity 9/10 Projection 7/10 Scent 8/10

After owning and wearing this for the past 3-4 years....I have to say that none of the others that I own come close to it EXCEPT "Mystery Tobacco" & "Exclusif Tabac". I've been comparing and contrasting all of my "Tobacco" fragrances and I've come to the conclusion that In my heart....I desire a pure TOBACCO note scent. I only get this from the three fragrances mentioned thus far. "Red Tobacco" has far too much syrupy sweetness and fruits....the same with "Fragrance World - Apex" and all the others in my collection (at least 5 others). "Hafez 1984" gives that beautifully dry and strong PURE tobacco that very few other fragrances offer. There's no heavy sugar mixed in to the composition, there's no syrupy fruits added in...just enough to give the scent profile a slight lift with the added notes without taking away from the star of the scent...THE TOBACCO NOTE! I can layer "Hafez 1984" with other fragrances if I want to add in other notes or additional sweetness. Or...if I want that pure manly and mature TOBACCO scent, I can wear it by itself. It is a perfect fragrance on its own and signature-scent worthy!! This is an absolute masterpiece...and I will be ordering another bottle before my current one gets below the halfway point. Hany...sir, you know what the best things in life are. I am so very happy that you have shared your exquisite tastes with the rest of this world. -DM-

Wow. I’ve sampled 24 Alexandria frags and for some reason their smell on strips has almost no resemblance to the way they smell on my skin, especially Hafez 1984. On paper, it smells cloyingly sweet and pretty bad, even after an hour of drying. On my skin it goes dry tobacco leather within a couple of minutes. There’s a little machine shop in this as well. Some grime. I put this in the Fahrenheit category of fragrances. It smells bad and good. My wife walked by me and goes “you smell like a grandma” and I go, “you’re definitely wrong. If anything I smell like a mechanic.” I smush my bicep into her nose. She sniffs. “UGH”. She walks away angry. 7 seconds later, her from the other room: “I kind of like it.” That’s what kind of fragrance this is. It’s a paradox. Ugly and beautiful. Repulsive and attractive. Dead possum on a unicorn’s back. Very worn machine leather old pipe tobacco tailings. A child eating a vanilla ice cream cone sneezed 16 feet away as the breeze blew the atomized vanilla spit particles through the exhaust cloud of an old Harley that was just fixed and started after sitting unused for 7 years. It does smell red, like brownish red. Deep setting sun filtered through smog. This fragrance IS a mood itself. Also, to me, this has the body of Tf tobacco vanille, and has ~20% of its DNA I'd say.