Aoud Blossom

My experience with this perfume is very ridiculous. I bought a sample of this about two months ago. I hated it then, I even had to wash it off. Then yesterday I needed a small sprayer bottle, so I decided to empty this and get rid of it. Just to be sure, I sprayed this on my wrist before proceeding to dispose of it. But after few minutes I started to really like this fragrance! After I destroyed it. I looked it up on the same website I got it and they didnt have the samples anymore, just absolute last two bottles that I could find on the whole market here. I couldnt sleep and after tossing for hours, I ordered one. This morning I woke up, regretted my purchase and cancelled my order, before it could be processed. The smell was still on my wrist after washing it and the whole (short) night. I just didnt like it as much as at night and didnt want to spend this money. Am I sane? Not sure. So, I dont really have an experience with the smell of oud, but I guess this is it. It reminded me of something that I know, and I concluded that I experienced this smell in Bali. There are surely better oud fragrances. This review is totally not helpful, but see, this is a very strange and polarizing fragrance :D

The opening is definitely a loud white floral, but also sticky and syrupy. It has a honeyed quality, which reminds me of Jil Sander No.4. There is a LOT of ylang, but it doesn't become too sharp or piercing on me (which is usually the case with ylang on my skin). The tuberose is very noticeable, but not buttery. The drydown definitely has an oriental feel, with lots of sandalwood. In fact, most of the discernible floral notes have diminished on my skin in the drydown, and the base becomes quite woody. I can certainly appreciate the scent, in fact I find it quite loveable, but because I don't feel comfortable wearing big white sweet florals myself, so even with the woody drydown, it's not right for me.

Industrial strength pink floral. I get absolutely no oud at all, just an intense blast of neon sizzling flowers at beginning, middle, and finish. I hate it!

Pierre Montale doesn't make 'safe scents'. Okay, he kinda does, but these kinda 'safe' scents are safe insofar as they are HARD to hate, but even harder to love. So many of them have so much overlap with the other 'Aoud' scents, that you might feel that a few (read: MOST) of them could've been left on the design room floor. Nonetheless, whilst we all know that this scent was going to be dark, brooding, and yet sweet-uplifting, this one unfortunately suffers from it being far too likeable. I mean, in an already-overcrowded marketplace, you need to appeal to SO many different different kinds of consumer demands, you also need to carve out your own niche, otherwise you run the risk of being forgotten, mistaken, or at worst, passed over. This one rehashes SOOO many safe, acceptable and already DEEMED FIT tropes, it is actually a waste of a wear, if you will. I'd almost prefer to have worn another scent. Even one that stunk, reeked and utterly ponged. A dark, woody-resinous 'oud' (as FUCKIN' if -- Montale is big enough to have a parking bay where tanker trucks can reverse-park in that "Agar Blend" or "Black Agar"!!!), an overdose of pretty florals and delicate sandalwood base. Sorry, but YAWN. If this was 1453 and you came up with this scent, wonderful, good for you, go with it. Not only has this scent trope been done before, Montale has done this before. To death. To quote your favourite PM -- it's dead, buried and cremated. With all that said, this is not a bad scent at all. It's effectively a flanker of one of the numerous Montale flankers already out there. It's like a Korn song, really. Anyway, I generally like Montale scents, rarely do I love them, though...

Montale AOUD BLOSSOM is first and foremost a big fat floral fragrance. I was having difficulty figuring out which precise flowers were represented, and small wonder since all of them are! Well, that may be a slight exaggeration. The named flowers here include jasmine, rose, tuberose, violet, and ylang. What about the other "floral notes" note? Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect that narcissus is present. Taken together, the whole bouquet is quite strong, and some may find it overwhelming, especially since the petals are coated with a very potent resin, gurjum, which, in addition to having its own distinctive and penetrating scent, seems to make the flowers last forever--or until a bath. Is there oud in this composition? I've no doubt that there is--this is Montale, after all!--but it is hidden behind all of the flowers and gurjum to the point where I feel that this perfume has been misnamed. It should really be called GURJUM BLOSSOM. To my nose, this is a very feminine floral perfume with a classical feeling. The ylang seems to be the strongest of the many strong florals vying for attention in this creation. This is a heady mix, no matter how lightly it is applied. The florals do subside eventually, leaving behind a persistent (or is it durable????) gurjum layer.