Oud

Good oud. It’s reminiscent of an attar style oud. It’s basically a 90’s style and quality oud if you grew up in the gulf. Back then quality oud was everywhere so this reminds me of that time with some photoshop if you will through cardamom and musks to accentuate and enhance your perception of certain aspects. Nothing inventive or original here. It’s just a good oud with some toppings and a base to push it. Out of 9 fragrances I’ve tried from the house. This is probably one of the best value if you get it as the oriental gift set which is basically an all IFF or former IFF as Julien left. I’d definitely skip most of the imperial collection with the givaudan perfumers. It’s not an IFF bias its the cheaper collection is more creative with good materials and very beautiful and reasonable packaging. That Imperial Collection everything was dialed up from materials to packaging like open budget gone bad and where they didn’t get it was creativity, execution and value. A terribly hard brand to sample. I did blind buy the gift set. Managed to sample the rest while traveling in Thailand. Also packaging on previously purchased oud oils was faulty. I bought two items worth $600 both had packaging fall apart in less than a year. Even after a blind buy worth $1200 the manager asked me to ship the faulty packaging to KSA or Thailand to arrange a replacement. While he did gift me 3 samples and an incense burner to be fair. But bear in mind this was six months back and forth with video and photo documentation of faulty packaging. Will see how their fragrances hold up. Caveat Emptor.