Fareb

Love this one. I can see myself acquiring a bottle once my sample is gone. At first, just like a few other people, I thought it was in the same ballpark as Fate Man from Amouage. Then I compared them side by side and they felt rather different. Sure, they both feature a prominent cumin note but Fate is more focused on the spices, frankincense, and the resins, whereas Fareb focuses on the cumin, immortelle, and the dry woods/leather in the base. Now, I feel a similar perfume to Fareb, recently discontinued, was Serge Lutens' El Attarine. I much appreciated that one and respected how unique and different it was but ultimately I could not bring myself to purchase a bottle as it felt too "feminine" for me. Too shy and suave. For me, Fareb feels like a "masculine" counterpart to El Attarine. No honey or fruits, much drier, woodier, with just as much focus on cumin (yay), a good amount of ginger, and perceivable yet soft dusty leather. I love Serge Lutens and wish this is how El Attarine smelt but I think Fareb will take that place in my collection. It satisfies both my craving for cumin and immortelle and is rather unique. It makes me think of Egypt. A very underrated scent from a house that hides many such jewels that only few know about. I need to dig deeper now:) UPDATE: After more sampling and comparing further with my Palais El Attarine I have to say I prefer the latter. There are some annoying woody-ambers in Fareb's base that albeit not prominent bother my nose. El Attarine feels rounder, more suave, and natural smelling. Still, I believe Fareb is worth checking out for those who enjoy Imoortelle and Cumin in fragrances.

This is sooo high on my wishlist! To me it is very dry rooty, musty in a "empty wooden spice-cabinet feel" but more from the spiced up wood than from spice alone. I do not get much if any leather, get more of a black tea with dried berries in it, cumin but pleasantly balanced and a tiny curry feel (Which I can imagine may project abit stronger on some, giving out the spice cabinet feel) It has a totally different array of spices then say Piper Nigrum which I also adore. Fareb is way softer, warmer. Soft spices, no pepper or sauna eucalyptus feel. I do not know what Immortelle smells like though I get that there is something in Sables which is here as well, only more airy, dry, rooty, spiced tea-like. And no burnt sugar feel! Like tea-spiced dry roots warmed up and withered by the hot desert winds. I soo crave this! But test before buy, some have read my love for it and only gotten a very boring uncreative spice cabinet on their skin. Well luckily for me, here it shines! My only love from the Huiteme line so far, and I have tried a few.

This is one of the most unusual fragrance I know in my life. Very niche, very special. Pierre Guillaume created this masterpiece to show the feeling of the Middle East countries as far as I know. The dusty full of tobacco smell of coffee shops, where people are sitting on the leather sofas spending their lazy time. He catches perfectly the atmosphere. This is how everything goes in those places. Just close you eyes and imagine your vacation not in exclusive hotels on Sinai Peninsula but in old villages somewhere in Jordan, Syria or Egypt. However this is not the oriental type of fragrance it is rather the smell of places which will last in your memory for long time. Fareb is not very expensive and for sure worth its price. Fareb is in the group of my first five favorite fragrances ever created.

Fareb reminds me of the streets in the old city of Fez; leather, kind of incence (elemi?) and the sweetness of honey and (dryed) flowers. I loved the old city of Fez!

It's quite nice, but it immediately makes me want to wear Fate Man by Amouage, which is the greatest of curry/cumin perfumes for me.

Just perfect. Immortal allure. The best of the "8".

deadidol said it perfectly 7 years ago (LOL) -- somewhere between Fate man and El Attarine. This scent does occupy a strange Venn diagram-esque territory between the two aforementioned scents (possibly Al Oudh and Arabie, too, it feels like there are dates in this), and I too can't help but feel that it could have been worked on, refined and improved. The cumin-immortelle is ALL Fate men (even though it pre-dates it), with the El Attarine honey-sweetness. It's its own beast, don't get me wrong, and there are plenty of scents that can work within that "it's ABC's quality1 and XYZ's quality2", and still not appear derivative or even second rate. This just feels like Fate superseded this. Just my opinion... I mean, this is still a REALLY good scent, no doubt, I just feel that others perform this theme/trope a little better...

You either love it or hate it. Immediate start of the old fashioned amber, but quickly opens into sweet cumin, leather and ginger. Prominent cumin (I am always surprised when the mentioned ingredient Actually smells like the original real life spice/fruit- and the cumin here is pretty real), combined with less prominent leather and ginger. The leather here is not the cold new car type, it`s more like soft sweet suede, it took me some time to spot the leather in it as I was waiting for the usual Tom Ford/Bakhour style. No, this is suede. Overall interesting layering and the choice of notes.

A delectable leather with spare spicy floral elements, this is a very uncommon and warm confection of a scent. Besides the above mentioned leather notes, there are only 3 others: ginger, immortelle flower and sand. The resulting juice is unisex, warm with moderate sillage/projection and longevity. This reminds me so much of my travels in Egypt - the smell is so uncanny and familiar. Not intended to be a crowd pleaser but more an evocative scent of time and place, this one is for those who are global travellers in their souls. Enjoy!

I'm no expert in botany, but it seems to me that Bois d'immortelle is something different to Immortelle. I kept expecting to smell immortelle, until I realised it's the 'bois' that is used. This also explains the very woody drydown. There is no cumin in the drydown, so that also leads me to think that there is no cumin in this perfume (it is not mentioned anywhere in the PG webpage). So, basically, plenty of this 'bois' plus ginger and leather. I really like this one, def prefer it to Fate. Average performance.

I am completely taken by the medicinal camphor opening, and I miss it when the dry down arrives. My boyfriend says I smell like an expensive curry but can’t stop sniffing me when I wear it. The cumin stands out to different degrees depending on the wear (and I’m not knowledgeable enough to suggest what factor influences it!), and I prefer it when the cumin is more downplayed. I want to try immortelle and ginger without cumin now.

Have just come to the end of my sample. Warm ginger + wooden spice box. Very smooth, comforting & understated. Great for a cold day, very natural smelling.

Hmm. The spice and leather notes are quite nice, but, unfortunately, the medicinal aspect is just too strong. It almost smells like camphor. It's ultimately very unpleasant.

I did not get anything complicated note wise out of this. It was pretty much straight forward from the opening trough the end. It started with an immortele and soon was followed by ginger and leather, like this it stayed all the way. Immortele here feels very medical as it is very well blended together with all the other notes. Leather is very easy for the nose, stays in the background, so does the ginger. Together it makes a medical woody fragrance, like an empty medicine cabinet made from woods. "Fareb" for me is very shy, stays close to skin and does not develop. I am kinda dissapointed with this as I hoped it would be something special, but unfortunately it is not. Unisex, yes, but on me it was a bit too manly for a female to wear.

The immortelle note jumped out to me while looking at the pyramid after owning a few immortelle scents, Sables, Fougere Bengal and Immortelle De Corse I figured this would at least be a like. Boy was I wrong. After reading Pinnacos review I see why. This is a different type of immortelle than I am used to. This whole scent is leather,spicy and herbal. Very melancholy and downright depressing. This is probably the worst niche that I have smelled this year.

Save yourself some cash by buying some curry powder and rubbing it on your pulse points. You will smell more or less like this.

This makes me wish I had an Indian restaurant nearby so I could wear it to go out for a curry. Like now, immediately.

I wanted to love this. However. All that I get is CUMIN. CUMIN. CUMIN. I smelled like a walking ChiChi’s from the 90s and it legit made me sick, I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to a fragrance EVER. WANTED TO PUKE THE ENTIRE TIME. And I fucking loved ChiChi’s FTR.

I am a great fan of Huitième Art Parfums and I think that Pierre Guillaume is a fantastic parfumeur. I've already bought full bottles of three of his perfumes, and I'm considering two others. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I tried this scent, and found that I really dislike it. To me this smells very much like straight up curry powder. The opening was literally like having a pot of curry powder thrown all over me. It's strong and pungent and could even be considered a sort of savory gourmand. The immortelle and its spicy, curry like aroma undoubtedly dominates the fragrance, but the other notes listed here are incorrect. According to the HAP website the notes are: - Bois d'Immortelle - Leather - Hot Sand - Ginseng Underneath the curry-like pungency of the immortelle is the leather note, which gives it a slight musty and antiquated aroma...sort of like 3 week old food forgotten in the back of the refrigerator. I've noticed a few other *curry* smelling perfumes recently, most notably Fougère Bengale by Parfum d'Empire, which I also didn't like. Perhaps it is my skin chemistry that warps them, but even from their vials, they didn't agree with me. This is not the kind of fragrance I would want to wear, but still I have to admit that it's a well made perfume, and a good quality. It's very potent stuff with great sillage and it outlasted 2 scrubbing attempts by me, sticking around for over 6 hours, in spite of my trying to wash it off. So good news for anyone who enjoys it. I guess this perfume is a perfect example of how you can't please all of the people all of the time. I'm sure there are a lot of fans of this scent out there. But it's not for me so I will stick with some of the Pierre Guillaume creations that I find much more beautiful.

Opens boozy and dense which a touch of spicy ginger and almost seems quite sweet. This subsides and as it settles you get the spice and an arabian culinary feel. One thing I can't stand is the strange buttery, honey like floral smell of Immortale. It's very distinctive indeed and if it's not really your cup of tea then you won't enjoy Fareb. The smell reminds me of something but I just can't place it? It connects to some deeply hidden olfactory memory from my childhood which has been repressed. It kinda smells a little grubby which maybe is what the 'leather' note is all about, because I wouldn't describe this as leathery, certainly not in anyway I find appealing...It's maybe slighty woody even? I want to hate this and I'd never dream of wearing it with so many excellent fragrances out there but something about it intrigues me. As it becomes a slight skin scent in the drydown it smells so natural and thought provoking that I can't help but have some 'carcrash' response which keeps me sniffing. It's the uniqueness I expected from Huitieme Art. Update: I know what it reminds me of now and it's a real childhood smell...WAX CRAYONS.