A new Asad arrived on November 1, and it is not the Asad people know. The black bottle that built Lattafa’s name as the budget alternative to Dior Sauvage Elixir now has a cold weather opposite in an ivory bottle. The first question everyone asks is the same one they asked about the original: what is it a dupe of?
The short answer
Asad Polar is not a dupe of any single designer fragrance.
Lattafa built it as its own fresh take on the Asad line, a fougere with icy fruit and green woods, made by IFF perfumer Paul Guerlain. If you came looking for a one to one copy of a famous bottle, this is not that. What it is, is the Asad name pointed in a completely different direction: cold, aromatic, and made for daytime.
That matters because the Asad name carries an expectation. The original Asad earned its following by giving people the dark, spicy, amber mood of Sauvage Elixir for about 25 dollars. Polar does not repeat that trick. It takes the line somewhere new instead.
What it smells like
Asad Polar is the sixth bottle in the Asad collection, and the first one that goes fresh. The notes are short and clear.
Top notes are blackcurrant, mandarin, artemisia, violet leaves and nutmeg. The heart is white lavender, cashmeran and frozen pineapple. The base is fir balsam, dry amber and cedarwood.
On skin it opens cold and green. The blackcurrant and artemisia give a sharp, almost icy chill, and the mandarin keeps the opening bright rather than bitter. The heart brings the pineapple, but frozen rather than juicy, with white lavender keeping it clean and cashmeran smoothing the edges. Then the woods arrive. Fir balsam and cedarwood give the drydown a snowy evergreen character, and the dry amber warms it just enough to stop it feeling thin.
The perfumer’s idea was skiing: mountain air, frozen light, adrenaline and calm at the same time. You can smell that idea in the bottle. It is the rare Lattafa that smells like cold air rather than warm spice.
How it differs from the original Asad
The two bottles share a name, a pineapple note, and not much else. The original Asad from 2022 is a dark, spicy amber built on black pepper, tobacco, coffee, patchouli and vanilla, the one people compare to Dior Sauvage Elixir. Polar inverts almost all of it: fresh instead of warm, green instead of sweet, daytime instead of night.
Put simply, if the original Asad is a winter evening bottle, Polar is the morning after a snowfall. Anyone who found the original too dark, too sweet or too loud for the office will find Polar a much easier wear. Anyone who wants the Sauvage Elixir mood should still buy the original Asad. The two bottles are not substitutes for each other.
Is it a dupe of anything?
No, and it is worth saying that plainly. Early wearers compare its cold aromatic character to fresh designer fougeres in general, but the community has not settled on one original, and Lattafa presents Polar as an original composition, not a copy. Anyone telling you it copies one specific designer bottle is guessing. The honest description is a fresh fougere from a house famous for dupes, wearing a famous name, and standing on its own scent.
Who it suits, and when
Polar is listed by Lattafa as a men’s fragrance, and it reads that way: clean, aromatic, and confident without shouting. It suits daytime best, work included, and it will feel most at home in spring and autumn, with enough freshness to carry into warm days. The fir and cedar base keeps it grounded, so it never turns into a light citrus that vanishes by lunch. If you want one Asad for the office and one for the night, Polar is the office one.
Longevity and sillage
Too early to call, and any site giving you exact hours right now is guessing. The bottle reached the UAE on November 1 and the rest of the world gets it on November 15. Early Fragrantica votes put it around 4.3 out of 5 from about two dozen early wearers, which is a promising start, not a verdict. Lattafa’s eau de parfums at this price usually last a workday. Whether Polar does will be clear once more people have worn it for a month, and we will update this post when the picture is clearer.
The price
On Lattafa’s own UAE store the 100 ml bottle is listed at 155 AED, about 42 dollars, and in stock. Outside the UAE, expect it at the usual Lattafa discounters in the weeks after the November 15 global rollout, most likely a little below the official price, as usually happens with this house. For a 100 ml eau de parfum from a perfumer of Guerlain’s standing, that is still firmly budget territory.
Verdict
If you like the Asad name but found the original too dark, too sweet or too loud for daytime, Polar is the bottle Lattafa made for you. If you want a one to one Sauvage Elixir copy, buy the original Asad instead and save the difference. Polar is not a dupe. It is a fresh, icy fougere with a famous name on it, priced like a Lattafa, and arriving just as the weather turns cold enough for its fir and cedar base to make sense. For a house built on copies, that is a welcome change of direction.
