Akkad by Lubin, 2012

Akkad opens immediately with the primary relatively sweet amber base note front and center, joined by a very subtle orange undertone. The amber remains through the heart, growing in strength and adding mild spices with the initial orange slowly giving way to a very strong frankincense note that now co-stars with the spiced amber through the dry-down, with vanilla rising from the base sweetening the scent to just shy of "too sweet". Projection is average and longevity is excellent. Akkad is a very nice amber release from Lubin but I confess I expected a bit more. The frankincense and spiced amber combo is quite classic, and the orange undertone adds nice support early-on but I get the feeling that I have smelled this accord many times before. Adding to the mild disappointment is the amber used in Akkad is just a hair sweeter than I usually like, but it never goes completely off the deep-end, staying wearable throughout. It should be noted that the bottle used here along with its two sister releases is the same gorgeous design Idole de Lubin edp used and just like with that one it is an understatement to say the bottles are absolutely striking. I do wish the scent inside were just a tad more innovative to live up to its fine housing, but Akkad is indeed a very nice amber fragrance despite this, earning a good to very good rating of 3 to 3.5 stars out of 5.