Al Oudh

Deep in the desert between the rose red city of the dead and Aqaba in the fabled Wadi Rum, where in I found myself standing before the tent of a Bedouin Sheikh. The great royal blue curtains heavy with gold embroidery and pearls the size of cherry pits parted to reveal the most inner sanctum of the cool spacious palatial tent. Here far from the Western world and deep into the mysterious desert of Jordan I entered upon a dream beyond those of Scheherazade, T. E. Laurence or even the great Darius of Persia. I stood alone in listening to soft voices of the desert jinn carried from the heart of the night upon the wind to my ears. They whispered scented words of magic and wishes and wonders beyond the dreams of kings. The wind rose and fluttered the roof of the tent and made the tent polls of agar wood to creak and sway gently. Tiny bells like rain on the hot sand broke the air and urged me on deeper into the tent. A brassier in the center of the tent burned in amber and crimson flame revealing just beyond it a small myrtle wood chest intricately studded in ivory and gold. I knelt on cushions of indigo silk and with hesitant hands opened the box. Within lay a glittering glass bottle of golden liquid. As I reached for it the tent began to swirl in heady waves as though I and all about me were being lifted on the wings of a great bird to be carried to another world. I opened the bottle and the air about me changed instantly and transformed the dry warm night of the desert into magic filled with music and desire. I blinked... there before me stood a Jinn. Magnificent in form and enticing in his smile he leaned toward me and winked. I was so startled by the apparition that I dropped the bottle spilling what remained of the golden juice. “My son you have set me free and for this I grant you....” His voice was rich and deep and full of the promise of all things imagined and many more things undreamed of. “Three wishes?” I managed to squeak out. A well manicured brow shot up as he cocked his head to one side. “No! I give nothing so common as a wish for you my lord of my emancipation. But rather, I give this.” He picked up the empty bottle held it out to me. “An empty bottle?” very disappointed. The Jinn chuckled causing the walls of the tent to flap lightly... and beyond them there were tiny silvery giggles from the moonless night. He put the bottle to his lips and filled the chamber with his breath then capped it quick as lightning with a golden seven sided stopper. The Jinn held it before me and dropped it into my open hand. In a flash of fire and rain he was gone. I looked down at the bottle with its red Arabian grillwork and read the words emblazed in warm buttery gold letters. “Al Oudh ~ Eau de Parfum.” The magic held within Al Oudh by L’Artisan Parfumeur Paris is indeed like a dream. It opens with the delicious delights of pink pepper, Dates, dried fruits, caraway, cardamom and orange blossoms. They hang in the air about six glorious seconds only to be violently embraced and seduced like Velma Banky by Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik. A beatific incense, elegant agar wood (Oud) and rich dark sexy leather, make up the heady scrumptious almost religious concoction full of church and sin, sex and redemption that takes over here. This center is supported by iris, saffron, Neroli, and rose. Yes Al Oudh is a caravan of oriental exotics poised to poison you with delirious olfactory pleasures. This Parfum packs a punch not meant for those who prance and dance lightly in green fields covered in laundry lines of drying white cotton sheets and shirts. The ever evolving dry down meets this caravan of pleasure with its own treasures from the east. Sandalwood, Tonka beans, vanilla and the dirty sexy little civet come to the orgy with a grounding musk, rapturous patchouli, rich caramelized myrrh all in cased in a fine Cedar. Yet even hours into this fragrance you never loose the gloria in excelsis which is the trinity of incense, Oud and Leather. A word to the wise on this one, as with most perfumes as compared to Eau de Toilettes a very little goes a very long way. So be gentle when you apply. For men one spritz will do the job. Two will kill at ten paces. And believe me boys it will last all day and well into the night so on longevity it is a stunner. Not for work only for special events or evening wear. As for silage there it gets gold stars too. I must thank and acknowledge my friend Hilary at Barney’s New York who guided me to this wonderful perfume. Her expertise is without compare and she is both gracious and beautiful. If you are ever in San Francisco go by Barney’s and say hello to Hilary. She will be your very own personal Jinn and find you just the right fragrance to fulfill your every wish. FIVE PLATINUM STARS *****

Not oud. Incense. Should we have expected differently from L’Artisan Parfumeur? Let us not forget that for decades prior to the niche/anti-big-brand craze that took over the 21st century, they were one of the OGs hell-bent on giving us perfumes that defied typical structures and most certainly naming conventions. When this was released in 2009, when the oud craze was taking off - a time much to YSL’s/Tom Ford’s and M7’s chagrin from only a few years earlier - there was a weird, interesting, and dichotomous pull: houses and perfumes were now fully aware of the positive impacts to the P&L of synthetic materials, that they were able to be reliably sourced, and - shockingly - perfume consumers were enjoying how they smelled. Enter L’Artisan Parfumeur to provide “the contrarian’s” point of view in giving us an oud that isn’t really oud by not using expensive natural materials, and the use of synthetics that also weren’t going to play to the synthetic-loving craze. With Bertrand Duchaufour as Executive Chef, LAP’s modus operandi of acting as a Michelin-starred molecular gastronomy restaurant to the reigning nouvelle cuisine, we find what can, perhaps, be called a “deconstructed” oud accord. First thing to note is a beautiful, wide, and powerful string of frankincense and myrrh running from top to bottom of Al Oudh; keep this in mind throughout the rest of this description. Now, onto the more detailed bits: With real oud there are the top notes of medicinal fruity, fecal and barnyard, and high-pitched wood notes. In Al Oudh the medicinal fruity aspects are curiously absent, the fruity and waxy peppercorns not really doing their part to truly engage in this way - likely a bit-of-give to Western noses at that time - but there is a good amount of the other facets thanks to aromatic spices of cinnamon and cardamom, and some extremely dry castoreum. The woody spice aspects work to the brief, but the castoreum is so dry that it certainly doesn’t fully convince of you of the hot, digestive juices-laden excrement of a barn animal onto dirt. The dry, animatic leatheriness of the castoreum is certainly quite pushy in terms of a leather accord, sans a more modernly typical shoe polish chemical facet. Curiously, you also pick up that LAP and Duchaufour weren’t quite sure what “oud” they wanted to represent: was it the Indian or Arabian funky oud, or the more tame and nuanced Southeast Asian oud? The tame floral notes of neroli and rose certainly seem to suggest the latter, but what ends up happening is that the heart shifts very quickly to a floral leather perfume with a heaping dose of incense rather than an “oud” perfume. That said, though, it is gorgeous. It really is. Oud purists will likely be fed-up with Al Oudh at this point, but for those of us with a more open mind will probably find this deconstructed version of oud - it’s unique components stretched out and amplified - to be very tasteful and alluring. If this was not enough to convince of an oud-not-oud perfume, the dry down will be. A creamy and floral sandalwood makes itself more logically connected to the floral notes of the heart, aromatic cedar to the brief peppercorns and otherwise oily woody notes, and then, of course, the incense - that gorgeous frankincense and myrrh combination that opened the perfume and is still going strong into the dry down and skin scent. It is just on the correct side of smokey, on the correct side of resinous, on the correct side of green stems, and on the correct side of earthy. It is a beautiful incense accord acting as the glue to hold the entirety of the perfume together. Not oud, and don’t expect such. But this false name is not due to a creative misstep, it is due to aggressively mediocre and uneducated noses of the time period - which, before you put yourself on a pedestal, is not much different from where we are now. Those who love and live with the popular are always behind those of the new. So, before you go poo-pooing Al Oudh, take an honest assessment of your tastes relative to the continuum of current perfume culture; if you like the popular, you are likely not nearly as far ahead as you think you are. This also means for all us, the newbs and the long-in-tooth - including those that think they are - should recognize Al Oudh for what it is: a gorgeous floral incense wood perfume of exceptional smoothness, delicacy, and beauty. This is right up there with Passage d’Enfer, Dzing!, Timbuktu, Dzongkha, and Traversee du Bosphore. Excellent work.

Smell of sweat after a game of soccer... Back in college I had many good friends from the middle east. Best friends ever. They wore fragrances all the time which smelt very elegant and nice. During early fall and late spring we'd get together on campus to play soccer, and many of them came wearing colognes. After the games I smelt like man's sweat, like stinky and sweaty occidental man's sweat; however, they exuded this particular smell that was not pure sweat, but something unique and recognizable to me: a mixture of sweat and what I know now is oud. I have to say however still stinky we all were, their sweat smelt much better than mine because of the oud--I theorize that Bedouins of centuries past (long ago) discovered that oud served to disguise the smell of sweat in the desert. Heterosexually speaking, I dare to say that possibly they smelled animalistically and sexily attractive and that a small number of women who have smelt this perfumed sweat might concur. When I smelled Al-oudh, it was taken immediately back to my post-soccer games memories. Al-oud smells like my middle eastern friends smelled after our soccer games. But sweat is still sweat and why parfumeurs still insist on mixing civet and oud is beyond me. I repeat, the combination of civet and oud (and possibly dates thrown into the mix as well), as I don't think oud alone mimics perspiration. Parfumeurs, please stop the non-sense and the mixing of these 2 ingredients to mimic perfumed sweat. I think there is some attractiveness in this but I dare to say not in high numbers. Al Oudh would be so much better than what it is with less or no civet at all. The combination of spices and dried fruits/dates is delicious. I personally might buy a bottle of Al-oudh because of the fond and great memories Al-oudh brought me of my friends and our soccer games back in college.

This is quite a scent. I disagree with those who don't think it smells like oud - sure, it doesn't smell like Montale's horrible medicinal oud, nor does it smell like a high quality oud oil. What it does smell like is agarwood chips and the smoke one gets when burning them. The wood chips have a very complex aroma of wood, resin, rot, and a funky fruit aroma that smells a bit like raspberries if they were old and moldy. The smoke is similar but of course smoky, and has an even more pungent quality. Al Oudh smells like I'd imagine a temple to smell that was burning oud and had rose petals and spices on offer to various gods on altars spread throughout. The castoreum is quite noticeable here (I've smelled real castoreum from profumo.it - it is dark and leathery and has hints of tar and oil, but is surprisingly smooth), not so much as a note but the way it influences the texture of the scent. There is quite a bit of cumin but it blends so well that it simply adds a hint of a human note to the scent. Body odor - yes, but not in a negative sense. The most alluring smells imaginable emanate from the human body - not all of them are nasty or funky. Al Oudh captures the beautiful scent of human skin and sweat - prior to it becoming fetid - and incorporates it masterfully into the very Moroccan atmosphere of the scent. One of if not the most velvety smooth and downright *dark* scents I've ever smelled (I feel the box represents the impression of colors I get from this scent very accurately - mostly black with some red and gold woven throughout). As far as oud scents go, M7 is probably the closest comparison, as M7 also goes for that raspberry, fruity, spicy, funky agarwood wood chips impression. But while M7 is more earthy and rugged, Al Oudh is more refined, velvety, more overtly sultry and heck, downright sexual.

L'Artisan offers a good oud with a very spicy facets, an animal touch and a rare bittersweet effect. It is very relevant the good dose of caraway that has causing in this oud a wild, animal and even sexual effect. This belongs to the same family of cumin, the aroma is similar, also very aromatic, spicy, bitter and sweet, penetrating, but nuances different, is nasally less incisive and also with a less sweat effect than this (which is appreciated) . The animal point is placed by the civet and, to a lesser extent, the leather, which, although noticeable, are not very strident, the animal note is not too dirty and is very well integrated with the oud. There are many sweet notes from the nuts, dates and balsamic notes that cause a very positive impact on the resulting aroma, softening the animal's dirty, powerful oud note making the fragrance less aggressive, warm, sensual , Cozy and portable. The effect of the vanilla with the musks makes the drying cause a good general impact and the skin fixation is good, a slight smoky touch provided by the incense creates an aura effect of mystery. It's true, it does not project much, but the duration is good. This is a good oud, it develops under a modern concept with a rather monolithic aroma. It strikes me as soft, warm and resinous as it is, without being overwhelming, however, this oud exploits well the animal facet in conjunction with the spice (caraway) and makes it somewhat deep, untamed and different without becoming heavy Or dense as an oriental classic might be. Rating: 8