Perfume Battle Round 33: Afnan 9 PM vs Gucci Flora Gorgeous Gardenia EDP - the AED 131 champion beats an award winner
Round 33 of the AlHimyan Perfume Battle is the third cross-gender fight in the tournament's history, and on paper it looks absurd. In one corner, a men's Eau de Parfum from Sharjah that sells for AED 131. In the other, a women's Eau de Parfum from one of the most powerful fashion houses on earth, a bottle that won Fragrance of the Year at the Fragrance Foundation Awards, at AED 658.
The champion is Afnan 9 PM for Men EDP 100ML, holder of a 17-win streak — the longest unbroken reign this tournament has ever recorded. The challenger is Gucci Flora Gorgeous Gardenia for Women EDP 100ML, the 2021 Eau de Parfum composed by Honorine Blanc, fronted in campaign by Miley Cyrus, and named Fragrance of the Year — Women's Prestige by the Fragrance Foundation in 2022.
An award and a fashion house do not score points here. Community data does.
A note on how this round was scored
Our standard formula weights Fragrantica at 35 percent, Parfumo at 25 percent, longevity at 15 percent, sillage at 10 percent and value at 15 percent. Fragrantica has been returning a hard 403 to every request path we have for sixteen consecutive rounds now, and today was no different for either fragrance.
Rather than invent a number, we removed the Fragrantica component entirely and redistributed its weight proportionally across the four criteria we could verify live. The weights used in Round 33 are: Parfumo 38.46 percent, longevity 23.08 percent, sillage 15.38 percent, value 23.08 percent. Every figure below was read live from Parfumo on 11 August 2026. Nothing is estimated.
The tale of the tape
| Criterion | Afnan 9 PM EDP | Gucci Flora Gorgeous Gardenia EDP | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parfumo scent | 7.9 (2,354 ratings) | 7.3 (690 ratings) | Afnan 9 PM |
| Longevity | 8.2 (2,269 ratings) | 6.5 (586 ratings) | Afnan 9 PM |
| Sillage | 8.0 (2,259 ratings) | 6.4 (580 ratings) | Afnan 9 PM |
| Value for money | 9.1 (2,227 ratings) | 6.6 (473 ratings) | Afnan 9 PM |
| Bottle design (not scored) | 6.9 | 7.7 | Gucci Flora |
| Price at AlHimyan | AED 131 / 100ml | AED 658 / 100ml | - |
| Price per ml | AED 1.31 | AED 6.58 | Afnan 9 PM |
| Final weighted score | 8.262 | 6.815 | Afnan 9 PM |
Margin of victory: 1.447. That is the second widest result in the entire tournament, behind only Round 28's 1.916 against AKRO Night.
What Afnan 9 PM actually smells like
Released in 2015, 9 PM opens on apple, Provencal lavender, cinnamon and bergamot. The heart moves through lily of the valley and orange blossom, and the base settles into vanilla, tonka bean, patchouli and amber.
What that reads like on paper and what it does on skin are two different things. The apple and cinnamon opening is bright and almost fizzy for the first twenty minutes, then the vanilla and tonka take over and the whole thing turns into a warm, sweet, spiced amber that sits close to the wearer's clothes for the rest of the day. With 2,269 people rating its longevity at 8.2 and 2,259 rating its sillage at 8.0, this is not a quiet fragrance and it is not a short one.
Its 9.1 value score, from 2,227 separate voters, is the highest value figure we have recorded for any fragrance in 33 rounds.
What Gucci Flora Gorgeous Gardenia EDP actually smells like
Honorine Blanc's 2021 Eau de Parfum opens on pear blossom, red berries and Italian mandarin orange. The heart is the reason the bottle exists: gardenia, frangipani and jasminum grandiflorum absolute. Underneath, brown sugar and patchouli give it a soft sweetness rather than a woody spine.
It is genuinely beautiful, and its 7.3 scent score from 690 raters is a respectable number for a mainstream designer release. This is a creamy, sunlit white floral with a candied edge, and it wears young without being juvenile. Its 7.7 bottle score is the higher of the two here, and anyone who has held the pink glass and the ribbon detail understands why.
The problem is not the smell. It is everything after the first hour.
Why the margin is this wide
Flora Gorgeous Gardenia loses longevity 6.5 to 8.2 and sillage 6.4 to 8.0. Those are not narrow gaps. In practical terms, a large number of wearers report needing to reapply this one in the afternoon, and in UAE heat that tendency gets worse, not better. Our own customers tell us the same thing about soft white florals in July and August.
Then there is value. At AED 658 for 100ml, Flora Gorgeous Gardenia costs AED 6.58 per millilitre. Afnan 9 PM costs AED 1.31. The champion is roughly five times cheaper per millilitre and outlasts it by nearly two full points. The Parfumo community reached the same conclusion independently, scoring value 9.1 against 6.6.
The formula weights value and longevity at 23.08 percent each in this round. Losing both by wide margins is not survivable, and the award on the shelf does not enter the calculation.
Which one should you actually buy
The tournament result and the shopping advice are not the same thing, and we would be doing you a disservice to pretend otherwise.
Buy Afnan 9 PM if you want maximum performance for the money, if you like sweet spiced ambers, if you want something that survives a full working day in Dubai or Abu Dhabi without a top-up, and if you are buying for a man or for anyone who wears warm gourmand scents regardless of the label on the box.
Buy Gucci Flora Gorgeous Gardenia if you specifically want a creamy gardenia white floral, if you are buying a gift where the bottle and the house name are part of the present, or if you prefer a fragrance that stays polite and close rather than announcing you from across a room. Soft projection is a feature for some people, not a fault. Consider it a daytime office and brunch fragrance rather than an all-day one, and carry it with you if you are out past sunset.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a fair comparison, a men's fragrance against a women's fragrance?
It is the third time we have run one. The scoring criteria — community rating, longevity, sillage, value — are not gendered. A fragrance that lasts eight hours lasts eight hours on anybody. What the comparison cannot capture is whether you want to smell like apple and vanilla or like gardenia, and that is a personal question no formula answers.
Why is Fragrantica missing from the scoring again?
Fragrantica blocks automated requests from our infrastructure and has done so for sixteen straight rounds. We would rather publish a transparently reweighted score than quietly invent a rating. Every number in this article came from Parfumo on the day of publication and can be checked.
Does the small number of Gucci ratings matter?
It is worth disclosing. Flora Gorgeous Gardenia EDP has 690 scent ratings against 9 PM's 2,354. Fewer votes means a wider confidence interval. That said, 690 is a healthy sample, not a thin one, and its longevity and sillage figures come from nearly 600 voters each. The gap here is too wide to be explained by sample size.
Did the Fragrance Foundation award count for anything?
Not in the scoring. Awards measure industry opinion at a moment in time. This tournament measures what thousands of wearers report after living with a bottle. Both are legitimate; only one is in our formula.
Round 33 result
Afnan 9 PM for Men EDP takes the round 8.262 to 6.815 and extends its reign to eighteen consecutive wins. It has now beaten Amouage, Parfums de Marly, Bvlgari, Acqua di Parma, BDK, Attar Collection, AKRO, Armaf and now Gucci — and it is still the cheapest bottle it has faced.
Both fragrances are in stock now at AlHimyan. Afnan 9 PM for Men EDP 100ML is AED 131. Gucci Flora Gorgeous Gardenia for Women EDP 100ML is AED 658. Authentic brands, fast UAE delivery, cash on delivery available, and 7-day returns.
Round 34 tomorrow. The champion has now gone eighteen rounds without losing.