22nd March 2025

If you're seeing my post for the first time, I'm doing a review of decants I got of scents popular on this sub. I was into generic and more marketed brands before I came to this sub, which is about 7 months ago. I got them from Darsh Mittal about 2 months back and they are all 8ml decants. Doing this series with the aim to prevent people from blind buying and ending up wasting their hard earned money! I hope it helps.

I reviewed Theoreme and CDNIM Pure Parfum earlier.

3/6 here we go!

Kaaf by Ahmed Al Maghribi

Firstly, Ahmed Al Maghribi is recently gaining a lot of traction as a perfume house in our community. I notice it picking up a lot on international fragrance subs as well.

Now coming to the sotd 👇

Scent Profile

The profile is fruity, fresh and slightly floral. I don't like to complicate it much. The notes are covered in the pictures on this post. When I wear this fragrance, I feel like a freshly diced watermelon topped with mint. Yes, I get a minty note somehow despite it not being on the ingredient list. That being said, its a powerhouse fragrance with a very attractive longevity. More on that later.

I have read it clones Parfums de Marly Percival / Abercrombie and Fitch Fierce. However, I have not smelled either and cannot vouch for the resemblance.

Life of the scent

I usually do opening and dry-down, but this one is fairly linear for 4-5 hours. By linear, I mean I get 90%
of the scent throughout, if we bar the volatile opening notes. To me, it feels like it could make a very pleasant fabric softener kinda smell. Very cool yet comforting and sniff worthy.

I can clearly tell it has watermelon, lavender, red fruits and pink/white florals, however, the florals aren't as strong, so you need not worry about it leaning feminine.

Performance

Now this one's well known for its longevity. Despite being a freshie, it lasts effing long. Since I come from Bombay, I don't expect scents to perform very well on my skin, as we constantly keep sweating. I get 4 hours on skin and a lifetime on clothes (I'm generous with my sprays) ~12+ hours. This may be due to the fact that AAM uses heavy oil concentration in its perfumes, with Kaaf having ~35%!

This could be your daily driver fragrance. I always recommend spraying a generous amount if you're in a humid climate. Especially two spritz on the underarms of clothing. You'd be surprised as to how underarms preserve a fragrance due to them being closed up. I keep getting whiffs of this scent every couple of hours. But this DNA could get you nose blind, so don't worry if you can't smell Kaaf on your own self.

Occasion:

I use it in the office, as I feel safer to smell inoffensive and mass-pleasing than distinct in meetings. It is a welcoming smell and its fresh. The person opposite to you can definitely pick it up and get a very pleasant vibe from you. I would also use it at the beach, or on a warm sunny day out with friends. It is not particularly a night time fragrance, but Mumbai mai sab chalta hai, chaubis-sau ghante garmi!

Compliment factor

My close ones know I'm into fragrances and so they can pick up that I'm wearing something new each day, lol. Honestly, I don't expect compliments from strangers, and only close ones may even tell you that you smell good. India still doesn't have the culture where we ask/compliment a strangers scent. But rest assured, if you smell good, people know. They just don't outright tell you that you do.

All I'll say is, it gives an uplifting feeling and I'm sure people around you get it.

Full bottle?

Definitely. Someday I'd love to buy it just for its performance and the fact that it fits into the kind of DNAs my nose likes: fruity, white florals, fresh, ozonic and aromatic notes. However, I stick to decants because I'm obsessed with trying new fragrances and am on a hunt for my signature scent.

Blind buy worthy?

Yes. But I always advocate decanting because scents are heavily subjective.

Price

It's 22nd March 2025 and it goes for about INR 1600 for the 100 ml. I got my decant at 199.

Overall

9/10!

As a collateral advantage, Zudio recently released a scent which is sweeter/fruitier to Kaaf but goes in a similar direction. Performs surprisingly well on clothes and it is so cheap, that I can easily reapply/over-apply. Its called Night Out. Blue bottle, costed me 299 for the 50 ml. I don't know why it's called night out lol. I think I could layer it with Kaaf as the base though!

If you're here till the end, thanks for taking the time out and reading! To smelling great forever 🥂