Amber Oud Ruby Edition Eau de Parfum 60ml

For a fragrance that announces itself as a special edition, Al Haramain Amber Oud Ruby Edition Eau de Parfum 60ml is built from a surprisingly short list: six materials, and no attempt to pad them out. It dates from 2022.

That shortness is the thing to understand before buying. The opening pairs bitter almond with saffron, which is a sharp, dry, faintly medicinal combination rather than a warm one. Bitter almond carries a cool nutty edge with a bitter skin to it, saffron adds a metallic thread and a hay like dryness, and for the first stretch the fragrance is quite austere. Jasmine and cedarwood make up the middle, and they do the job of smoothing the opening: the jasmine creamy and rounded, the cedarwood dry and pale, arriving earlier than it usually would. Ambergris and musk then take the fragrance to the end, the ambergris giving a mineral warmth that sits on skin and refuses to lift, the musk softening everything around it.

With so few parts there is no long evolution to follow. What you get after fifteen minutes is broadly what you get three hours later, which some people prefer and others find plain, and it is worth knowing in advance rather than after.

The 60ml spray is the practical size, and at eau de parfum strength it holds for seven or eight hours without needing a heavy hand. Evenings, cold weather and anyone who wants something dry rather than sweet.

Al Haramain dates from 1970, the year Kazi Abdul Haque first set up in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, and it was his son Mohammed Mahtabur Rahman who developed the perfumery side. The company works out of Ajman in the Emirates and both makes and sells its own fragrances across the Gulf.