Octavian

This is a beast of an Oud rose fragrance. Sure, it's nothing new here at all, but do you know what? Sometimes it's too easy to get carried away looking for novelty, hunting out the unique or downright bizarre perfumes that are out there, and assuming what's common is also a tad dull. Sometimes it's a good idea to take time to really just sit with a classic genre and witness it being performed by a masterpiece of high quality blended notes like you will find in Octavian. The first spray is barnyard oud, feral and skanky, which lasts a mere moment before it becomes more domesticated and softer beast. The saffron is a deep spice that shines on the skin, melding with the resins and amber in the base. I am sure I can detect labdanum in this one too? The oud becomes a much more dry woody scent as time goes on, with the pink rose making it's mark on things confidently once it appears. Beautiful with great longevity. A bottle of this would last a very long time and I have to say it is tempting me.

I have to disagree with some of the reviews below. I find this much more similar to BTV nebulous than to POAL or Nemer. This is an outstanding fragrance. One for those who love oud with saffron and a hint of high quality rose. This to me is much more oud centric than rose centric like those aforementioned Fragrances. The rose comes out at about the hour mark and then goes the life until about 6hr mark. I don’t get an animalistic vibe that others have mentioned either. For me, it’s high quality oud oil and for the price it’s well worth it. I now have a full bottle so will come back and add more thoughts as I really sit with it for an extended time. It’s a must try for fragrance connoisseurs who love middle eastern style vibes. UPDATE: this stuff is so beastly I love it more and more and more! Can’t get enough and worth the price. Absolute quality.

I smelled this first at the airport in Mumbai. I had never heard of Electimuss and I asked for it on a card instead of my skin when I smelled how anamalic it was...I quite simply couldn’t do that to other passengers on a flight...After the barnyard aspect faded, I couldn’t stop smelling the card and I was fascinated by it. After, I saw it on a discount website in Canada, I pulled the trigger. It’s a gem of master craftsmanship but the barnyard animalic aspect of it fades infinitely quicker than Malle’s “The Night”....Such a beauty in the fallwinter and the staying power is phenomenal..

A powerful jammy rose oud with modern style and an energetic spice mix. The price for entry is high but I think it's a super versatile and wearable offering of this style. It's electric, uplifting, and performs very well. Bottles look tacky in pics but are very high quality in person, great atomizer too. My gf says it smells a bit like puke, and I don't totally disagree, but it's still a frequent reach for me. Love this stuff

Simply a 10/10 fragrance. Yes it's not a new scent profile and it's a classic rose oud but blended in a highly skillful way (hats off to Mr. Provenzano). You can tell that the ingredients used are high quality. It's definitely one of the best oud fragrances that you can find. Additional note: Some people say it has cumin but i don't think so. In my humble opinion it has cardamom, not cumin.

The oud sourness sticks and overwhelms the beautiful rose. If you prefer a balanced oud this is not for you. --- after 30 minutes: oh this is so beautiful! The sourness has subdued and now it is much more balanced. The structure is similar to A Portrait of a Lady by FM, but Octavian does not have so much spice in it. It is a sweet, deep and round rose oud. I am so in love with it now.

I love what Provenzano did with this. He made nebulous even more wearable all year round. There's a very subtle rosy sweetness in the drydown. You think this is skanky? You don't know skanky! . Stunning! . . 10/10

this perfume reminds me of................ vs This perfume smells like........... what am i missing?

WOW ... AMAZING VERY CLOSE TO THE NIGHT BY FREDERIC MALLE BUT WITH LOTS OF CUMIN , HANDS DOWN

Bought a full bottle and I am revisiting my previous reviews on this - it does not in any way resemble Killian's Pearl Oud, I was 100% wrong and I will not remove my previous reviews so future generations can know that it's ok to admit you were wrong on the internet. As for Octavian what I can add without being redundant is that this as classic of a rose oud as you can get, quality is great and performance is very strong. Myself I couldn't perceive it as much but have been told while wearing it that it comes off very strong and lasts a long time. Value wise the quality, quantity and concentration line up as decent value BUT I would say that at this quality there are less dull oud's out there in this price range (and cheaper) that you can get, like ajmal's purely orient line, prin or bortnikoff ouds. Also there is the fact that there are more interesting options in electimus's own line-up like gladiator oud, vici leather, Amber aquilaria, etc that are more worth the money than this one. However I don't mind it my collection and it makes for a good vanity piece, but when the time comes for a new purge this will probably be high on the chopping list.

Slightly skanky type animalic oud with a good amount of rose. It’s good for what it does and smells of quality. Traditional in the way it's presented and that's why I think it gets compared to POAL. If I was looking for something made in this fashion I'd lean more toward a modern twist on the Rose Oud DNA. I think this is one of the best value for money scents that competes with the likes of fragrances double to triple its price. If you’re looking for a traditional Rose Oud this is great. Overall not my cup of tea but I respect it.

A super high quality oud-saffron-rose perfume. The theme has been done a million times before, so it's not an original perfume. It follows the familiar and classic structure of the genre. But boy is it well done! It shines on skin, develops from animalic oud to rose in a million ways depending on the temperature and skin. It's expensive, but it stands a head higher than almost all other oud-rose perfumes, because one can smell the quality of the materials used.

Traditional, well blended and lighter rose oud which many reviewers note correctly has many nods to scents like The Night and Nebulous. The scent opens with slight saffron and pink pepper before moving to the firm rose and slight olibanum heart. It settles on a powdery base of oud and slight amber. The unisex scent has moderate to strong projection and good longevity. Overall elegant, unfussy and wearable if not very original. Enjoy!

@English Gent - yes, I have experienced this with the two that I have. I think it's because of the atomiser. I usually blast more concentrated but usually mist spray atomisers simply don't pack the same punch,

I respectfully agree with being disagreed with. Cheers English Gent! 🍻 My opinion is the same, but it's good to have a variety of opinions, it's also a good sign to not blind buy 😉

A great alternative to Kilian's Pearl Oud, made by the same perfumer! Price per ml is actually cheaper. The comparison to The night is way overblown.

A pretty basic rose-oud-saffron scent. Most prominent is the moderately sour oud supported by an airy, almost soft powdered, pink rose. The saffron imparts a faint leather accord and hint of sweetness. Linear drydown. Very strong projection fades over 4-5hr, longevity 10-12hr.

Octavian to me leans feminine. Initially it smells very familiar and powdery and safe. After 2.5 hour dry down it has a faint super clean soapy smell to it. Still very safe and nice it safe simple and nice is your cup of tea by all means; its just not mine.

$500 for 100ml is not that bad compared to other "luxury" brands charging the same price for half the juice. My only complain is the tartness in the opening and the drydown that never really delivers (unlike a high amount of genuine oud would).

Revisiting this after 4 years... Even though the "rose-oud" profile is there, I find it to be an acrid mess of a chemical soup where no discernible amount of actual oud can be found... Not sure how this house ever got hyped up to this status 🤷🏻

I like the opening but once it dries down it smells rather basic. So not bad but not for me.

I get incense rose. I was worried about this but it's very wearable!

It’s an okie rose oud fragrance, not the best I’ve smelled. Especially for the price I got a sample and was expecting something better. Honestly this reminds me when I used to stay at my uncles house and spending time with my 5 male cousins. You can imagine the sweaty smells of the teens and mask it with oud and rose. That’s what I get from this fragrance. I think it might be that kind of blue cheese oud in the scent. I’d always recommend try before you buy. I won’t be getting the full bottle.

Skanky animalic wet oud at the opening. Drydown saffron is getting more upfront and animalic part is gone. Stays dry wood with hint of rose. Interesting but too basic for this price

Quality Is There But The Oud Is That Skanky Oud.

It smells like the oud that they use in Nasomatto pardon. The thing is I actually like pardon. Smells like a spicy chili pepper, spicy oud mixed with rose. Not something I could pull off.

Horrific. It smells so strongly like a urinal cake. By far the worst cologne i've ever put on my body in my own opinion.

Mmmh. Mmh!! Lovely. Clearly hatched from the same egg as BTV's Nebulous and Taif al Emarat's UAE Oud. However, it is much lighter and more transparent than both of those, this has much less a dense effect and so I can rock 10 sprays without feeling radioactive and it is also suitable for all-day wear whereas those other two can be nauseating if applied early in the day. This has lots of oud, lots of rose, lots of musk, and lots of CUMIN. So much cumin. It has less of a patchouli effect than the others I mention, and lacks their violetty orrisy and ambergrissy punch. I dont like Octavian nearly as much as I do those other two which take pride of place in my collection, however, despite that assertion I have found myself wearing this very consistently for well over a week - normally I wear several different things each day and change the combo up every day, but for this bottle I have been reaching again and again, despite wrinkling my nose at the cumin. If you like oudhy, heavy, dark, masculine fragrances with a distinctive alladin's cave arabian fantasy vibe, this is a must-try for you and you will almost certainly enjoy it and be complimented, but if you want to really go in for a penny splurge instead for the Taif Al Emarat which will blow your socks off.

This fragrance feels almost like a mixture of POAL and Boadicea Nemer, it is very similar to a fragrance from Boadicea called Midnight Club which is not listed in fragrantica. It has the same spicy opening of pink pepper and saffron of Midnight, the saffron reminds me of Nemer then it moves with to the famous combination of rose and incense present in POAL with hints of earthy patchouli and it finally moves to a base consisting of sharp oud and labdanum but I think Cypriol is also present. The main difference between this fragrance and Midnight is that Octavian lacks the powdery orris which is prominent in Midnight but it has oud in the base.

Amazing warm ambery, oudy rose. But I’m surprised it’s compared to Nemer (Celestial is similar to Nemer), Octavian, comparing side by side sits somewhere between BTV Rose Sapphire and Guerlain Rose Nacre du Desert. With a hint of Poal. I’d say it’s less spicy and complex than RS and RNdD, but nevertheless still very beautiful. It’s extremely well refined. Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Yes. (Even though I already have all three I mentioned. Ah the ways of passion/obsession).

Super quality rose oud. The initial hour smells exotic with very mild skanky oud which is the best part of Octavian. Initially I do get the vibe of Nebulous but it doesn't last for more than a few seconds and Electimuss has just not merely reinvented the wheel here. This is beautiful, deep Dahn al aoud with rose and saffron. Deep dry down is rose aoud ( mainly aoud though ) This is splendid value for money as Octavian lasts for ever. Full bottle worthy. Try a sample.

Just picked up a bottle of this and after 4-5 times of wearing it I could say I fell in love with it already. It starts with a mild animalic oud and dries down to a very smooth woody sandalwood oud with a bit of rose. The oud is the star here and the rose is in the background. Projection is medium but it lasts about 7-8 hours on my skin, and that's quite a while considering I live in a humid tropical country. Better suited to a cool or controlled climate.

Octavian gives me POAL rose scent. Very oud animalic man version of Portrait OAL. Don't sniff it of the skin it's where all the animalic part is but trail scent is beautiful at least for me. So,if you're a fan of Portrait of a Lady but it's too femme for you this is like more for men version. Performances are nuclear. Don't know anything about The Night from Frederic Malle this is compared with so it's not my place to comment.

I respectfully disagree that Electimuss Octavian is an alternative to Kilian's Pearl Oud. Electimuss Celestial smells a lot like Pearl Oud, as does Nemer by Boadicea the Victorious. Octavian smells very similar to Nebulous by Boadicea the Victorious, and a little similar to The Night by Frederic Malle. Christian Provenzano created Octavian, Nebulous, Celestial, Pearl Oud, and Nemer. Dominique Ropion created The Night.

Balanced, masculine rose-oud. A refined version of what so many Middle Eastern cheapies try to be. Amber and metallic notes. Something like a mild plum. Octavian is like a denser, more punchy, oud driven version of Argos’ 'Adonis Awakens.' Harmonious and smooth. Everything subtle except the oud note. Doesn’t evolve much. Better in cold weather. Awesome but not mass appealing. Easy to overspray.

Cumin overload. VERY similar to L'Artisan Parfumeur Al Oudh. No idea why cumin isn't listed, or even caraway. Are they trying to pass this off as oud (or olibanum/frankincense? lol). Tons of cumin - avoid if you hate that note. Mild sweetness. If you've tried Al Oudh, you've essentially tried this. Al Oudh 2.0 - with a bit of saffron and maybe a leather type touch.

Yes, it’s nice. Very nice. Cleaner than FM The Night, so less offensive and more amenable to daily wear. A finely crafted fragrance which I quite enjoy. For full price though, I do not think it’s worth it. If you can find at a heavy discount, it’s fantastic. Unlike what is written below, I am confident this oud is real, having a collection of over 100 oils.

Indian oud, tobacco, hint of dry saffron, incense cumin, pink rose, amber and white musk. More pleasant to just wear than to sniff up close. Dry, leathery and spicy oriental with rose. Optimal in colder weather.

Good old classic rose/oud combo, unfortunately, too many of them on the market atm, and there are better than Ocatavian for the lower price. Longevity is forever and projection is good.

Milder, more wearable version of The Night (also POAL but without oud). This is not in your face Rose which makes it much more wearable and doesn’t give you Headache. Lasts well too.

Omg this is so barnyard lol. I cant deal with this I am not there hahahaha. Baby steps but really I dont want to go any further lol

But why is there saffron in every single one of their fragrances...?

Masterpice You find pure elegance in a bottle,

How close is this to The Night? Thanks