Alexandria Hafez 1984 Review

Source: www.alexandriafragrances.com 

Hello, ladies and gentleman! Welcome back to my blog! Much love to all of the new faces and old faces alike. Thank you for joining me once again. Today, I will be covering a fragrance that received a lot of hype in the fall and winter of last year, Hafez 1984. This fragrance is named after Hany Hafez, the owner of Alexandria Fragrances. He is very proud of this one bearing his namesake and the love that it gets. Let's see if it lives up to the hype!

Disclosure: Hany did send this to me for review, but my opinions are solely my own.


Presentation

The bottle is like every other bottle that Alexandria carries. It's simplistic, but it works well. The label on my bottle is white with gold writing instead of black like in the picture. Sorry, I didn't get around to taking an actual picture of it yet. I did notice that he changed out the atomizers since I received my Mr. Sillage last year. The new atomizers are beastly. They spray out a ton of juice with each pump.


Notes

Cavendish Tobacco, Rum, Leather, Patchouli, Vanilla, and Exotic Spices


The Scent

Opening

Hafez 1984 opens with a lot of spice and a potent blast of rum. The tobacco is somewhat pungent in this stage. You also get a healthy dose of some sweet and creamy vanilla. The patchouli is somewhat dry, but not the earthy and dirty kind.


Dry Down

I like the opening, but the dry down is where the magic happens. It turns into some sweet and spicy vanilla, accentuated by darker notes of patchouli and tobacco with a touch of rum. The spices smell like a cinnamon and cardamom mix to me, but I could be wrong on that. They are certainly oriental spices. The tobacco leans a bit sweet due to the vanilla I think, while still managing to add depth to the composition. I don't get much of the leather that is mentioned, but perhaps it is mingling in with the patchouli and I don't notice it as strongly as the other notes. What this results in is a very sexy and seductive fragrance.

Performance

I don't say this about many fragrances, but this one is nuclear. It can project strongly for around 5 hours. By project, I mean with one spray it can fill a room. I took a shower and went to bed at 3 am one night, then I sprayed this on. At 5 pm I could still smell it, slightly projecting about 4-6 inches off the skin. It was mostly spices and tobacco at that point, but it was still there. That's 15 hours later, folks. That is absolutely ridiculous longevity for a scent of this quality and price. The sillage trail is massive on this one. People will know where you have been 15 minutes later. This stuff is super potent, folks. If you go anosmic to spices easily then the opening might not allow you to smell it until a few hours later when it calms down. Warning: 1-2 sprays unless you want to kill every living thing within a ten block radius. Okay, that was slight sarcasm, but seriously, go easy in the trigger. Remember these atomizers spray a ton of juice.

When to Wear it

This fragrance is for cooler weather. It is way too strong and dark for warmer weather. I know, it's a lovely fragrance and you want to wear it in the summer too, but it's just too strong. Maybe a cool spring night would work as well. It's best used as a night time fragrance, but it's fine for day time as well. You can dress this up casually or with a suit and tie. I would say this fragrance is very luxurious and leans slightly mature, so it is best suited for 25+.

Overall Impression

I am just going to come right out and say it. You folks that know me know that I don't use this word liberally. This is a masterpiece. It certainly lived up to the hype for me. Hany did an amazing job with this one.

Some people were saying this smells like Red Tobacco by Mancera. I have never smelled Red Tobacco, so I cannot compare it to that. Some others said it resembled one of my favorite fragrances, PdM Carlisle. It does have a slight similarity to Carlisle in the dry down. The spicy cardamom used in Carlisle is very similar to the spice in Hafez 1984, so that leads me to believe it is cardamom and some cinnamon that was used. It doesn't have the orange note that Carlisle has, but instead uses vanilla, so I can see some vague similarities, but it is certainly not an impression of Carlisle.

I don't hype many fragrances, but this one is certainly worth checking out if you love sweet tobacco and spicy fragrances. I see why Hany is so proud of this one. He has every right to be. I can't wait to check out the new intense version he just released.

He also sent me a can of the Hafez solid fragrance as well, which smells slightly different. I tried layering the two. Check out my full review of that coming soon.


Conclusion

I hope everyone enjoyed this article. Thanks for stopping by. I hope everyone has a great day! Remember to always say something positive to someone. You could make their day by doing so. We never know what sort of impact we have on people! Keep smelling amazing, folks!



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