Lattafa: The UAE House Behind Khamrah, Asad and Yara

Lattafa is a house from the United Arab Emirates with a huge catalogue of sweet, spicy, resinous perfumes, and its bestsellers turn up constantly in conversations about cheap alternatives to luxury bottles. Unlike Dossier or ALT, Lattafa doesn’t name a reference for these four. They get compared with luxury ones by the people wearing them, and the comparisons are looser than the internet suggests. Khamrah is the one to start with.

Which Lattafa Gets Compared With What?

Lattafa	Usually compared with	How close are the notes?
Khamrah	Kilian Angels’ Share	Shares cinnamon, praline and tonka; no cognac
Asad	No common reference	Its own pepper, tobacco and vanilla
Yara	Parfums de Marly Delina	Loose: Yara has no rose
Fakhar	Parfums de Marly Layton	Shares the apple and lavender

Khamrah: Dates and Cinnamon

Khamrah opens with bergamot, cinnamon and nutmeg, then dates, praline and tuberose, over tonka, benzoin, myrrh, Akigalawood, vanilla and amberwood. The name is Arabic for wine, though there’s no booze listed. Dates are the heart of it, sticky and caramel-like, and with cinnamon and praline it smells like a Middle Eastern pastry. Myrrh adds a bitter, resinous edge that keeps it from being pure sugar.

Akigalawood is worth a word. It’s a Givaudan molecule made from patchouli, peppery and woody, and the kind of modern material that makes a dupe house’s perfume smell more expensive than it is. Khamrah is compared with Kilian’s Angels’ Share for the cinnamon, praline and tonka they share, but Angels’ Share is built around cognac and oak, and Khamrah is built around dates. One reviewer loves it as cinnamon apple pie, while another wearer finds the dates and vanilla too much. Both are judging it as itself, which is the right way to judge it.

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Asad: Pepper, Tobacco and Coffee

Asad is black pepper, pineapple and tobacco, then coffee, iris and patchouli, over amber, vanilla, dry woods, benzoin and labdanum. That’s a lot of dark material, and the pepper is what you meet first: one owner finds the opening too peppery and loves the vanilla it settles into. Pineapple is the surprise, a juicy note at the top of a perfume otherwise built from smoke and resin.

It’s the most masculine of Lattafa’s big names and the one most suited to evenings. Asad Zanzibar is a different perfume, with salty coconut water and sea lavender.

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Yara: Tangerine, Heliotrope and Vanilla

Yara, the original pink bottle, lists tangerine, heliotrope and orchid, then tropical fruit and a gourmand accord, over vanilla, sandalwood and musk. Heliotrope is a powdery flower that smells of almond and play-dough, and it makes Yara soft and creamy rather than sharp. It’s compared with Delina online, but Delina is a rose and Yara has no rose at all. Judge it as what it is: a sweet, powdery fruit-and-vanilla perfume, closer to a milkshake than a bouquet.

Yara Moi and Yara Tous are separate perfumes, and Tous swaps in coconut, mango and passionfruit.

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Fakhar: Layton

Fakhar is the closest thing Lattafa has to a straight dupe. It lists apple, bergamot and ginger, then lavender, sage, juniper and geranium, over tonka, cedar, amberwood and vetiver. Apple over lavender is the signature of Parfums de Marly’s Layton, and Fakhar has both. Layton finishes on vanilla and praline; Fakhar finishes drier, on tonka and woods. Our Asad vs Layton comparison explains why Fakhar, not Asad, is the Lattafa to try if you love Layton.

Where Does Lattafa Fit?

Lattafa is the house for big, sweet, spicy perfume at a fraction of the price of the niche bottles it gets compared with. Buy from a seller you trust, since marketplace listings don’t establish that a bottle is genuine. If you want a house that names its originals, Dossier and ALT do. Armaf is the other big Middle Eastern house, and our guide to dupe houses explains how they all differ.