Oud Taiwan

First of, my skin started to immediately burn, and I thought It was going to give me a rash. I did not wash it off, because I am not going to waste any perfume. Afterwards, it was totally fine. No damage or irritation. Opens with a blast of spices and greenery. I can definetly smell the taiwanese oud oil in the perfume. There is also a faint smell resembling rubber tires. It is almost like walking through a jungle while a car, loaded with spices, is on fire in a distance. It is quite pleasant, however I personally do not enjoy it quite enough because of the level of spices. It almost makes me feel sick and makes me ready to puke. After just a couple of minutes, it turns slightly sweeter, and it is extremely pleasant and I enjoy it alot. It is almost like a woody sweetness. After an hour, the spices are still very prominent, but since the rubber is making its way forward, it may not seem as prominent. The greenery is mostly gone, and what is left is mostly spicy, rubbery, oudy, and slightly musky. The musk is no heavy animalic, and no fecal or pissy smell. It is this classical Areej musk. Warm and sensual. Another hour pass, and I take a shower. It probably rushed the transition of the perfume, since it changed after the shower. Now, the perfume is more rubbery, which I almost can taste. The greenery comes back, but in a different form. Think of it as a mixture of the vines growing on the tree bark, mixed with the nutrient poor soil of a jungle. The spices has started to fade, and this is probably the scent that put me off when I smelled the lid of the perfume. After trying it once more, I have noticed something interesting. The rubbery smell is not truly only a tire smell, it is something from leaves. I have smellt this rubbery smell in nature before, and that's why I noticed this. I have also noticed that it is extremely smoky, and an unburnt coal smell. Further into the dry down, I sense a green and tar incense. It is so beautiful and adds complexity to the already deep and complex perfume. The performance on this is not outstanding compared to other Areej, however it is compared to most perfumes. It projected well from one spray, and it lasted around 14 hours on skin, until it totally disappeared. This scent is overall not for everyone and is a challenge to like. I personally found it pleasant and enjoyable, especially when the tar scent came out. If you want to challenge yourself, this is the one to try.

Oud Taiwan is far from being your everyday oud showcase. In fact, it’s a green detour into a forest you didn’t know existed. Built around rare Taiwanese agarwood oil from trees infected over a decade ago (according to Mr Russian), this composition feels rather obscure. The opening greets you with leafy, markedly indolic elements, almost edging you (naughty!) with a tropical floral lift before the inevitable descent into darkness. The heart of OT is where the oud flexes its muscles: resinous, smoky, and complex. If you never experienced non-synth oud before, you will be able to understand the clear difference. Fossilized amber (again, according to Mr Russian) deepens the shadows, while a civet-like accord adds a sly animalic wink... just enough to remind you this isn’t exactly a polite fragrance. Boronia absolute threads through the middle, softening the edges with a vaguely fruity-floral nuance. As it settles, the base turns more contemplative: amber and sandalwood mingle with musk and a faint marine accent from seaweed, while myrrh lends a dry, incense-like platform. I am sure that Daniel might call it a "philosophical finish". Performance? Around 8 hours of a solid scent bubble, but expect it to last 24h+ as a detectable skin scent, which is either a blessing or a challenge depending on your social calendar and the people you have around. Projection remains moderate, in line with its heavier extrait concentration (i.e. just look at the colour of the juice). OT is definitely not a crowd pleaser. It accomplishes what you'd expect from an artisanal perfume composed with natural and rare ingredients. Given all the aspects described above and its unique indolic-green take on oud, it earns a solid 9/10 in my records.

Update: The second time I wore it, the oud started to cook right away. It also is more recognizable as a green oud straight away. The oud is similar to Areej Chinese Oud fragrance I was able to get a 10 ml under $200. So glad about that. I heard this was a wild one,"burning rubber in a jungle", etc. I thought it may be like ELdO Rien, or Amouage Opus VII. Ramsey a fragrance YouTuber assured me it was much more natural than those. That was the most assuring comment he could have made, and it is very true... This is exotic and unusual, even for Areej le Dore. But I'm very pleased. It is very pleasant and wearable for me. It's uniqueness is part of the appeal. I've tried a few Prin fragrances. I would say this is generally like a Prin fragrances, but It's more naturally beautiful, and so masterfully blended by Russian Adam. For the first 15 minutes, it was soft in projection. I was picking up the beautiful, unique green oud. It has a bitterness, as Russian Adam describes. It takes time to cook and open up. It gets more intense over the first 45 minutes. - Like Chinese Oud by Areej. I knew it was going to be a hard one to describe. Adam uses the other notes like seaweed to bring out the various facets of the green oud. I don't get burning rubber or anything off puting. A nice, unique smokiness for sure The seaweed is subtle, and in accord with the oud. Great spicy touches, and florals, softening things up. The bitter greeness hangs on for over 12 hours. I liked it more on second wearing, bumped up my rating a bit. If your game for something different, earthy, jungly and green; This is a safe blind buy. Rating: 9.25/10 Merry Christmas, Emanuel. Blessed New Year.

The fat of the wood combines with a musty, indolic grimace in the exhilarating top notes of Areej le Doré’s Oud Taiwan, a fragrance that ticks all the boxes for my kind of scented journey. The fume-y opening might hit the new rubber tire note just right, except the oud-rich environment that’s created on first spritz, causing vertigo, is too natural and too green for the mechanic’s shop, instead imaging crude oil found in a secret, not so innocent garden, pregnant with fossilized amber. And while Russian Adam lists a green leaves accord, I’d tweak that description to say the green leaves here are crushed, ripped in half, trampled, to make all the precious juices that bring life and energy to the botanical world bleed from your body in vegetative delirium. ...sounds psychedelic, yeah. Oud Taiwan’s opening is anything but sacral and calming, testing anyone with little patience to wait for the august mid, where peppery, tobacco-like, and musky notes turn ALD’s perfume into a more conventionally green, deodorant-adjacent scent that hums with resins and a salty-umami sharp note that’s a bit like blue spirulina. Wait longer, lost in the jungle, and eventually Oud Taiwan gets creamier and softer, sometimes even recalling goat cheese covered in ash, stored in a black leather bag that’s traveled miles upon miles on a motorcycle. At first blush, I cringed at Russian Adam's video announcing Oud Taiwan but on second thought, his customized moto jacket embroidered with OUD on the backside theatricalizes this perfume in a way that perfectly gives voice to all of its dramatic facets.

Oud Taiwan opens with a big blast of green notes. It is piney, a bit grassy, camphor nuances. A couple of minutes in tiny smoke emerges that can give some cannabis impression in the air around you. However, my 10-year-old girl instantly said: “it’s like walking in a forest”. 30 minutes later, the fossilized amber is becoming detectable along with the oud. If I try hard I can get the WP comparison because its earthy-musky vibe but not that prominent. I definitely get some sweetness as well, green, piney, sweet oud. Some people detected petroleum or burnt tire smell, and when I am sniffing my skin very closely I can get it but to me it’s more like ash. And it is not something artificial or synthetic feel, more like you get it from the interplay of the amber and oud. It’s so good that oud oil is provided because I can say 100% that oud dominates the scent. After an hour, it is still an earthy, musky green scent (to my nose now it is more freshly squeezed juniper berry than pine) with deep woody oud. In the late drydown it is getting creamier, saltier, and additionally dry-dark chocolatey patchouli notes appearing. Overall, it is a great, dark green foresty juice with a unique oud profile. I really like it! I can totally imagine wearing this fragrance in the Fall during a walk in a park, or even at work because there’s nothing offensive in it. Comparison: Prin’s Onthamara and Rahassanai jumped into my mind, and other green scents like Norna, or Mallo’s Arc.