Straight from Orient, perfume yourself with a suggestion of oudh fragrances

The oudh wood, also known as agarwood, is a rare and precious raw material, carefully preserved in the heart of the forests, located in Orient. Often associated nowadays with the Arabic beauty tradition, it’s still considered as a hidden ancient treasure. The production of this essence is only due to a handful bunch of fragrant dark resinous wood formed in the heartwood of aquilaria trees when they become infected with a type of mold (Phialophora parasitica).  Since ever, this sacred scent has been giving all its richness to many oriental fragrances, and also since recently, offered (each at its own level) to occidental conceived ones and forming the axis of their composition. For each of those creations, an invitation trip for a distant poetry, each encounter highlighting the sensual (and maybe aphrodisiac) virtues of this legendary oud wood. A natural essence also used in incense, perfumery, and small carvings, still considered as one of the secret ingredients of the olfactory industry, would spread its wake, from every step left by your body, hair and clothes. By Alexis Lery

We just evoked its name when the publication about L’Artisan Parfumeur went out… This time, you would have more time to get into the oriental artwork, Al Oudh created by the artist Bertrand Duchaufour, for this French perfumery House. Indeed, this master perfumer, deeply inspired by the magnetic power of transparent oriental woods, that he often infuses with spices and incense, repeats his talented signature within this new olfactory collaboration act, much spicier and more rounded than Pure Oud composed with By Kilian and more carnal than the Oud 27 which started this oudh series with Le Labo (photo credits: L’Artisan Parfumeur).

Have you ever been in bewitched by a potion that you would immediately fall in love with? As a fellow of the olfactory Trade Routes collection, developed by the British House Penhaligon’s, the Halfeti fragrance pursues a long inspiration, composed of a wide range of exotic and mostly oriental ingredients (photo credits: Penhaligon’s).

For this Halfeti juice, developed by another famous perfumer Christian Provenzano, Penhaligon’s traveled until Turkey, to find those finest black roses, especially growing in the turkish Halfeti town and thus offering to this oriental quintessence, an elegant dress, sign of an intense time spent under the Mediterranean Sun.

Focusing on another birthday adventure and secondarily regarding a different price range (mainly due to a higher concentration of this agarwood essential oil), we get into the trio of oudh perfumes proposed by the innovative Desert Gems collection developed by the Frédéric Malle perfumery, now a property of Estée Lauder (photo credits : Frédéric Malle). 

All were imagined by a different master perfumer. Starting from the last issue in 2019, The Moon. A sweet unisex oriental but floral fragrance created by Julien Rasquinet. A light oudh perfume flourishing thanks to fruity red berries, violets and roses.

A good initiation before a powerful oudh upswing through the promises of Dawn… A strong balsamic perfume, baptized in 2018, in tribute to the first gleams bringing the energy of a new day… A natural oudh fragrance created this time in conjunction with the master perfumer Carlos Benaïm, really inspired in his work by his childhood in Morocco. The result is an ode to the fired colors of dawn, when the light softly spreads early in the morning, announcing a steaming sun arising from the desert dunes… Fulfilling this scene, the real tawny oud wood touch is completed here by the unmistakable absolute Turkish rose partnership and some pink pepper. Furthermore, this olfactory burning is tempered with waves of vetiver, labdanum and incense for base notes. This explicit accord is a perfumery artwork that can last for long on your skin and clothes, an enduring lifespan for a certain cost like all the items of this oriental collection of Desert Gems… 

This inflamed potion is a full-fledged springboard before reaching the massive 20% concentration of oud wood filling The Night, by the perfumer Dominique Ropion. Thus, the outcome is an explosion of this natural and so precious agarwood, still fueled by Turkish rose and amber. A real animalic, but amazingly bewitching, impression evaporate in your wake, that could catch some attentions… Following those suggestions, don’t waste time to discover this selection of those oriental Desert Gems, protected in minimalist transparent bottles, whose names are translated in admirable Arabic letters. 

Before celebrating its 190th birthday in 2018, the legendary Guerlain House launched Santal Royal and Musc Noble, some members of the Absolus d’Orient themed family. With Oud Essentiel, the firm explores the major oriental sources of inspiration, highlighting this time the oudh virtues, also called the “Wood of the Gods“, this wooden flavor sinks in water and nowadays famous to provide a warm and subtle scent.

Consequently, this smooth and dry  accord reveals a glamorizing facet of this strong, sensual and sacred oudh scent.

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Pursuing our oriental adventure, we meet in a random medina some of the La Sultane de Saba scents, based on ancestral rituals, traditionally acclaimed by women, mostly in Middle East. Those technics were luckily transmitted from generation to generation, from mother to daughter. Imagined by the French designer Vanessa Sitbon who wished to transmit her beauty secrets, coming from the hammam customs, to which her family had a certain cult, notably in their historical cradle, located in Fez, Morocco (photo credits: La Sultane de Saba).

Also focused on Art, since its creation under the sunshine of the French Riviera in 1996, the Provence player Micallef hasn’t stopped to explore the international universe of luxury perfumes with a deep consciousness regarding its efforts in craftmanship. Located in an Atelier Boutique inaugurated in the old center of Grasse, the famous French “world capital” of perfumery. To date, the Micallef own perfumes are distributed in 75 countries, in about 900 perfumery boutiques and concept stores, all around the World. As a real oudh enthusiast, the founder Martine Micallef, associated with Geoffrey Nejman, paid many efforts to bring the best quality of this oriental essence to her own creations (of both the bottles’ design and fragrances), available in an olfactive experience situated in a perfume bar in the corner of her Mediterranean store (photo credits: Micallef).

The master perfumers tend to find their inspirations through travels, also along the Provence surrounding nature. That’s why you may find in their 5 agarwood based perfumes series (named Passion, Gourmet, Délice, Spiritual, and Sensual) again a cultural mix of Occidental and middle Eastern scents. This warm atmosphere has been illustrated in the Secrets of Love collection, presented in specific bottles evoking love cages and adorned with openwork metal. Thus, as owners of their own ceramic furnace, the artisans of the workshop process all bottles in the home workshop in Grasse, at an estimated temperature of 550°C. Thereafter, in the same place, a team of imaginative artists realizes the scenery of each bottle within the dedicated room. This image would surely takes you to the heart of a fantasized Orient, filled with charming and mysterious fragrances.

 

On top of that, you have to remember that in each of the Micallef compositions, it may contain up to 200 ingredients which, before forming a partition with perfect chords, has to follow the requirements of a complex ritual, meticulously orchestrated and requiring several months or even years of work, in the case of the more precious fragrances of the House. 

 

Thanks to those olfactory tales, the totally six opuses of this unisex collection, designed like jewels, praise the nobility of opulent raw materials and celebrate the alchemy between creative passion and craftsmanship.  Among them, you may eventually be enveloped and comforted by the fruity notes of caramel, orange and cinnamon of the Passion item (with a quite similar spirit to the Halfeti of Penhaligon’s, unless the Turkish rose inside), either by the greedy sensations provided by the Gourmet flask, and its chestnut, violet and raspberry prevailing scents… 

 

Moreover, in this Secrets of Love collection, you may discover the peppery composition of the Délice artwork, fresher than the two first units, thanks to its natural vanilla, the centifolia roses, the rose berries (like The Moon by Frédéric Malle), and completed by the nutmeg and (maybe red hot) chilli pepper as head notes. In an other hand, the local fine divine smell of jasmine at dawn needs to be found in the other Sensual and Spiritual perfumes, still along vanilla. 75ml for a selling price of 185€.

 

More information on the official website, 

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