Arabian Desert

I try to avoid preconceptions, but the name Arabian Desert gave me visions of an inexpensive version of Tauer's magnificent L'aire de Desert Marocaine. This isn't that, but it has some commonalities that make this a nice experience. Where LADDM is the desert as seen by Lawrence of Arabia, AD is the desert remembered by a 19th Century British imperialist 30 years later in his London sitting room. A smooth amber accented with powdery lavender, cashmeran and saffron gets this started. At 45 minutes, a healthy dose of patchouli and some incense have pushed aside the lavender and saffron. This is usually where rose would elbow its way to the top, but other than a bit of tone, it is undetectable. The jasmine, however, peeks its head up every now and again, not as a strong white floral note but rather as something that brightens the amber and patchouli. The scent doesn't evolve much past this point, other than hints of fougeric notes, which is unsurprising since this contains all of the classic fougere notes (bergamot, lavender, rose/geranium, and coumarin). Of course, amber and patchouli are in loads of fragrances, but the incense and other uncredited elements shape these very differently from the LNDLHs, Halloween Mans and Wanted By Nights of the world. There is a density and silkiness here, along with just a smidge of middle eastern mystery, that elevates this. By now you are thinking "this fanboy is obviously going to buy a bottle of this", but that isn't actually the case. This is quite good, but I'm becoming very choosy as my collection becomes unwieldy, and if I want a desert fragrance, LADDM is going to be it. I will keep my generous decant of this, and will probably re-up for another 10ml if and when I use this up. If YOU don't have any desert fragrances, however, grab yourself a decant of this juice. I think you will like it.

#423 in my "Tour de Fragrance" Dunhill Arabian Desert is an oriental done right. Ambery, oudy, but warm and inviting, not sweet and nose-hair singeing. Spicy, but like a nice tea. Smoky and rosey, but just hints. This lasts a good five hours and projects an hour, which is better than the Dunhiill EDTs by a lot. So don't overdo it. Over-sprayed this will force the folks in the carpool to roll their windows down, drive people out of the elevator before they reach their floor, make the folks in the office fire up their air filters. It's fine if you spray conservatively. Try a single spritz at first. This is not a casual scent, or a warm weather scent. Definitely not a club scent in the Western hemisphere. A hint of this scent will be attractive to a date, appropriate for formal wear, an overspray would be off-putting. I think it's a reasonably priced safe buy for a man, much more daring for a woman. I'm ordering the rest of the "Signature" line the first of the year. If the others are even close to this good they're a bargain. But this one is not for the kiddies. On a twenty-something this would seem laughably pretentious, like you borrowed your dad's cologne. It's not outright grandad juice, but forties and up I think. It's the sort of scent that needs to be earned with experience and accomplishment.

This one is far more elegant, well blended, and sophisticated than a lot of overhyped fragrances that sell the label and not the actual fragrance, hmmm, lv, hmm. This one, Egyptian Smoke, and Indian Sandalwood are the best, followed closely by Amalfi Citrus and Agar Wood. I have backup bottles of the others and will get one backup for this one too. There a is a Montale, called Oud Edition, that is very close to this one, but also this has some resemblance to Gucci Intense Oud. All these don't have a funky oud note, and they're extremely smooth. This has become my favorite from Dunhill.

I'm wearing this today. A bit soft in term of projection but the longevity is good. Huge love for this one. Pleasant, mood uplifter, semi aromatic and semi spicy. The smoky ambience is exists but not as massive smokiness like others in my collection. I get the hint of rose and its not dominant at all.I don't really get the bergamot. If you like woodsy sensation, then you gonna love this. I'm planning to overspray this during my other day perfume rotation, feeling like want to experience the cloud surrounding me.

A bottled amber treat. It starts beautiful but it get even better at the dry down. Rich, dark, warm incense/amber with a soft & luxurious saffron note. For a moment I thought there was orange here as well as there is a very mild orangish zest but that could the bergamot giving that. It gets a little powdery at the dry down but that is what amber do. It's soft, charming, & mature. I really like it I haven't smelled amber this good since I tried Adnan B. Ambre Noir a few months back. "Love"