L’Oud Marin

Oud Indochine's younger brother who loves the sea. L'Oud Marin and Oud Indochine are undoubtedly very similar fragrances, but there are a few key differences that make them stand apart clearly from one another. L'Oud Marin's opening is considerably less "gourmand" compared to Oud Indochine's opening, the bitter chocolate facet is toned down and the honey/beeswax and myrrh are way less prominent, L'Oud Marin instead focuses more into the ambers and oud, which itself is also less aggressive and a bit less photorealistically barnyardy. Early on there's a noticeable mineralic, almost salty note up close on skin, which after some time it changes to a pretty realistic seaweed note. These two notes aren't detectable in the air, however, you have to get your nose closer to the skin to really sense them. If I remember correctly there was some information about the second batch of this fragrance on Maksim's website that mentioned the marine aspect being amped up, so newer bottles/samples may have a much more prominent "ambergris" and seaweed notes. I like the way these marine notes combine with the ambery oud base in my sample, but I'm not sure if amping up the marine aspect could break the balance between these two facets. I have no way to make a side by side comparison between a new batch and my sample to verify this though, so for all I know it might be a fantastic change. Another big difference between Oud Indochine and L'Oud Marin is that the latter is much more subdued, yet it's still a very well performing fragrance. Oud Indochine is a beastly fragrance that hits people like a battering ram, L'Oud Marin on the other hand is more gentle while still being strong and notorious. This might be more preferable for a lot of people (myself included) since I think Oud Indochine can be excessively potent. To me L'Oud Marin, Bestia Sacra and Oud Indochine are Maksim's Holy Trinity, they're his best fragrances by some margin and the ones I recommend sampling the most, especially if you're an oud lover. As for the set as a whole I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. It was an expensive set, retailing at $140 for 10 samples, and in the end 4 out of the 10 fragrances smelled extremely similar to one another because of my skin chemistry (can't fault Maksim for that at all obviously), my Café Mystique sample simply didn't spray at all, and even after prying the atomizer off and using the sample as a dabber I didn't really like the scent, Chypre de Grand wasn't much to my liking, and Cologne d'Agar was alright. I'll be going through my Bortnikoff discovery set next, hopefully it won't be a similar experience.

Not oud. Chocolate. Seriously. What a weird little ugly duckling this thing is. How did this start? How did Bortnikov get to this? “I want to take an oud accord, make it smell like dark chocolate, and turn it into a marine perfume.” The man must be nuts. The opening of L’Oud Marin is packed with enough seaweed and algae to start its own underwater ecosystem. Watery, salty, vegetal, and musky. The seaweed and the algae sit like some very pungent sea salt over what I can only describe as a very deeply roasted cocoa note. A bit of refined leather, earthiness reminiscent of tonka, some sweet floral tones from beeswax, a touch of fruitiness, a deep aromatic woody facet, some vanilla at the base - these are makings for what is one of the most complex flavors and aromas known to man: chocolate. The animalic side of the perfume - that unwashed leathery beast in a barnyard type aroma - is pretty loud. This is about the only thing distracting my mind from calling this a full-on gourmand perfume. The styrax and burnt cypriol looms large at the base, making sure the animalic leather note is always forward and a blackened wood note at its backside. I am completely transfixed and fascinated by L’Oud Marin, but here I am, now, wearing it and I’m not convinced I would ever want to wear it again. It just might be a bit too much, a bit too out there, and its density and strength make it feel as though it’s on top of me. Full commendations and respect, but from a distance.

A pleasing powdery aquatic take on the oud scent, this is an enchanting natural composition. The scent has a brief opening with aquatic notes of seaweed, algae and laminaria. The heart has balsamic resins, papyrus and cacao. The perfume settles on a base of oud, vanilla, cedar, beeswax and ambergris. The unisex scent has moderate to strong projection and very good longevity. The perfume is happiness right from start to finish. Enjoy!

This is the most challenging of the current fragrances, but only in the opening. There is a strong smell of ocean or seaweed, perhaps from a combination of oud and ambergris. However, during the dry down it becomes lighter and brighter and turns into a wonderful (real) ambergris fragrance.

I hate for my first review of the house to be a negative one, but as others have also noted the similarities to Oud Indochine run a little too deep—while that same chocolatey, leathery, incensey oud is always delectable, to me the aquatic/marine aspects aren’t prominent enough given the name, and it seems nearly as if the saffron and cardamon from Indochine were merely traded in for algae/laminaria, with some extra woody aspects added as well... I’m afraid for me while the cocoa-beeswax-oud-leather-ambergris core is a timeless classic, here it proves redundant, and worse, beyond being unoriginal I believe it might objectively be considered the less pleasurable of the two. However please bear in mind, I am a little salty due to the lack of additional touches to things. I got three 9mLs with the costly delivery with the faint hope that a sample of a scent I hadn’t tried might be included, but alas, ‘twas in vain... and that’d be okay, but one other thing worth mentioning is that of all the 9/10mLs I’ve procured, these are the only ones I’ve had to give additional sanding to the bottoms of in order to get them to stand up straight. Lastly and most pettily, they ask you to submit your birthday when you subscribe saying they send a little something something, and my birthday just went by a month ago and a little something something I received not. Although I did bashfully add on “since I’m in the US, don’t worry about it!” I must admit I was hoping for something nonetheless. Nothing substantial, just a card—anything! Was this a rant? I normally don’t rant. Genuinely sorry to let off these vibes in public, but again, I have to say, “alas”... Ultimately, please don’t let these remarks be thought of as my view on the brand as a whole, as I look on some other scents quite favorably and know the young prodigy is still at the beginning of his journey, so I still have much faith in his progress to come. - H