Armaf

Founded c. 1980 · United Arab Emirates · Sterling Parfums

Armaf is the house that popularised the whole model: take an expensive designer fragrance, offer a recognisable reading for a tenth of the price, and make no secret of it. Club de Nuit Intense Man is by some distance the perfume most people have bought on the strength of the phrase "smells like".

History

Armaf was created inside Sterling Parfums, in the Emirates, around 1980, and for years was one more regional perfumer. What changed it was Club de Nuit Intense Man, launched in 2015: a fruity amber with pineapple and birch that critics and public alike read immediately as the affordable reading of an aromatic from a British house. The house neither denied it nor litigated, and the perfume became the best seller in its category across half the world. Its catalogue follows that logic, with the Club de Nuit line branching into dozens of variants.

Iconic models

Club de Nuit Intense Man (2015)
The one that defined the category. Pineapple, birch and amber; the best-selling Gulf perfume outside the Gulf.
Club de Nuit Sillage
The line's most ambitious variant, with more smoky weight.
Ventana Rouge
From its own catalogue, outside the Club de Nuit line.

Worth knowing

Club de Nuit Intense Man costs around a tenth of the perfume it is compared with, and in blind tests many people cannot tell which is which. That is exactly the house's argument.