Nabeel
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The first minutes are a spice bombardment—cardamom and cinnamon dominate immediately, flanked by sharp aldehydes that create an almost soapy shimmer. Grapefruit and bergamot provide citric brightness, but bitter almond and clove keep it austere, almost medicinal; there's nothing welcoming about this introduction.
By the second hour, a warmer, honeyed sensuality begins asserting itself, with rose and jasmine softening the spice, whilst sandalwood creates a creamy, almost woody-sweet backdrop. The animalic notes—that civet-castoreum base peeking through—lend an unexpected muskiness that makes this phase strangely magnetic, neither entirely floral nor entirely animalic, suspended between elegance and rawness.
The final hours are dominated by leather, oud, and tobacco smoke, deepened by patchouli's earth and vanilla-tonka's subtle sweetness creating a resinous, almost smoky amber-hued base. What remains is intimate and skin-like, more bourbon and old books than fragrance, with lingering traces of sandalwood providing textural warmth rather than projection.
The Spirit of Dubai - Abjar is a fragrance that announces itself with baroque excess, yet possesses a curious restraint underneath. Asghar Adam Ali has constructed something genuinely complex here: the opening assault of aldehydes, bitter almond, and spice (cardamom, cinnamon, clove conspiring together) collides with a bright, almost ethereal top of citrus and pine, creating immediate tension between comfort and provocation. This is no soft oriental; it's a leather-and-oud composition that refuses sentimentality, with a genuinely animalic base that transforms the expected Dubai-fragrance template into something altogether meatier and more authentic.
What makes Abjar compelling is how it occupies a strange middle ground between classical Arabian oud fragrances and contemporary niche leather-scents. The honey and rose that emerge in the heart feel almost civilising, a respite from the brimstone-and-spice opening, but they're undercut immediately by that animalic 100% accord—castoreum and civet bring an almost greasy, primal undercurrent that prevents this from ever becoming perfumed. Tobacco and leather ground everything earthily, whilst the dual sandalwoods (Australian and standard) provide creamy structure rather than milky sweetness.
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4.5/5 (99)