Fareb by Huitième Art, 2010

Fareb stands for frais, aromatique, resineux, epice et boise (fresh, aromatic, resinous, spicy and woody) and for once, they didn't dream up the notes in a marketing ivory tower someplace, as I think that pretty much covers the reality of the fragrance. It features two new phyto-perfumery extracts of bois d'immortelle and ginseng. It comes across as dry spicy to me, and cumin is a big player in this one. First up, I don't tend to think of cumin as sexy or skanky. On me, it bypasses all the erogenous receptors and goes straight to armpits. Usually armpit hell. In this fragrance, it smells like cumin the spice. No armpits (or whatever people are smelling). I got my sample on Surrender To Chance and they called it wonderfully skanky - bummer, this one doesn't smell skanky to me. I guess I just don't 'get' cumin, or get it all wrong. It smells kind of freshly spicy, woody, leathery, with a large fresh cumin presence. I like it. It's intriguing, and, okay, maybe the cumin wafts in and out of sexiness. Possibly. But it may be the woody leather vibe as much as cumin. A thumbs up.

Spicy, but in a distinctly perfumey way, like spices somehow liquefied into a syrup. I guess that's the immortelle's doing - it tends to be syrupy-sweet. It also reminds me a bit of the distinct medicinal sweetness of myrrh. Fareb is a "boozy" scent, like Idole or Aomassai or various stuff from Nez à Nez. I don't get the other reviewers' description of it as dry - all the potentially dry notes like spices and woods are liquefied into that boozy syrup. I think of it as a gourmandy oriental - not gourmandy as in sweets, vanilla or chocolate, but gourmandy as in simmering spices, mulled wine and fruity liquors. If you like immortelle you'll probably like it and if you like orientals it's worth a shot.

Listed notes: immortelle wood, leather, warm sand, ginseng Detected notes: cedar, cumin, cinnamon bark, coriander I'm neutral on this. I usually like woody spicy scents, which this is. However, I find that cumin can overpower other notes unless it is carefully controlled. Essentially this is a dusky cumin scent with some notes of bark and wood. It is dry, which I appreciate. At times, the cumin is tangy and somewhat bitter, suggesting a note like bittersweet chocolate (with no vanilla, thank goodness). The wood seems like cedar pencil shavings. In the very long dry-down, the cumin mellows and gives the other spices and wood more room.

Fareb strikes as an innovative take on Immortelle which emphasizes the plant's aromatic/resinous/spicy aspect instead of the dark burnt sugary one. The fragrance smells modern, natural and incredibly masculine with a consitent dose of immortelle joined in the opening by fizzy ginger and turning leathery/woody during the outstanding drydown. Good projection and lasting power. Overall Fareb is a consistent and bold fragrance but avoids the heavyness of other compositions of the same genre. If you like immortelle but find 1740 or Sables to be overly sweet due to the pipe-tobacco in the former and the amber in the latter, Fareb is the one to go. Very good.