Safari Blend
Abdul Samad Al Qurashi

If you like arabian scents, you'll love Safari Blend. If you are into blends/oils/attars, then this is a must try!

In his category, this mix of wildflowers, vanilla, jasmine, white musk, ylang-ylang, tea leaf and spicy notes is close to perfection.

It is very complex, creamy, intense and luxurious. In the opening the vanilla notes may seem too powerful but in a matter of minutes it calms down and very complex notes are rising like arabian knights on the top of dunes.

The presentation (box and bottle) is absolutely superb. It looks like a gift for a sultan or an emperor.

Longevity - Above medium

Sillage - Medium

Projection - 8/10

The opening is smooth, rich and intense: a bright and light jasmine teams with a beautiful creamy vanilla and a convincing ylang-ylang to form a beautifully, slightly mellow opening. There are wood undertones, which initially are mere backgound support but soon develop further into a pine-centred middle phase. A few brief hints of oud show up here and there, but it hardly registers amongst the ylang-ylang and pine wood.

A slightly fruity and a touch more spicy tones lead into the base, where a light Darjeeling-type tea aroma mixes with musky impressions, whilst residues of the jasmine and wood still remain even at this stage. It never looses that certain intense rich and luscious smoothness that was so impressive at the start.

The performance is very good with moderate sillage, good projection and an excellent nine hours of longevity on my skin. A great oriental winter scent made of ingredients of very high quality. 3.75/5

A sweet, warm blend consisting mainly of, to my nose at least, jasmine, ylang, and vanilla. The opening is very sweet indeed, a big pop of sultry jasmine that shares some of the cheerful grape soda aspects with the jasmine note in Sarassins but absolutely none of the indoles. The ylang and vanilla come in a bit later to join the jasmine, but it never descends into boneless, creamy torpor, because the bright, grape jam-like feel of the jasmine keeps things zipping along in a high, fruity register. I don't get much of the green or spice notes here. Supposedly there is oud in this, although I can't pick it out, so it must be a very tame version of oud or present in minuscule amounts only. I do get some tannic or woody inferences, but I am not sure if this is coming from the tea or the blond woods in this.

It's generally a big, bossomy, big girl's pants type of scent. Very sweet and feminine. I quite like jasmine, but I prefer darker, leathery, and more indolic versions than this, like Sarassins, for example. But I recognize that it's very well done in that round, bossomy, daylight kind of way that some people prefer their jasmine.