Shaghaf Vanilla Toffee

** update 12/19/2024** so i've had it for a month now, the coffee has toned down a lot and the buttery toffee and brown sugar have amplified much more. that burnt sugar note is gone, and the smokiness i pick up stays mostly in the air upon spraying or if i smell my skin/clothes directly. this fragrance is now a love for me, a coffee/toffee delight (my favorite ice cream flavor ♥) that's perfect for this time of year. i only wish it projected a bit more, i feel like i have to overspray in order to get a decent scent bubble. if you also get/got burnt sugar and coffee at first, i recommend waiting for a while to see if it gets better. mine went from a scrubber to an absolute love within a month. when i first bought this fragrance, i absolutely hated it. i got none of the sticky dates, buttery toffee, werther's original caramel scent that i'd seen others describe. all i got was dark roast coffee and burnt sugar-- not even burnt sugar as in the torched, caramelized top of a creme brulee, but like you messed up trying to make candy/syrup and burned it. bitter, offensive, and disappointing for hours until a slightly tolerable drydown hours later. between other reviews and sheer refusal to accept that i wasted $70 on a ME fragrance i said i wasn't going to buy right away, i decided to hold out hope. it's been a little over 2 weeks, and the fragrance has already changed for the better. the burnt sugar/bitterness has waned, it has become more buttery and vanillic, and the nutty/spiciness from the walnut and cardamom is coming through as it generally becomes more complex. i'm confident that as time goes on, it will continue to get better-- which i'm fine waiting for, it's just barely starting to consistently get cool here and this is definitely a fragrance that i would want to pull out in colder weather anyway. as of right now, i find it to be feminine-leaning (more so over time) unisex, slightly spicy dark coffee + toffee fragrance with a beautiful warm, woody vanilla drydown. lasts for me ~6 hrs on skin and until the next day on clothes. it's just a like at the moment, hoping it will become a love in the future! i would not say it's a safe blind buy, definitely try a sample if you can because this is definitely not a straightforward vanilla/toffee fragrance for everyone.

Dark Dessert - Affogato Don’t mind the bad reviews for this one. People have been clamoring to be the first to get their hands on this to post content right off of the heels of big releases like Bianco Latte and similar clones. Shaghaf Vanilla Toffee is nothing like that. This is a very dark and intense gourmand that really teeters that line on what people actually call gourmand. Just looking at the note breakdown it makes me think of a chef brainstorming a dessert, combining flavors that can compliment each other to get to a certain flavor, chasing that michelin star. In this case the chef focused on toffee’s dark roasted flavor. That’s what this smells like to me. It opens with strong toffee and supplemented with black coffee notes with some brown sugar binding the two together. The dates and cardamom pop in the accentuate the opening notes creating some smoky feel, on top of a backdrop of vanilla and a hint of walnut. The mix of the last two gives it that very slight milk feel. On the dry down the backdrop of vanilla remains, tonka keeping it soft, and the woods, musk and benzoin come out keeping some level of smokiness that compliments the vanilla very well. Like a a fancy affogato To my nose that darkness of it makes it lean more masculine. The darkness does make it very versatile. Someone could easily dress this up in a suit for a night out like a casino, date, ballroom event. Or dress this down for home to lounge. If your girl wears Bianco Latte you can wear this. Definitely would work better for colder days. Other than that it delivers on the name, lots of vanilla and toffee with complimentary flavors that develop around it. Idk what everyone else expected when they saw the word toffee on the bottle. Toffee is cooked at higher temps than caramel and give a much darker and more roasted flavor. It doesn’t smell burnt or bitter you just don’t like toffee ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄

This is one of the most gorgeous perfumes I have ever come across. Wow! Perhaps if they had named it coffee toffee it would not have been so misunderstood. Because while this is a gorgeous spicy vanilla fragrance, it is almost equal parts coffee. And I adore it, I think I have found my coffee fragrance for life. UPDATE nope Shahoor Intense has currently toppled it as my favourite coffee fragrance, it's just slightly more coffee to scratch the itch. Further Update Arabiyat Fondue Velvet Dip is currently the queen of the coffees, its Shahoor Intense but actually intense. The coffee is here in the most beautiful way, very Arabic coffee complemented with walnut and dates(heavy on the dates!!) and this background of buttery brown sugar toffee. Like a genius made this. The woodiness and milkiness at the same time is also exquisite. People who were expecting an ice cream caramel vanilla along Eclaire and Bianco Latte have misconstrued the fragrance. In reality Vanilla Toffee is in a completely different league of a more grown up complex coffee dessert pastry fragrance. I no longer think it is super similar to Caffe Latte(Amore Caffe dupe I havent smelt the original) as I did before, they're definitely in the same color of smell basically with the brown sugar coffee, but they approach that destination in completely different ways. I do have a slight drawback with this fragrance, it's the cardamom, it's a bit loud initially in the mixture and can be off putting. It doesn't completely ruin the scent but when it is in the middle of drying down the cardamom makes it smell a little strange. When it fully dries down the cardamom makes better sense in the mix but those moments where it is the leading part of the fragrance are off. It's still an interesting fragrance and I enjoy it a lot, it's nice to have a complex gourmand.

Shaghaf Vanilla Toffee first impressions and comparison with Sticky Dates Decided to blind buy Swiss Arabian’s latest release because I already have a fondness for the og Shaghaf Oud plus, as you all know, I’m a gourmand nut, so I figured, why not? After experiencing the scent however, I can confidently say this is a complete departure from Shaghaf Oud, only sharing in the resin-rich benzoic sweetness they both display. The opening of this scent starts as a true toffee and slowly melts on the skin to mimic a butterscotch-like olfactive consistency. As confections, the two vary in that toffee is caramelized brown sugar cooked with butter to the point of reaching a hard-crack stage while butterscotch is cooked until it becomes a soft-crack textured candy. So, this scent starts with a crackly brittle opening of hardened toffee and as it sits on the skin it begins to melt down in a vat of vanilla, making the heart of the scent smell more like gooey butterscotch being drizzled onto a plate of dates. I appreciate this gourmand for its depth, it’s not just a plate of hardened burnt sugar, and personally I think this can classify as an iteration of the Sticky Dates body mist from Lush, which has a woefully stomach-turning opening (with a far more pleasant dry down). Both have a synthetic backdrop but Sticky Dates leaned in a bit too heavily on the note of butter (unlisted). Additionally, the two fragrances give the vibe that the delicious dates being showcased are plated next to a cup caramel-pumped coffee, as you can smell the roast of the beans. I will also admit that Sticky Dates, although only a body mist, is far more complex than vanilla toffee, and projects with more ferocity as well. ig perfume.realm 💙

What kills me is ...how some ppl buying a fragrance that is noted : in the unisex spicy gourmand category, but they dont like sweet or gourmand scents?? Make it make sense!! If you see the notes, and it is marketed as a unisex fragrance , then why did you expect some youthful candy gourmand or some cupcake toffee expectations when its unisex, has woody facets, and its a SHAGHAF line up and expected something like a bianco latte caramel toffee cupcakes a teenager would wear or a Ari Grande type scent ??? But you dont like gourmand or sweet scents but bought it ? Lol Im confused , its hilarious! This fragrance is not an extremely sweet scent at all or ache sweet but you have to love any gourmand scent or spicy arabic scent to like this one because this is your FOODIE spicy light gourmand that is unisex. @superscent10 I do not get nothing eggs . It could be your body chemistry in your skin. Never try a scent after you have eaten food either, because it can alter your nose chemistry function . Try a scent after you have fully showered is first rule, not when you have other stuff on, just ate food etc. Just like Ahmar doesnt work for me because it turns full musk on me, dirty musk. Maybe your a fruity floral type and not gourmand honey type. I dont love aquatics or white florals. I love the unisex torched smell from this . This is a over 35 age plus spicey torched unisex gourmand not a Fru-la la 20 yr old gourmand and thats the difference. And I hope ppl stop comparing this to Bianco latte because i have it and they are in completely different directions . Bianco latte is for all ages but Vanilla Toffee is not.