Niche Emarati Antique Eau de Parfum 100ml

Milk and black tea are not materials that turn up often, and they are what make Lattafa Niche Emarati Antique Eau de Parfum 100ml stand apart from the rest of the shelf it sits on.

The opening is busy and worth following closely. Fig gives a green, slightly chalky fruit sweetness, cardamom cuts across it with a cool and almost soapy green spice, and black tea adds a tannic dryness that keeps the whole thing from turning into a smoothie. Milk is the strange one and it works, lending a soft and faintly powdered creaminess, while coconut sits alongside without any of the suntan oil obviousness you might reasonably fear.

The heart is more conventional and all the better for the contrast. Iris brings a cool, rooty, slightly cosmetic powder, jasmine supplies a creamy white floral lift, and vetiver runs beneath with a dry, rooty bitterness that holds the sweetness in check. Then the base goes properly rich. Tonka bean reads here like the inside of a biscuit tin, sandalwood adds its smooth milky grain, caramel brings a dark and faintly burnt depth, and musk and amber close the whole thing out with warmth and a low resinous hum.

Thirteen materials is a great many, and this is a fragrance with genuine evolution to follow rather than a single accord sprayed thick. It carries properly for an hour or two and then settles into a long, sweet, close wearing drydown that will still be faintly there in the morning on a scarf.

Cool weather and evenings suit it best and it reads unisex with a slight lean to women. The Niche Emarati line is this company's reach for something more layered than the Arabian style bottles that built its name. This is the most interesting of the three.