Amber Oud

This review is for the oil version which was made for the Middle Eastern market. Sultry, smouldering, woody, smoky, sweet and utterly beautiful! I cannot believe this is Body Shop! That smouldering oud note is there throughout the whole journey from start to finish, and what a journey!! I put this on at bedtime last night and was aware of its beautiful aroma all through the night. It remindes me of a crackling fire in Autumn, that smoky note is just gorgeous. If you love Lutens Ambre Sultan, as I do, then you will love this. This is as masculine as it is feminine, a bold, spicy, dark and mysterious perfume which lasts on the skin forever. With the oil, there is no projection, but having said all of that, I keep getting amazing wafts of this all the time. Gorgeous!!!

A blind buy, but I'm glad I did, because it is one of my favourite perfumes ever, especially for layering. It opens fairly sweet with the woody notes combined with the rose, which is very noticeable within five minutes of spraying. After that, it becomes a wonderful, smokey, spicy fragrance that is indeed as unisex as can be. I've layered this with La Rive Pearl (presumably a dupe of Boss Jour pour femme), which was a great success. I was lucky to buy this for sale years back, and have been looking for a replacement ever since. If anyone knows of a suitable dupe/similar perfume, or has a bottle for sale/swap, please let me know!

the shower gel & body lotion in this range were very nice indeed and I would like to be able to buy them again. they made a nice base for a variety of different scents.

The Body Shop Amber Oud is a fairly simple fragrance. Just as its names indicates, it first starts as an oud note fairly common in today's western interpretations: mostly woody with a hint of sweet berry nuance of rose, and just a tiny bit of animalic suggestion. This oud then turns somewhat nutty and becomes a supporting role to a powdery amber and sweet myrrh. The fragrance then remains as such until it dissappears after about 8 hours, with occasional whiffs of oud's inkiness and muskiness stirring within the soft amber skin scent after the initial moderate sillage. Compared to a few high-end western oud fragrances, this The Body Shop offering does feel lacking in nuance and slightly sharper at certain moments. But at the same time, it's far from being as obnoxious and arid as other expensive "oud" fragrances that rely on a stronger olfactory profile of aggressive woody amber aromachemicals. For its price point, it perfectly fullfills its purpose of providing just a small taste of the oud note and being easy to appreciate, nothing more, nothing less.

I have this and it doesn't really impress upon application or throughout its wearing. Glad I only purchased a decant, very generic smelling. I have to admit that oud may not be my note of choice I have yet to smell a beautiful fragrance where oud is the base or main note.