Oud Ultime

#918 in my "Tour de Fragrance" Absolutely no oud in this. Saint Hilare misnamed this four years ago and I just don't get why they haven't fixed that. It really hurts their ratings for what is otherwise their best scent. This is a super nice leather scent with that barbershop shave cream quality of Encre Noire. It's been a minute since I had Guilty Absolute on hand and I can't remember what it smelled like, so the voters may be right about the resemblance. Car pool, elevator and small office safe. Exceptional performance, 6 hours sillage, 8 hours and still going strong as a skin scent. At this price you don't expect that. I love it. Very happy with this blind buy! I'm ordering backup bottles!

There is no lack of leather in my bottle. The leather is absolutely present and strong. @JusttheFactsMan has it right when he says Oud Ultime has a barbershop shaving cream quality to it. I need to smell this against Gucci Guilty Absolute, which I'm sure is outstanding. But for £10 I try to keep my expectations realistic, and in my bottle I definitely get the leather, coupled with the barbershop shaving cream. It may not be the quality of the original, but it's a really nice scent and it's cheap enough to respray as and when needed.

More than oud, what I smell is a surprisingly good replica of Alberto Morilla's Gucci Guilty Absolute. Maybe some reminiscence of Fahrenheit, too. Longevity and sillage is, of course, weaker than the original from Gucci but, for the price, it may be worth to have and spray with no remorse.

Well. Imagine Gucci Guilty Absolute, but without the leather. What you've got, dilute it to an extreme level in your imagination. That's Oud Ultime. The scent's not bad, by the way. There's that pleasant cypress-vetyver-patchouli blend that's so pleasant in GGA. But without leather...?? That's very bad even to a joke! Since one of the (if not the) most important note in GGA is leather, I have to say that Oud Ultime has NOTHING TO DO to GGA. Oh, and of course zero "horse odor", which is also very important in GGA. For all these reasons, I would definitely say that if you are looking for a GGA dupe, DO NOT LOOK FOR IT HERE. All you'll get here is a nice and elegant, but very weak cypress scent. By the way, if the scent was potent and had at least the strength of an average Arabian perfume, I would love it! But as it is, it's one of my worst blind buys, which is the last thing I expected from Saint Hilaire(!) (I have two stuff from Saint Hilaire, both are very fine and potent.) Scent: 7.5 Longevity: 1 hours on skin, 2-3 hours on fabric Projecting & Sillage: very low I almost forgot: the sprayer was flowing heavily. ALL of that is a shame for Saint Hilaire.

Found this in Tkmaxx for 15 pounds. Initially thought can't go wrong with a cheap oud scent...but there's no oud in this. Weak performance.