Aromatix Carnal Desire Extrait de Parfum 100ml

Six materials and an unexpected ending: French Avenue Aromatix Carnal Desire Extrait de Parfum 100ml spends its first hour being fruity and its last few being dry and bitter, which is the whole reason it holds the attention.

Raspberry leads, tart and bright and slightly jammy, with bergamot lifting it and cinnamon pushing warm dry spice underneath. That combination of red fruit and bark spice is familiar enough, but it is handled with a lighter hand here than usual, so the opening is sharp rather than sugary.

The middle is the refined part. Orris is cool, dry and powdery with an earthy quality underneath, and osmanthus is the more interesting of the two, a flower with a soft dried fruit character and a dry, slightly tannic edge at the same time. Together they take the fruit from the opening and make it something closer to a texture than a flavour.

Then cocoa finishes it alone. It is unsweetened and dusty, bitter rather than chocolatey, and placing it by itself at the base means the fragrance ends somewhere considerably darker than it began. That single material drydown is unusual, and it is the part of the wear people remember and come back for, rather than the fruit that opened it.

Extrait strength gives it long close wear with moderate projection, so it sits on skin for hours at a time without ever broadcasting across a room. It suits cool weather and evenings, reads as unisex, and the 100ml size is the only one available. Al Ghuroob, the trading company one man opened in Dubai in 1988, became Fragrance World, and French Avenue is one of the labels it has put out since 2012. The business both manufactures and distributes what it sells.