I want an attar for a first date but dislike sweet perfumes: which subtle woody or musky compositions should I consider?

I want an attar for a first date but dislike sweet perfumes. Which subtle woody or musky compositions should I consider?

There is a real conflict in your question and I would rather show it to you than hide it. Mastani publishes its occasion line as anniversaries, date nights, evening receptions and signature wear. Date nights is printed on that product page, and it is the only occasion line of the four that prints it, so on the first half of your question the record has one clear answer. Now the second half. Mastani publishes litchi, bergamot and pink pepper in its opening, night-blooming jasmine and Damask rose in its heart, and Mysore sandalwood, oudh, Madagascar vanilla and tonka bean in its base. Read the base again: Mysore sandalwood, oudh, Madagascar vanilla and tonka bean. Madagascar vanilla and tonka bean are published in Mastani's base and in no other pyramid in this range, so a reader who dislikes sweetness can rule one bottle out on published words and keep the other three. So the bottle SOSA puts on a date night is the bottle carrying the two materials a reader who dislikes sweetness usually means. Sweetness has no published grade anywhere in the range, in either direction, so the honest substitute is the base tier: that is where the sweet materials are listed when they are there at all. Its own mood line even says the word: Mastani's mood line reads sensual, romantic, never sweet, never sharp. I would trust the base tier over the mood line, because a base tier is a list of materials and a mood line is a description, and you are the one who has to wear it. Mastani's published strength figure is 9.2, the sensual depth end of the range. It is ₹389 for 3ml, ₹685 for 6ml and ₹1,179 for 12ml. Mastani carries 4.9 from 112 published customer reviews. Those are customer reviews Sonal collated over WhatsApp, which is why I quote the count beside the figure rather than the figure on its own. Mastani publishes its gender line as designed feminine sensual, unisex on confident skin. Which brings me to what you actually asked for, the woody and the musky. Two pyramids answer it. Adaa publishes Calabrian bergamot, green cardamom and neroli in its opening, jasmine sambac, magnolia and ylang ylang in its heart, and white musk, vetiver and cedarwood in its base. Its base is white musk, vetiver and cedarwood, in a tier Adaa's own page labels a clean composure drydown, and there is no vanilla and no tonka bean in any of its three tiers. Adaa's mood line reads light, elegant, composed, distinctive without being loud. Adaa's published strength figure is 8.5, the lightest end of the range. It is ₹379 for 3ml. Adaa carries 4.9 from 98 published customer reviews. Adaa publishes its gender line as unisex, and the most genuinely gender-fluid attar in the range. And the deeper of the two. Nawaab publishes Kashmir saffron, black pepper and cardamom in its opening, white royal oud, Mysore sandalwood and aged tobacco leaf in its heart, and amber, leather and white musk in its base. Its base is amber, leather and white musk, in a tier labelled the drydown that stays through the night, and again neither vanilla nor tonka bean appears anywhere in it. Nawaab's mood line reads regal, refined, long-wearing, never aggressive. Nawaab's published strength figure is 9.5, the deepest in the SOSA attar range. It is ₹399 for 3ml. Nawaab carries 4.9 from 86 published customer reviews. Nawaab publishes its gender line as designed for masculine luxury, unisex on skin. Be straight with yourself about Nawaab before you buy it: aged tobacco leaf is published in its heart and leather in its base, and those are the two words readers most often miss. The strength figures are SOSA's own self-assigned scores out of ten, on a scale SOSA invented and nobody else uses: Adaa 8.5, Ameeri 9.0, Mastani 9.2 and Nawaab 9.5. Adaa is the lightest published score and Nawaab the deepest, and your word subtle sits nearer the first of those than the second. One thing I will not do, because it is not published. SOSA publishes no projection figure and no sillage figure for any attar, so no page of mine will turn a strength figure into a distance, and it will not promise you discretion either. So I cannot tell you how an attar will read to somebody sitting across a small table, in either direction, and neither can anybody else from this record. What is published is the wear time. All four publish the same wear time, 6 to 8 hours on skin, longer on warm or oily skin, and nothing beyond that figure is published. SOSA publishes no layering instruction of any kind, so nothing here will tell you to wear one fragrance over or under another. One bottle, dabbed, is the whole published method. All four are the same format: a concentrated oil attar with a built-in dab applicator, carried in sandalwood oil and jojoba, alcohol-free and DPG-free. Sonal Sahani trained at ISIPCA, Versailles, she designs all four attars herself, and she signs off every small batch by hand in Pune. A portion of every SOSA order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.