Ahmed Al Maghribi Is It Me

The first thirty minutes are all electricity. Saffron leads — dry, leathery, faintly metallic, the same saffron that gives Baccarat Rouge 540 its signature rasp. Jasmine arrives immediately behind it, creamy and slightly indolic, while the orange reads candied rather than juicy: sugared peel, marmalade, a twist of burnt caramel. The overall impression is bright, sharp and almost effervescent, with a cool mineral shimmer that sits high on the skin before the sweetness begins to bloom.

Between the first and second hour the fragrance turns. Cotton candy — that unmistakable spun-sugar, vanilla-adjacent sweetness — rises through the saffron and begins to domesticate it, while ambergris lends a saline, skin-like warmth that keeps the sugar from tipping into pure confection. This is the heart of Is It Me and the reason it is described so often as a sweeter, fresher Baccarat: the metallic rasp is still there, but it is wrapped in something edible and softly glowing. Sillage is at its peak here.

From roughly the fourth hour onward the composition settles into its base of ambroxan, cedar and supporting woody notes. The sugar recedes, the saffron fades to a whisper, and what remains is a warm, dry, slightly balsamic amber-wood with a faint animalic hum and a residual tobacco-like sweetness. It is quieter, more intimate and considerably more masculine-leaning than the opening, though it never loses the amber glow. Expect this stage to carry the fragrance through to hour six, seven or eight.