Evening Safari Drive

IMPORTANT: if you buy this or any of Zara refillable bottles please adjust them tight to avoid leakage. Do this and there will be no problem! Tried yesterday. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! In a few words, this is a camphorated vanilla with strong woodiness and creamy sandalwood. This screams "I am a sophisticated, elegant person, but I can live in the moment. Follow me and I'll show you!". It opens with the aromatic aspects of the eucalypt and cypress, quite green but in a more dark elegant way... for which I give thanks to cypress, this note always elevates when it's present. From the start you can feel that they are blended so well in the composition...they don't scream and scratch, what I mean is that the opening notes don't have that "nose spray" quality that many cheap aromatic/foresty fragrances may have. I found similar good elements in one of the Zara Forest line too (the Sacred Green Forest one). Vanilla starts to appear after just minutes and it is worked here to become almost a camphorated vanilla, balsamic but done in a really elegant and niche way. The scent is also powdery in a sense, like a mentholated vanillic talc, but a very expensive one that may be produced by an obscure niche family buisness in the mountains of Romenia. Beautiful. The balsamic/camphor/conifer aspect is never lost, it persist even on the dry down, so if you don't like eucalypt and similar then don't go for it. What happens next is that a huge dose of cedar starts to come through which gives the perfume a strong warm woodiness, thogheter with sandalwood the blend becomes creamy. Warm and very creamy! Dry down goes on like this for quite a while but in the final stage sandalwood prevails as the star. It is only now that I see some resemblance to Santal 33 or better yet to Zara Energetically New York (or the woody aspect of Versace Black Crystal, even). At this point the sandalwood used by Zara results almost lactonic and a bit "coconutty" (as per usual with Zara choice of sandalwood, or when they mix sandalwood and cardamom). I like this perfume very much. I would say it is quite unisex, maybe a tad masculine leaning; the warmth (or "sweetness" if you prefer) in here is more merit of the woods then the vanilla so it is meant to be unisex. In my experience very few women tend to wear scent that have aromatic balsamic notes so I don't expect that many of us will wear this (at least where I live) but if you give this to a female public that buys and wears niche composition then yes...they will not be disappointed. I for one will be wearing this in Autumn for sure! Longevity and sillage are quite good, last for about six hours on me, with moderate projection. Dry down is exquisite and lasts much longer! Edit: the tonka in here is grounding versus the usually sweet cumarin that Zara tends to use (see for instance Violette Blossom). It almost gives an earthy vibe but it is very very subtle.

Most people seem to like the smell of wood in all its forms. Living wood, chemically treated wood, burning wood, wet wood, and, yes, wood that has been cut into tiny pieces we call sawdust. While scent in general is a very subjective sense, the smell of sawdust seems very appealing, even to the point of creating a scented cologne of sawdust. But what makes this unlikely substance so appealing? Why does sawdust smell so good? Most likely it’s simply because we like the smell of wood in general, and sawdust is just small pieces of wood. Evening Safari Drive captures the essence of the lumberjack lifestyle and the scent of freshly cut wood and shavings. It doesn’t smell exactly like a lumber mill, but pretty close. In the beginning, there is a blast of fresh, green, dry woody accord with a camphoraceous nuance. I bet the balmy eucalyptus and the resinous cypress together create such a wonderful aroma, a forest-like woodiness. Right off the bat, the essence makes me think of Santal 33 EAU DE PARFUM. The papery cedar and milky sandalwoods in the underground are pretty similar in the two fragrances. Let the initial burst calm down, and a powdery, smoky and balmy tinge oozes. The iris dry root is dusty, more earthy than buttery, with no lipstick-like. Besides, I feel the presence of resinous, rubbery-like olibanum. It grows and grows, and its smokiness blends with the woodiness. Iris and incense's role is significant, as they provide the powdery and waxy backdrop that makes this scent so sensational. Side by side, Evening Safari Drive deviates from Santal 33 and takes a different route. When the dry-down comes, the brittle dryness of the cedar and smooth creaminess of the sandal duo shines and takes the stage. They are well-balanced and support the powderiness of brown tonka beans and black vanilla pods with a smoking woods alloy. My skin amplifies the woods, to which it added a final brief touch of musk to enliven the whole while the spicy beans and pods do not steal the show. After many hours, and even days after, what is left on the blotter is a pungent pencil shaving of redolence, sawdust with smoky and dusty tinges. It’s definitely woody, it’s definitely unisex, and it’s definitely aromatherapy-like in the way it makes you feel. It’s calming, it’s warming, and it’s comforting. Its sillage is discrete, but it has considerable staying power. Seasonally, it suits both spring and fall days, evenings, and nights. Ultimately, are Santal 33 and this the same? Probably not, but they have the same vibe if you want something similar without breaking the bank. I'm basing my review on a bottle I've owned since April 2023.

I noticed a few similar notes shared with Commodity Book, and came into possession of both fragrances so wanted to give a comparison. Both remind me of being in a lush evergreen forest, surrounded by green conifers and woods, they're almost relaxing. Evening Safari Drive is a sandalwood fragrance, supported by some sturdy forest woods (cedar) and green conifers (cypress), with a whisper of eucalyptus that develops somewhat in the first hour. Book blooms open with a generous bouquet of eucalyptus, which does somewhat mellow on wear, and is supported by green conifers with a whisper of sandalwood and cedar in the base. Overall, they are very similar compositions and to simplify, Evening Safari Drive leads with slightly powdered sandalwood whilst Book leads with a eucalyptus that is almost essential-oil like. For the first 30 minutes they smell the most different, but as they dry down the leading notes subdue and they become more similar. They are both unisex if not a touch masculine, but if you are a female and like unisex scents you would be at home wearing them. They both sit fairly close to the skin unless overspraying and both have moderate longevity. I would say they are equal in all these aspects. Evening Safari Drive is not the typical fleeting Zara scent, it performs respectably. For most people, I would say just choose one - it's really just deciding if you want more sandalwood or more eucalyptus. But considering the RRP difference is £100? I would just go with Evening Safari Drive. Tl;dr: ESD: Sandalwood > Dark green and woods > Eucalyptus Book: Eucalyptus > Dark green and woods > Sandalwood

Very weak performance and generic sandalwood smell , nice but not something unique or even strong. The freshness of the Eucalyptus and Cypress is very short lived as it goes into the sandalwood quite fast , which is a pity because these 2 notes gave it a somewhat interesting opening . The cedar note is also very subtle. As this all dissipates, it really smells like any other sandalwood creation by Zara like those that Jo Malone created (Energetically New York ) Edit :20/02/2024 This has been macerating for three months more now and the Eucalyptus and Cypress notes are way more present and longer lasting than three months ago, and the ceder note has been improved too. It also seems to be more complex than in the beginning so a very nice evolution. Will have to see if the has improved in its longevity Zara perfumes really need to macerate longer in order to become more potent. Often they have only been in the bottle for a couple of months when sold in the shop, so patience is the name of the game to really give an opinion on really these perfumes.

Nice and simple but somehow also well rounded sandalwood scent. Does make me wonder if I'm just smelling javanol on steroids here—I've never smelled the pure material—in the same way ambroxan seems to be the real star of Sunrise On The Red Sand Dunes. But like Sunrise this is really well done. Keeps on smelling good all the way down and the sandalwood is always front and center. For € 26, I'd have grabbed this without thinking twice if I could get my hands on it, and probably will should it pop up again. I only tried it from a tester once that was left out by mistake in a Zara that had no remaining stock, and haven't seen it since. They are taking fast fashion a bit far with these 2023 series, it's a joke that the box has instructions on how to refill the bottle when the fragrances are deleted from the catalog faster than you can empty one. Going to seek out some more of Mylène Alran's work because she's going two for two with these Zaras.