Pineapple, mandarin, and black pepper open together, and the combination shouldn't work as well as it does. The fruit is sweet, the pepper is sharp, and the two trade off instead of fighting for the same space.

Orange blossom, artemisia, and lavender take the middle somewhere more familiar. This is the part that reads as wearable in the ordinary sense, floral and herbal notes smoothing the fruit-and-spice opening into something reasonable for the office.

The base is where Fahad earns its keep. Patchouli, cedarwood, incense, and ambroxan build real weight, giving the fragrance enough structure to survive past the first hour instead of fading into skin musk.

Gaël Montero and Christophe Raynaud composed Fahad for Lattafa, a house that has made a habit of putting real perfumery behind a shelf price. This one keeps that streak going.