FRAGRANCE | Fahrenheit Absolute EDT Intense by Dior: Fahrenheit's brooding and introspective cousin

Dior apparently has this habit of churning out Fahrenheit flankers, only to yank them off from production. Fahrenheit Absolute, which was released in 2009, is no exception. Both bottle and box are darker, favoring black and red over the more orangey hues of the original. The concentration is also something: eau de toilette intense (wut?). I guess Dior couldn't commit to making it an EDP and coined a new term instead. Whatever the case, I was primed to expect something stronger and darker.

The opening is filled with a nose-stinging, spicy sharpness (could be the alcohol, I'm not sure), along with some plasticky violets underneath. The sharpness eases right away, though, and a light resinous sweetness develops. The latter has an underlying smokiness to it, so it's far from cloying. After a few minutes, a spiced-up oud enters the picture. It has a mild sourness to it and to my pleasant surprise, an animalic touch. The scent is characteristically dark but then the incense comes in and lends the composition a contrasting airiness. It's not as transparent as the incense in Roja's Risqué pour Homme, however, nor is it churchy like Rogue Perfumery's Ishtar, but it's pleasantly light nonetheless. 

Not long after, the spices take on a warm and rounded form while the oud steps back. The animalic accent comes and goes, repeatedly rising from, and falling into, the smoky-sweet resins. The incense, on the other hand, is unperturbed in lifting the scent up. After some ten or fifteen minutes, the composition gives a subtle nod to Fahrenheit's gasoline accord. It's easily missed, however, especially in the air. Meanwhile, the spices alternate between sharp and rounded while the animalic accord spreads across the scent, its relative intensity diluted, until it dies down eventually.

As if to remind me that Absolute is a Fahrenheit flanker, the petrol accord is gradually dialed up although never to the strength of the OG—far from it actually. And while I thought it would at least maintain its newfound level of "strength," it dries up after a while. The scent then settles into a warm spicy and smoky kind of resinous sweetness, with an airiness dutifully held up by the incense despite its mellowed state. The sweetness, which becomes ambery once stripped of all other elements, is the last to go.

This flanker is less aggressive than the OG but you get just as great mileage from this juice. Overall, it's more moderate in tone, brooding, and with an introspective mood. That said, it's a little more wearable and versatile except in high heat. Despite incorporating only a sliver of the Fahrenheit DNA, Fahrenheit Absolute sure is a pretty damn good fragrance.