Onyx Concentrate

Clean Pungent Farmed White Oud + Plum + White Vanillin Absolute + Patchouli + Modern Rose Spraying this for the first time was one of those experiences that i was just taken back, and said, 'woah!'. You get a blast of this gorgeous clean white liquid Oud that i've never in my life smelt this kind before! Turns out it's 'farmed Oud', grown by rich investors with tree plantations that get manually infected by a virus to produce that auto-immune reaction in trees to produce Oud. But because it's harvested in only a few years instead of hundred thousands of years traditionally found in real ancient Oud, it smells completely different - and in a very good way!! I might be wrong about this, maybe it's synthetically produced in a factory, but from what I've learnt this is the story. It's so gorgeous & addicting! It's pungent in the air too! People WILL smell you, people WILL be taken back and stopped in their tracks trying to figure out what exactly they are smelling and they will never be able to figure out because it's something 99% of people in the world have yet to smell. They WILL find you incredibly sexy, next-gen modern leaning, fashion forward in perfumery! This to me smells like young money, and a sexy af badboy who's gorgeous, gets all the women and knows it when he walks into the room! This is a dense mix of ingredients, in the best way possible, you are definitely getting your ingredients here and not aqua/alcohol. This reminds me of the scent genre of Tom Ford's 'Nior de Noir' but superior in quality & scent in every way! Patchouli is one of Aaron's favorite notes to wear & use in perfumery. It starts off as a sweet herbal leaf, and drys down to a note of potted soil (aka 'Dirty Patchouli'), giving the nose a very earthy base to a fragrance. The Patchouli is done so beautifully here in this dna. Longevity is 4+ hours, and is one of those fragrances that will change slightly during the dryoff as the Patchouli note goes from sweet to dirty earthy soil, giving off this gorgeous bouquet. The Turkish Rose Oil is modern style and gorgeous, and mixed with the sweetness of the Plum and Vanillin Absolute, it comes out deliciously jammy without being cloying. What is equally addicting is the vanilla he is using, i believe it's 'White Vanillin Absolute', it's not your traditional cooking vanilla, nor is it the type that is found in candles, it's modern leaning, water-clean delicious smelling. All his modern ingredients that he is using makes for a very modern next-gen dna, which is was one of my personal goals to find when starting my journey. This is also one of those fragrances that you only spray on skin to not only get the quality ingredients to unfold into the air, but also because of the high pricepoint. Packaging, one of my favorites in my collection! The picture currently shown on Fragrantica is NOT what you get. Today you get this kick-ass little long bottle that you can palm in your hand, or fits nicely in a jacket pocket or purse. The texture is of this thin rubber matte finish that feels amazing to the touch! The lid is also amazing, magnetic with this gorgeous engraving of Aaron's brand of Unicorn head - this little touch just screams of proud quality from his work, and makes you feel good about owning it. It's one of my favorite bottles styles in my collection. This may or may not have been inspired by TF's Nior de Noir, but that has now been dethroned by ATH's 'Onyx', regardless who was 1st to creating the scent genre, this is a phenomenal fragrance! 5/5 Woofs!

I finally got my nose on it as Aaron being so generous to give out a free 10ml of my choice plus a free 30ml of the Fake when I purchased a 50ml of it. You know what....I LOVE it so much. I don’t know why there is so much hate about it. I think some people just criticize his fragrances based on his personality, not the juices themselves. For me, I care the most about the juices he creates, though I also respect what he does and his genuine reviews of other fragrances even he sometimes criticized some of my favorite fragrances. I’m totally ok with it as I think scents are very personal and subjective and I respect them. Back to the Onyx. I now know what real natural and concentrated oud smells like (I still love my Oud for Greatness even though now I know it contains very little to none of the real oud because it just smells super good). I found that I do love the animalic of the natural oud and I really appreciate the quality of it. This perfume has the jammy rose that playing so well together with the chocolaty patchouli and plum. Also the natural oud lasts all the way from the middle till the end of the whole duration. It’s divine quality (I think Alexandria II in my collection really contains good amount of natural oud too after comparing with Aaron’s creations). He is just so good at playing with the oud in different ways. Once I try his fragrances, I learn so much from them and know what are actually good. His fragrances are just so different and high quality. You just need to find something that matches your tastes because they’re really DIFFERENT comparing to other more well known niche houses. Performance wise, it is superb. My skin tends to eat perfumes as I always get less longevity than other people but interestingly this one last super long on my skin,12+ hours or days on clothes. Projection on me is crazy too. On his website he suggested to use 8-12 sprays so I started with 8. OMG! My husband said he could even smell me from 3 feet away after 5 hours of application and his nose usually doesn’t detect fragrances very well. I think I will to use less sprays from now. P.S. I also got 10ml of the Ambré Extrême, Oud, Oxytocin and a 30ml of Fake. Honestly I love all of them but not as much as Onyx and Ambré Extrême, which is my another favorite from him. I am sure I will get a 50ml of the Ambré Extrême when I am almost done with the 10ml. I’m not gonna do full reviews on any of these as I don’t want to make this review to be too long but I know I will try more of his stuffs very soon.

When I first got Onyx, I sprayed it on my hand and couldn't smell anything. Worried, I then sprayed it on paper which I couldn't smell either. After fifteen minutes, I could barely smell a faint rose scent on the paper. I was so worried that I almost emailed the US retailer (max aroma) to ask if it was possible there was a bad batch and if I could return this bottle for a good one. A few days later I tried again and smelled a beautiful rose scent over what seems to be a very smooth luxurious oud/wood. The oud is not barnyard or skanky at all, and my nose is sensitive to fecal notes in fragrances. I don't know what was wrong with my olfactory receptors that first day, but this fragrance has really turned out to be a really nice surprise. It is quite beautiful, and I like it as much as rose ouds I have from Xerjoff, Etat Libre D'Orange, Tiziana Terenzi, and other houses I'm forgetting off the top of my head. I'm wearing this right now and put on four sprays: one on each forearm, and one on each side of my neck. It feels like I'm in a huge scent cloud that is filling the room, so I might've overdone it. This juice spreads out and lasts a long time; it's detectable on my skin over 12 hours later at which point I don't even keep track of the longevity... I only splurged for the 10 ml bottle since $220 for the 50 ml was a larger gamble I wasn't ready to take at the time. However at this point, I'm really tempted to splash out for the larger bottle. The only thing holding me back is that I'm waiting on samples of other fragrances that I want to test before putting my money down on the barrel head. It starts to add up when so many fragrances that I'm interested in are $100, $200, $300, or even more for 50 ml! Why didn't I just stick to cheapies LOL Update (16 October 2021): The US retailer was down to one bottle left of the 50 ml size, so I bought it. To me it's well worth the $220 price tag. I only wish it came in a 100 ml bottle for a little better price per ml as this is definitely a love for me. Update (24 June 2022): Wearing this today, and it's one of my all time favorites! I'm on the verge of getting another 50 ml backup bottle because I'm irrationally afraid that Aaron might discontinue or reformulate this. His Onyx Extreme flanker is well worth checking out too if you love Onyx.

This is a scent I was initially not fond of, initially, I thought it was the plumb not playing well with the rose. But it's something else that he uses in several other scents notably Slut/Dirty Slut. The more I wore it, the more I grew to love it. Projection, you'll get good performance out to about 2-3 feet. When you warm up, moving around etc it'll get more "intense" and will project out a little further. Duration, I put this on at 6am several times and it was with me until 10pm. Though the "impressive" performance drops off around 4pm. Regardless, I'd give it an A+ in that regard. It takes about 3 hours to get to the dry down where it becomes a beautiful mix of Rose, Chocolate, and Oud. The longer you wear it, the more the Vanilla comes out. Sillage, this thing just sticks in the air. ATH says he likes to "smash" the scents on him with 10 sprays. I used 2 sprays on the first try and settled on 4 being the "office appropriate" amount. 10 sprays will certainly leave an impression that the future generation will probably be able to smell. I would say, the only thing this scent truly has going against it is the cost. At $205/50ml, this exists in a price bracket that some very high end, well-respected brands exist in. If decants/travellers of this was easier to come by in the states, it may change some people's opinions on it. I'm not sure if it actually lives up to ATH's extravagant description of the performance. But this delivers on the performance I would expect of any scent in that price bracket that far too many scents fail to deliver on. Ultimately, I bought another bottle of this because I would have done it anyways when I ran out of it.

i really really like this but I do love Tom Ford Noir pour femme, and AERIN Ambrette Noir and this to me is very similar in the dark, raunchy rose wheelhouse... love love love.. I was lucky enough that I finally saw a few available on MAXAROMA and got one this time... usually i get a notice and they are already sold out minutes before I get there. sigh.... I may get a full bottle eventually, but my TF and AERIN bottles are quite full... however I will wear one on one arm and ATH on the other and see how the do.. who knows, maybe I'll sell the partials and replace with ATH depending on how they compare.. second thought... maybe not the AERIN bottle - it's soooo pretty.. :) I have AERIN AND ATH on my arm side by side now and they are performing equally so far.. the dry down they get more and more similar. ATH projecting slightly more - a touch of almost black leather that's pushing out (heliotrope push?), whereas the AERIN is settled in as a dark base that's richer, but not projecting as boldly.. I kind of like the richer darker at the moment... depends on where and how you want to wear it --- oh and I do love the % of oils in ATH, you can really tell side by side how rich and oily the ATH is.. man, this is a tough one.. I dunno, I think I might have to have both :)