The Kingdom Eau de Parfum 100ml

A cold herbal top over a warm sweet base is a hard trick to pull off, and it is exactly what Lattafa The Kingdom Eau de Parfum 100ml sets out to do.

Lavender leads, clean and slightly medicinal, with mint beside it making the first minutes genuinely cool on the skin. Sage adds a dusty, savoury dryness that keeps the pair from smelling like a toiletry. Then the temperature changes. Vanilla arrives in the middle, smooth rather than sugary, and tobacco comes in with it, dry and cured and faintly bitter, which is what gives the fragrance its adult character. Orange blossom threads between them, a clean white floral that stops the vanilla and tobacco settling into pure comfort. The base is soft and resinous: tonka bean with its powdery, marzipan edge, benzoin adding sweet resin and body, and labdanum bringing a dark, resinous depth underneath.

It wears as a long one. Eau de parfum strength and a base this resinous means eight hours or more, with real presence for the first two and a close warmth after that. Two sprays in cool weather is the sensible dose, and three is the point at which other people in a car will notice.

Autumn and winter evenings suit it, and it is aimed at men without being strictly so. It is the sort of bottle that works for dinner, the theatre, or anywhere you want to smell deliberate rather than casual, and it is a good deal more interesting than the price of entry suggests.

Lattafa Perfumes is a Sharjah based manufacturer that trades on making its fragrances in the UAE. Its founder came to Dubai from Pakistan and learned the trade in his uncle's perfume store before setting up alone, and the company has since become known for attars and perfume oils alongside its French styled lines.