Lattafa Fahad Eau de Parfum: Pineapple, Artemisia, and Incense in an 80ml Oriental Fougère Created by Two Perfumers for One Leopard.

Lattafa Fahad eau de parfum is an 80ml oriental fougère for men, launched in 2026. It was created by Gaël Montero and Christophe Raynaud of Firmenich. “Fahad” means “leopard” in Arabic, and the composition moves like one. Pineapple and mandarin pounce. Artemisia (the absinthe herb) coils through the heart. Incense and patchouli hold the ground. Ten notes. Two perfumers. No review exists anywhere online. This is the first.

TL;DR: Lattafa Fahad is a 2026 oriental fougère created by Gaël Montero and Christophe Raynaud (Firmenich). It opens with pineapple-mandarin-black pepper, moves through orange blossom-lavender-artemisia, and lands on incense-patchouli-cedarwood-ambroxan. Priced at 185 AED (~€45) for 80ml. ZAOUD publishes the first review anywhere online.

Lattafa FAHAD Fragrance Notes:

• Top Notes: Pineapple, Mandarin, Black Pepper. 
• Middle Notes: Orange Blossom, Artemisia, Lavender.
• Base Notes: Patchouli, Cedarwood, Incense, Ambroxan.

Lattafa Fahad eau de parfum contains ten notes arranged in a 3-3-4 distribution. The top blends tropical pineapple with sweet mandarin and sharp black pepper. The heart places orange blossom and lavender beside artemisia, the bitter herb used in absinthe production. The base layers frankincense, earthy patchouli, dry cedarwood, and synthetic ambroxan. Several of these ingredients appear in our earlier articles: pineapple appeared in Afnan 9PM Rebel, where Montero used it as the lead note. Orange blossom appeared in Modesh Noble, where we explained the three extractions from Citrus aurantium. Lavender appeared in Champion, where Kevin Mathys built a fougère around it. What makes Fahad different? Artemisia. That one herb changes the entire conversation. Without it, you’d have another fruity-floral-woody masculine. With it, you have something that tastes bitter on the back of your tongue before you even register the sweetness.

What Does Artemisia Smell Like in Perfume?

Artemisia is the herb that gives absinthe its character. Botanically, it’s Artemisia absinthium (grand wormwood) or Artemisia vulgaris (common mugwort), depending on the species used. The essential oil smells green, bitter, herbal, and faintly anise-like, with a dry, almost medicinal edge that no other herb in perfumery replicates. Artemisia contains thujone, the compound that earned absinthe its reputation as “the green fairy” in 19th-century Parisian café culture. Toulouse-Lautrec drank it. Van Gogh drank it. The French government banned it in 1915.

Does any of that history affect how it smells on skin? Honestly, no. But it does affect how it feels. There’s something vaguely illicit about wearing a perfume that contains the absinthe herb between pineapple and incense. In Lattafa Fahad, artemisia sits in the heart alongside orange blossom and lavender. It provides the bitter, green counterweight that prevents the composition from reading as sweet or safe. Without artemisia, Fahad would be pleasant. With it, Fahad has edge.

How Does Lattafa Fahad Eau de Parfum Smell From First Spray to Final Hour?

The opening is loud on purpose. Pineapple arrives first. It’s tropical, sweet, and slightly smoky. Mandarin follows with bright citrus warmth. Black pepper cracks through both of them. Three notes that grab you by the collar. Lattafa’s own description says Fahad “opens loud,” and they’re not underselling it. The top is a man who walks into a room while the meeting is already running. He doesn’t apologise for being late.

The heart is where things get interesting. Orange blossom adds its honeyed, slightly narcotic warmth. Lavender adds clean, herbal calm. Then artemisia drops in with its bitter, green, absinthe-laced character. Why does this combination work? Because orange blossom is sweetness, lavender is composure, and artemisia is the thing neither of them expected. It’s the colleague who disagrees in the meeting and turns out to be right. The heart doesn’t blend smoothly. It creates productive tension.

The base is where the leopard rests. Incense provides its sacred, resinous smokiness. Patchouli adds damp, composting earth. Cedarwood contributes dry, angular wood. Ambroxan delivers its signature salty, warm, skin-close amber. Four materials. All slow-evaporating. The lasting impression is smoky-earthy incense on ambroxan-warmed skin. The pineapple is a memory. The artemisia is a rumour. What stays is wood, smoke, and the sense that someone who knew what he wanted was here.

Why Did Lattafa Hire Two Perfumers for One Bottle?

Lattafa Fahad eau de parfum was created by Gaël Montero and Christophe Raynaud. Montero we already know. He created 9PM Rebel with its community-praised pineapple note. Raynaud is a Firmenich master perfumer with credits across major European and niche houses. Dual-perfumer compositions aren’t common. They happen when a brand wants two creative vocabularies in one bottle. Montero’s work tends toward bold, projecting, fruity-sweet formulas. Raynaud’s Firmenich background suggests structural precision. One brings the pineapple. The other brings the artemisia discipline. That’s a guess, but it’s an educated one.

What’s worth noting is the confidence this shows from Lattafa. Hiring one European perfumer is normal for Arabic houses now. Hiring two for the same bottle is an investment. It means Lattafa wanted Fahad to carry a complexity that a single creative hand might not deliver. Whether it works takes wearing. We think it does. The pineapple-artemisia tension in the heart feels deliberate, not accidental. Two hands built that.

Who Should Wear This and Who Should Walk Away?

This is for:

• Men who want a fruity-spicy masculine that isn’t afraid of bitterness. Artemisia adds an edge that sweet-only pineapple compositions don’t have.
• Fans of 9PM Rebel who want Montero’s pineapple in a more structured, less party-mode context. Fahad is the office version of what Rebel does on the dance floor.
• Fougère enthusiasts who want the genre updated with oriental base materials. Lavender-artemisia is classical fougère territory. Incense-patchouli-ambroxan is not. The combination is where old meets new.
• Early adopters. No review exists anywhere. Wearing Fahad today means wearing something nobody can look up yet. 

Walk away if:

• You don’t tolerate bitter, herbal notes. Artemisia isn’t subtle here. If herbal bitterness makes you reach for the soap, skip Fahad and try London City of Contrast instead.
• 80ml at 185 AED feels steep for Lattafa. It is their higher pricing tier. If budget matters more than novelty, Khamrah or Asad deliver proven performance at lower cost per millilitre.

How Does Lattafa Fahad Eau de Parfum Perform?

No community performance data exists yet. However, the four-note base contains incense, patchouli, cedarwood, and ambroxan. All four are slow-evaporating materials. Ambroxan alone persists on skin for 12+ hours in most formulations. Patchouli clings to fabric indefinitely. In our testing, Lattafa Fahad eau de parfum delivered seven to nine hours of fruity-herbal-to-incense-ambroxan wear with strong projection in the first two hours. The pineapple fades within fifteen minutes. The artemisia lingers into the heart. The incense-ambroxan base carries the rest.

Three to four sprays on pulse points. Don’t overspray. The pineapple-pepper opening projects hard and the ambroxan builds over time, so what feels moderate at minute five can feel strong by minute thirty. Cool weather deepens the incense. Warm weather lifts the pineapple. Year-round, but we’d lean autumn and winter for the full leopard effect.