Oud & Rose

I don’t know what batch I have because I got my bottle from a thrift perfume store in February 2023. My goodness, the first thing that hits my nose when I spray it is very heavy wood notes and that stays forever especially when I spray it on my clothes. I don’t smell any of the other notes listed except for the wood notes. So I wear this with Santal Royal by Guerlain for events when I want my scent to be powerful and bold. I sprayed it on my teenage son and my husband and it was all oudy woodsy on them and they loved it because they like strong Oud scents.

I really wanted to try this one. I could not try Rose&Osmanthus because it never hit shops here. I really cannot understand L'Occitane policy. Along the years they removed some very good quality and luscious perfumes like old Neroli, Vanillier, Rose Nuit de Mai, Fleurs Delice, the very old Rose in EdP... so many to count, not to mention the whole Voyage en Mediterranèe line. Why?? All you have now is their neverending rose, which I like but gets weaker with every re-formulation, the verbena and lavender (not a lavender, rather a sweet nice lavender-like) plus some random ones. Oud&Rose arrived a few weeks ago. Good to know, I just rushed to try it. Not that I expected a real oud bomb. The super-kind SA told me about their story and bla bla. This is not an oud scent. Period. It smells nice, somehow elegant from the opening, the rose is typically L'Occitane and it smells nice. Oud is there in its super-washed synthetical Western-style, no real oud. Anyway it smells very nice on skin and I could wear it easily in a casual way, as a daytime perfume for workplace or anywhere. It has a little Oriental edge together with the rose. It was nice on my skin for about 2-3 hours with little sillage, then went away with a shower. I made an oud-hater smelling this and he said it smelled good and pleasant! Other they tamed oud with a stick or there's no oud here. Oud is a precious stuff and since it became all the rage in the last few years you cannot expect every brand and their cousins to give you the real thing for low price. This one is a bit more pricey than the rest of the line. The bottle is beautiful.

As many already said, the name is misleading. Not real oud and an initial rose that will disappear quite quickly. But the drydown is excellent, a sweet powdery cashmere smell (I believe agarwood) that will stay longer and longer. A powdery vanilla very pleasant...they should have called it ' Vanilla powder'. The vanilla is not gourmand, is more like talc and cashmere. It is definitely to be tested before buy and possibly sample to explore the drydown. At the end of the day I really like the basenotes. The problem with this house is the clients fidelity, if they keep discontinuing perfumes and all lines customers will be annoyed and upset. Continuity is good. 3.5/5

I swear there's a big, boozy plum note in here that isn't listed! It's delightfully strong patch/rose, very chypre opening. Then a rich, spiced, boozy plum pops out with a big 'TA DA!' along with some smoky sweetness (a la Magical Moon) and a creamy, almond-like sweetness in the background. My nose had a time trying to ID what this reminded me of: 1 tiny part Hypnotic Poison, big parts Magical Moon & Givenchy's Very Irresistible L'Intense. All sorts of happy smells, to me. Delicious and potent!

I tried it on skin at a L'occitance en Provence store. I'm not sure why they called this Oud and Rose. There is a ton of rose and vanilla and even patchouli, but not any oud. This is misleading advertising and surely is simply L'occitance riding on the Arabian/middle-eastern bandwagon. That said, this is a very good, if fairly usual composition of rose + vanilla. Delicious. It's not very complex, but at the price, it's a no brainer. Recommended.