Intense Oud

Hurrah! To see Jovan Oud added to the database makes my day. Thank you, Fragrantica staff! Personally, this seems to me the perfect beginner's oud. This amazing little trio from Jovan is fast on it's way to approaching cult status. I myself have a weakness for this Oud far more than the others in the trio. Why? FIRST and most importantly, the note 'oud' agrees with my chemistry. If oud is not your note, you are not alone. I feel grateful, since this is one of the few popular notes that truly works well for me. SECOND, Jovan's take on oud is in no way truly intense. Trust me, there are ouds out there FAR stronger! What we have here is a well balanced, "introductory oud" - fully capable of layering and adapting to many tastes. THIRD, of the three Middle Eastern themed Jovans, Intense Oud is the least sweet and the most unisex. Since so many women's Arabian perfumes are terribly cloying on me, unisex Arabian scents are a better bet. As perfumes go, I would call Intense Oud mildly sweet, with a gentle amber presence. But someone else might not notice the sweetness at all, owing to the loudness of oud on their particular chemistry. I appreciate this less sugared aspect of Jovan's oud, making it more versatile in various weather and for layering. In short, after living with Jovan Intense Oud for a couple of months, I'm just as pleased and impressed as when I received it. The longevity and sillage are moderate after the initial blast, but that's typical of both colognes and oils. Among my Jovan loves, this is second only to Jovan Sex Appeal - the best Jovan I've EVER smelled. Note - I agree with comments that Jovan's oud resembles a much toned down Saat Safa. They are only cousins, but if you hate the one you are likely to hate the other as well!

Whoa. Just ... whoa. I totally get the Off! spray note at the beginning. It is one harsh and horrible burst of synthetic ech. After the dry down, on my skin: it is all smoky pencil shavings after that, mixed with some kind of floral. There is also an undercurrent of Jovan White Musk For Men, which I always thought worked well with my chemistry. 3 sprays on my wrist lasted about 10-12 hours and there was a shower towards the end of that time period. Intense Oud is not quite like anything else I have ever smelled. I can't see myself wearing this to the office at all, but elsewhere? Maybe. Just maybe. I bought this one blind and I don't regret it. Slightly brilliant.

Just got mine today. I really loved it and I think it works with my chemistry. Today I layered. Charlie Blue right out of the shower. Waited about 30 minutes and sprayed Oud on clothes and a little on wrists and neck. Ordered all three - the Oud, the Amber, and the Rose. I loved the Oud but the others not nearly as much. The Oud made me remember why I like Knowing so much. My only complaint about this is that it does not last very long.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this fragrance! I tried it for the first time last weaken but didn't buy it as I had already bought Kenneth Cole Black. I will be going back tomorrow to purchase this. As a teenager, I wore Patchouli oil. This reminds me so much of it but better! I love those woody, resiny scents. This will definitely be one of my favorites!

Jovan Intense Oud was another scent that I recently retired to the off season shelf and will let rest for the next 6 months. It is a campfire, chuck wagon breakfast. Probably most everyone reading this has smelled Jovan Musk and if you have not then the next time you walk through a discount or drugstore you can find a quick sampler and do a spray. I do not need to spend much time telling you how it smells. Intense Oud has that signature Jovan Musk DNA of a strong heavy heady musk but it takes it into a new direction and you get the smoky oud. I have owned probably a dozen flankers of products from this Coty house and just when you think you are getting bored of them, they come out with a little jewel like Intense Oud. Probably every fragrance fan has a nostalgia bottle in their collection and for me it is Jovan and its flankers. We did not have a lot of money growing up and my mother used to buy me Jovan musk and a few drug store scents of its ilk. She would often sneak into the bathroom and steal it and use it herself. Id gripe but it was ok because she made sure to never let either of us run out of it. And I knew she bought me things when she could have spent money on herself. We had boxes of cheap testers before it was cool to buy them on ebay. Maybe in an odd sort of way, when we could not afford a lot, Jovan was the signature scent for both of us. I can remember walking to school with Jovan Musk for men on like it was yesterday. My walk was longer than most and I never really liked it that much even then but it was what I had and my bottles never emptied and it was different than every other guy reeking of Polo Green or Drakkar. Thankfully the long walk let it settle down a bit before I arrived. Every time, Ive worn any Jovan it started off loud. Over the years, Ive probably worn and owned all of the Jovan line. Coty has probably sold tens or hundreds of millions of these bottles and built one of the top 3 best selling fragrance brands on their backs and I think they now have 40 some odd fragrance lines in their portfolio. Of all of the Jovans, Intense Oud is the one that I feel is the best in house. With Intense Oud you get that huge initial blast of Musk that you get with all of the Jovans. And it dominates the fragrance at the top for about 45 minutes. And then the grass and Oud come peeking through and the fragrance starts to feel a bit like being at a campfire. We are talking a complete synthetic experience here and you are going to get synthetic musk and synthetic oud. No deer or endangered trees were killed in the making of this fragrance and I am glad of it. Intense Oud like all Jovan Musk fragrances has exceptional performance. These things do not go away and they last till you wash them off and they will push outward. I spray half as much with them and they still project, perform, and last like a beast. With Intense Oud, the oud part of the fragrance comes out in the mid and dies before the never ending musk takes over the base once again. Intense Oud, is smoky with depth and gives a different feel; but it isn't as loud as most Ouds and it dances with the musk rather than fighting it. So perhaps some might object slightly to the best part of the fragrance living in the background a bit. There are ouds with screech and noise that are obnoxious and this is not one of them. In many respects, I like an oud with manners. I actually wear this quite a bit and yet my bottle is hanging around over 85-90% full despite having owned it for 3 years. I do go light on the trigger and being a limited edition, I do suppose that I have hand drift away from it and towards other fragrances at times. But I do wear this more than the other Jovans. Its so good, I might never use up my current bottle of Jovan Musk for men and the quite decent Silky Rose bottle has been overlooked a few times. I own a backup bottle of Intense Oud and it is one of the few Jovans worthy of one. I thought about getting a second but I have Jovans clogging cabinets already and I just couldn't do it. The bottles just seem to last forever. Still, this is the one in the line, that I hope to have a good while into the future and I secretly hope that I wont run out of this one. Overall, I am going to grade this one out at 84 which is a half grade and a tick above silky rose. Jovan Intense Oud gets maximum points for performance, very good points for scent though I doubt that any Jovan will ever get an excellent from me, and it gets good points for value. Value is a mixed bag and I bought both of my bottles for about $12 each but this is a limited edition and its apparent that supplies are getting low and will rise in the future. About half the discount houses have ended inventory of this product and the other half have raised prices to the $15-$20 range and prices are going to continue a slow climb up just as they do with other discontinued scents. Again, this is one I want around for a long time and limited editions bug me if its a fragrance such as this one that I really like. Too many of our favorite ones get discontinued, leave the shelves never to be found again, unless one wants to troll ebay and pay 10X what a fragrance should be worth. Every fragrance fan has a sad panda story about a bottle they loved, wore, and emptied and cannot find again. To be honest about the matter, I gave this one a couple of brownie points in memory of my mom even if shes still not around to give me a couple of bottles for free. Right now, you can still buy Jovan Intense Oud for under $20 and that is the price range that let me give this one an 84. I am not an oud fan at all but I actually enjoy the oud in this guy. It stays in the background and is smoky rather than medicinal and I think it gives Jovan Intense Oud a completely different look than any other fragrance from their house. I can put it on and instantly recognize that its a Jovan Musk and yet it has a western and outdoorsy feel that really appeals to me. When you work on a ranch or farm, you occasionally will have a roundup or a harvest. And when you do, its all hands on deck. You have a limited time to get the crops harvested and if you cant get them in then its money left in the field. Usually the boss, owner, or foreman will hire a cook so that the hands can work without having to worry about taking time to come back to the bunkhouse or even take time to cook something to eat. And usually the cook will be given a budget to feed the hands. And to reward the cook for staying under budget the cook will be allowed to keep what they don't spend. Its honestly, usually a nepotism deal and the cook is often a relative or friend of the boss in charge. And what that means is that you get beans. You get beans for breakfast, you get beans for lunch, and you get beans for supper. Still beans cooked over a fire and spiced right are different than what you get at Taco Bell and the rancher that serves the best beans sometimes gets the best hands. I don't like beans much anymore and they have been too familiar in my life. And yet, sometimes you find some that are good. There are a lot of people on these boards that write reviews about what fragrances movie stars might or might not have worn and try to suggest hints of feigned glamour or that wearing this or that scent makes them feel rich or valuable. And if spending a couple bucks a day makes you feel nice then its a good investment. But Jovan Intense Oud is not one of those scents. Jovan is a fragrance line you can buy in drugstores, discount stores, and probably dollar shops as well. It is a wake up with the sun and some chill in your bones and a stiff back from sleeping on the ground kind of scent. Its loud and bold and proud of how it smells and it lets you know about it. And it can live in the glove compartment of an old Willys jeep next to some gloves and a zerk gun when you don't have time to drive back to the headquarters. On days you wake up, comb your hair once, shake your boots for scorpions and then put em on, eat a plate of beans, dust yourself off, and go to work with little time to debate which movie star wore what scent on what flick, this is a good fragrance. Jovan will always be a lot too common for most people to enjoy or wear or wax endlessly nostalgic about with movie stars and plastic dolls of pretend glamour; but my mother loved Jovan and was proud to smell clean and nice and because she loved it so, then so do I. And sometimes, its easy to be happy and proud of eating a plate of warm beans and smelling of musk and campfire on a cold morning when you see a field of wheat and you know the work you are doing is going to feed the world.