Lattafa Asad Zanzibar — A Real JPG Le Beau Dupe?
Coconut, salt, and iris put a twist on the classic tropical dupe formula.
Coconut fragrances tend to split opinion faster than almost any other note family, and Lattafa’s Asad Zanzibar has been generating exactly that kind of debate since it landed as part of the wider Asad collection. Marketed by several retailers as a nod to Jean Paul Gaultier’s Le Beau, it’s become one of the more searched Asad variants among shoppers browsing Royal Scents’ Lattafa range — not because it’s an obvious clone, but because the comparison is more nuanced than most dupe callouts admit.
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Having tested Asad Zanzibar against Le Beau directly, it’s worth separating the marketing claim from what actually ends up on skin, because the two fragrances share a family resemblance rather than an identical face.
What Is Lattafa Asad Zanzibar?
Created by perfumer Fanny Bal and released in 2024, Asad Zanzibar opens with a brisk lavender and black pepper top note, moves into a genuinely unusual heart of coconut water, iris and salt, and settles into a base of vanilla and incense. That middle section is the fragrance’s signature: a creamy coconut softened by a mineral, almost sea-spray saltiness and a powdery iris that keeps it from tipping into sugary territory. It’s part of the same Asad family that includes Asad Bourbon and Asad Elixir, each one built around a different designer-adjacent reference point, and it sits in Royal Scents’ typical sub-£25 pricing for a 100ml bottle.
Jean Paul Gaultier Le Beau, Briefly
Le Beau built its reputation on a fresh, distinctly tropical coconut accord — bergamot up top, a heavy coconut heart, and a tonka bean base that reads sweet rather than salty. It’s a beach-holiday fragrance in the classic sense, aimed squarely at warm-weather wear, and a 100ml bottle typically retails in the UK for somewhere in the £55–£75 range depending on the concentration and retailer.
Where the Comparison Holds Up — and Where It Doesn’t
The coconut connection is genuine; both fragrances share that unmistakable creamy-tropical opening that makes people reach for the word “dupe” in the first place. But Asad Zanzibar takes a different route once it settles in. The added salt and iris give it a mineral, slightly savoury edge that Le Beau doesn’t have, and the incense in the base pulls it toward something moodier and less beach-holiday than the designer original. Some wearers find this makes Asad Zanzibar the more interesting, layered fragrance of the two; others expecting a straight coconut-and-tonka clone come away feeling it’s a looser interpretation than the marketing suggests. Royal Scents’ own breakdown of the Asad lineup is a useful next stop for seeing how Zanzibar compares not just to Le Beau but to its stablemates Bourbon and Elixir as well.
Performance and Wear
Asad Zanzibar wears close to the skin for the first hour before the coconut-salt accord opens up and becomes more noticeable, with the incense base only really showing itself in the final few hours. It’s a fragrance that rewards patience rather than delivering everything at once, and like most releases in the range, a rest period of several weeks after purchase smooths out the sharper lavender opening. For anyone weighing it up against other salty or coconut-forward scents already in their collection, it’s a genuinely distinctive addition rather than a redundant one.
Price and Sampling
At Royal Scents’ usual price point, Asad Zanzibar costs a fraction of Le Beau’s UK retail price, but the value proposition here is less about a straight swap and more about getting a genuinely different coconut fragrance for a fraction of designer money. Given how divisive the salt-and-iris twist can be, this is a strong candidate to try via one of Royal Scents’ 2ml samples before committing to a full bottle — coconut fragrances are notoriously polarising, and a small taste goes a long way toward knowing whether the mineral edge works for you.
Who Should Consider It
If you’re specifically hunting for a one-to-one Le Beau clone, Asad Zanzibar isn’t quite it — the salt and incense mean it never fully commits to that sweet, beachy register. But if you like the idea of a coconut fragrance with more depth and a slightly darker finish, or you already enjoy the rest of the Asad line and want to round out your collection, it’s a worthwhile pickup. It also layers surprisingly well with lighter vanilla scents if you want to soften the salty edge further.
Final Thoughts
Asad Zanzibar is a good example of why “dupe” isn’t always the most accurate word — it borrows a note from Le Beau’s playbook and builds something with its own identity around it. For UK fragrance fans curious about the wider Asad range, Royal Scents stocks the full lineup with free tracked delivery, 24-hour dispatch and a 30-day returns window, making it easy to explore Asad Zanzibar and its siblings without much risk if the salty-coconut twist isn’t quite what you expected.
