Baloudh

The independent perfumer Czaba Balint has tried his hand at creating an oud-based scent, and I am quite happy with the result. Nowadays the market is swamped with gazillions of oud fragrances and it is difficult to create something new and original. Balint has approached this task in such a way that the scent has two distinctive phases: 1) smoky and 2) woody-fruity. The initial blast is very smoky, with agarwood immediately detectable and closely accompanied by incense, leather and birch tar. After about 15-20 minutes, the other notes emerge, and the scent takes a different direction, becoming sweeter, fruitier and much less smoky. Nevertheless, the woody elements are still present and aided by sweet flowers - tuberose and iris. While the opening is quite strong, the rest of the scent development isn't so; I would say that it projects moderately and lasts about 5-6 hours. Oh, and I see that someone above has compared this to MFK Oud Satin Mood EDP, but honestly I can not detect any similarity between them. As we all know, the perfumer Francis Kurkdjian has a very sweet tooth; as a result, Satin Mood is an overwhelmingly sweet fragrance, with rose, vanilla and caramel immediately asserting themselves as the dominant notes. This is not the case with Baloudh, which never becomes sugary-sweet, not even after the fruity notes break through. Furthermore, Satin Mood is probably the strongest perfume that I own; its projection is truly nuclear and it stays on the skin for days, even after shower - and on clothes, it can last for months. Baloudh doesn't even try to be that type of super-strong, practically unwashable fragrance.