๐๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฅ๐ช ๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฏรก๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ป โ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐ต๐ข๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐น ๐๐ช๐ฉ๐ช๐ญ๐ฐ ๐๐ญ๐ถ๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ด๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐ข๐ช๐ด๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐๐ณ๐ช๐ท๐ฆ๐ญ๐ญ๐ช ๐๐ถ๐ฅ ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ค๐ถ๐ซ๐ข โ ๐ฃ๐ณ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ๐ด ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฆ๐ต ๐ข๐ฒ๐ถ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ค ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ด ๐ณ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ๐ญ๐บ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐จ๐ฆ๐ฅ: ๐ข ๐ด๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ง๐ณ๐ข๐จ๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ข๐ณ๐ฎ๐ต๐ฉ ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ญ. ๐๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ถ๐ญ๐ต ๐ช๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ด๐ต ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ด๐ช๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ ๐ช๐ฏ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ฎ๐ณ๐ข๐ฉ ๐ญ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฃ๐ญ๐บ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ด๐ต ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ต๐ข๐ฏ๐ต ๐ค๐ถ๐ณ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ข๐ต๐ต๐ข๐ง๐ข.โฃ
A sniff, a smile across my face, and one word out loud to nobody in particular.โฃ
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๐๐ฐ๐ข๐ฉ.โฃ
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I had just smelled Lattafa Khamrah Waha for the first time at the counter at Maximum Fragrances in Mississauga. My bar was low. Lattafas can be fun but rarely move me, good for entry-level frag heads, not niche snobs like me.โฃ
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What I found instead was a fragrance that had clearly been thought about, composed by a master rather than tacked together, designed to do something specific rather than occupy a category, and do it in a way that is on the bleeding edge of aquatic scents today.โฃ
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Was it a fluke? I went to my car and wore it properly. Within 20 minutes I knew it: Waha is going to be extremely popular, and for very good reason.โฃ
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A disclosure: Lattafa has given me nothing to write this review. No PR kit, no sample, no money. I paid $75 CAD from my own pocket because I know how important a Khamrah release is to many in fragcomm. Everything that follows is my own conclusion after multiple days of wear.โฃ
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I bring good news.โฃ
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A fragrance becomes genuinely popular when it solves a problem most people did not know they had. Superstar perfumer Jordi Fernรกndez orchestrated Waha to solve an olfactive problem that the summer fragrance genre has largely been unaware it had for decades.โฃ
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A day later Waha was already sold out.โฃ
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ฆ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฌ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ค๐โฃ
Waha, meaning oasis in Arabic, is a Khamrah flanker, so naturally it has elements that are the same across each of the current four on the market, but I’d argue that it is higher quality and has clear goals utterly unlike its three predecessors.โฃ
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The opening is a sparkling blend of citrus, yuzu, cucumber and something saltier underneath, immediately more interesting than the note list suggests. Fernรกndez used a genuine new natural cucumber material developed at Givaudan and deployed it with exceptional restraint. I had been anticipating it, cucumber being my favourite vegetable, but the cucumber was fairly subtle, nothing like the vegetable blast I had anticipated. The fragrance did not need it to be louder. Fernรกndez was correct in its execution.โฃ
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His restraint is the governing principle of the entire composition. Waha does not smell cheap or bolted together. It has a smooth connectedness between its elements, each one doing its specific work without competing against the others as thought they were one body, the way the best ensemble performances feel effortless precisely because every participant knows when not to play.โฃ
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The marine element works not by smelling of water, which obviously has no smell of its own, but by smelling of the things near water that do, primarily salty air, a mineral dryness that brings to mind sea spray. It gestures toward the ocean rather than announcing it, and that gesture is enough.โฃ
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Beneath all of this is something warm that I did not identify immediately. Two days after my first wearing it arrived clearly in my consciousness. Of course, it was vanilla, the dominant note in the original Khamrah and its first flanker Qahwa, one that anyone familiar with the line knows.โฃ
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Waha as a fragrance has an interesting multifaceted arc not unlike a niche fragrance. What I mean by that is it does not fully reveal itself in an hour, it must be worn for days or ideally longer to understand what it’s doing. This is another way in which Waha is different from most other budget fragrances. There is no sugar rush or commotion present, it’s doing something considerably more ambitious than most releases at this price attempt.โฃ
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I expect the fragrance to develop as it is exposed to oxygen from spraying in the next few weeks as is the case with most Lattafas. I may write a short brief on the development if the changes are noteworthy.โฃ
๐๐ก๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐ข๐ญ๐ฌ ๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ฆ๐ซ๐๐ก ๐๐๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐โฃ
The original Khamrah and the first flanker, Qahwa (Arabic for coffee), are objectively best worn in autumn and winter. The third in the line, Dukhan, I felt was positioned for spring or autumn.โฃ
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I will be candid: Dukhan disappointed me. Despite a name that means smoke in Arabic it delivered little smoke and mostly spices to my nose. I have not heard much community discussion of it since released in 2025, which may not be a coincidence. It has roughly halved in price a year after appearing in the market.โฃ
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The fourth Khamrah, Waha, is a Khamrah the way a cousin is family: recognisably related, formed in a different environment, representing a different set of possibilities. In Waha it is clear Lattafa is crucially filling a seasonal gap the line had left open, summer. And it is most definitely not a clone of anything I can think of.โฃ
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Lattafa knows the trifecta for making a blockbuster fragrance: it must be mass-pleasing, get compliments and perform strongly. Khamrah Waha hits every one of those elements. This is a fragrance that almost everyone will surely like.โฃ
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Lattafa now has a credible Khamrah for every major fragrance season.โฃ
๐๐ก๐ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐๐ซ ๐๐ซ๐๐ ๐ซ๐๐ง๐๐๐ฌโฃ
Most summer fragrances are monotonal, not to mention uninspiring. They choose to feel cool and commit to it entirely, layering marine notes, aquatic accords and citruses that evaporate upon contact. It has been 40 years since the genre took off and each time another year rolls past it feels altogether boring.โฃ
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The budget aquatic space has been particularly guilty. Nautica Voyage, Rasasi Hawas, a hundred variations on the same brief. Choose your citrus, add your aquatic accord, project moderately, fade in a few hours and that’s a wrap. In Waha, coolness and its foil bring a modern reconfiguration of the genre hitherto rarely attempted.โฃ
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What Fernรกndez understood is that summer has warmth in it. Sand holds heat and so does skin. A beach at noon is not a refrigerated room. There is a give and take that anyone who has sat on sand and played in waves knows. Waha registers warm and cool accords simultaneously, and the tension between them that should theoretically cancel each other out is the entire innovation. It is compositionally unusual and in the budget fragrance space essentially unprecedented. The other fragrance doing the same is Guerlain’s limited edition L’Homme Ideal Cologne Forte, but that is a much more expensive proposition from a very different sort of fragrance house.โฃ
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The fact that a Lattafa fragrance is even in the same discussion as one of the greatest French houses of all time is absolutely bonkers.โฃ
๐๐ก๐ ๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐จ๐ ๐๐จ๐ฉ๐ฒ๐ข๐ง๐ (๐จ๐ก ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ข๐ซ๐จ๐ง๐ฒ)
โฃAquatic fragrances are among my favourites in all of perfumery. I return to them the way I return to beloved movie scenes I have watched so many times I no longer need to own them. I also worry for them more than any other genre. Cleaning product companies have been mining the aquatic register without mercy for decades, stripping away everything that made the originals interesting and leaving only the most legible surface. A great aquatic sets the cultural agenda for a moment and then watches that moment be systematically cheapened by proximity to dishwashing liquid.โฃ
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The irony of Khamrah Waha arriving from Lattafa is not lost on me. This is a house that built its fortune interpreting other companies’ hits. The ethical debate around that business model will likely not be resolved for a long time, if ever. But here is the unexpected turn. Waha is not interpreting anyone. It is making something. And what it is making is good enough that I suspect other houses will soon be interpreting it in turn.โฃ
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A Lattafa fragrance becoming the industryโs reference point is not a sentence I expected to write. Jordi Fernรกndez has seen to it regardless.โฃ
๐ ๐ง๐จ๐ฌ๐ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ก ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ๐ข๐ง๐ โฃ
The first thing people usually look into after reading a book or article title is the author’s name. They discuss the author’s ideas and experience as key to understanding their writing. For some reason most people into fragrances do not do the same. Understanding the creative director and perfumer’s ambition and life story often turns up unexpected insights.โฃ
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The nose behind Lattafa Khamrah Waha is Jordi Fernรกndez, a senior perfumer at Givaudan and one of the most consequential noses working across price points today. Born and raised in Catalonia and self-taught rather than ISIPCA-trained, he divides his time between Barcelona and Dubai. His creative biography sits precisely at the intersection of those two worlds: Mediterranean sea spray on one side, the dense warmth of an Arabian souk on the other.โฃ
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Fernรกndez’s niche credits include Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman and Maison Crivelli Oud Maracuja, fragrances that retail at many multiples of what Lattafa charges. In Waha I sensed Fernรกndez was on a mission to prove craft does not require lofty price tags to be worthy, and I believe he succeeded.โฃ
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Lattafa built its audience on affordable interpretations of designer fragrances, but something may be shifting. The fragrance community was buzzing over Lattafa’s 2024 release Teriaq Intense, commissioned from superstar perfumer Quentin Bisch. Khamrah Waha confirms the direction. Lattafa is commissioning original work from master noses and marketing the author as part of the value proposition.โฃ
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I’m certain that most Lattafa buyers will not recognise Fernรกndez’s name, but the fragrance he has made may change that.โฃ
๐๐ก๐ ๐ก๐จ๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐๐ข๐๐ญโฃ
I intended to sell the bottle when the review was finished. After wearing it for a few days I am having second thoughts. That is the most honest verdict available to me, that not only is it elegant and smart but it does something for me that makes it worth holding on to.โฃ
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At 75 CAD Waha is currently priced above its natural market position, but Lattafa’s pricing on new releases tends to correct sharply within a year. By next summer I expect this to be available for considerably less, maybe as little as 50%, at which point it becomes a straightforward slam dunk for anyone who wants a serious summer fragrance without a serious price tag. At current retail you are paying for early access to something that will reward patience and extended wearing in ways the first spray does not fully reveal.โฃ
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The best fragrance I have smelled this year cost 75 CAD and came from a house I have spent years dismissing as entry-level. I am not embarrassed by that sentence. I am instructed by it. Waha did not ask for my respect. It simply arrived and earned it. That is the only kind of respect worth having and the only kind worth giving.โฃ
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๐๐๐ญ๐ญ๐๐๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ฆ๐ซ๐๐ก ๐๐๐ก๐ (๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ซ๐๐ฎ๐ฆ๐๐ซ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐๐ข ๐
๐๐ซ๐งรก๐ง๐๐๐ณ): Top notes of bergamot, ginger, juniper, yuzu; middle notes of cucumber juice, sea salt, iris, sage; base notes of vanilla, akigalawood, ambrofix, musk, tonka bean. Performance: 7-8 hours on skin with strong initial projection that settles into a close and intimate skin scent. Apply two to three sprays. On clothes lasts considerably longer. Currently retailing around $75 CAD, expected to fall.โฃ
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๐๐ญ๐ช ๐๐ฐ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ข๐ณ๐ช ๐ช๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐ฅ๐ช๐ต๐ฐ๐ณ-๐ช๐ฏ-๐๐ฉ๐ช๐ฆ๐ง ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ญ๐ช ๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ง๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ธ๐ข๐ญ๐ข.โฃ
