Yes, I fully admit it -- I've been on an oud kick lately, but that may reflect more the quality of the oud fragrances now becoming available to the Western consumer than any kind of innate desire to plunge my nose into smoky, wood-grained goodness.
Christopher Voigt sums it up nicely when he writes at his blog, Vetivresse: "Of late my love affair with oud has taken a new turn. Or, let me rephrase: My love affair with oud's influence on a select set of Western perfumers -- including Christopher Chong's latest incarnation of Amouage -- has just kicked into warp."
And maybe that's a better way of phrasing it: "oud's influence on a select set of Western perfumers." Well, I received a sample this past weekend of independent perfumer Liz Zorn's all-natural take on the oud genre, Oudh Lacquer, and it has to be said, at least for me, that Zorn has joined this particular select set of Western perfumers that are busily stoking my desire for all things oud.
Despite that I was just receiving a small sample in the mail, her presentation was, as always, impeccable. Ms. Zorn clearly understands the importance of the first impression:
I immediately dove into the Oudh Lacquer sample with all the gusto of a formerly misdiagnosed diabetic set loose at a pastry convention -- and once you experience Oudh Lacquer for yourself, you'll understand how "oud" and "pastry convention" can comfortably reside in the same sentence.
Zorn mentions on her blog that she waited a year before she felt relaxed and ready enough to release Oudh Lacquer onto the market, which probably gave her plenty of time to live with the formula, tweak it, ponder it and then finally decide the baby was ready to fly.
There's a sumptuous quality to Oudh Lacquer, and while I rarely use the word "sumptuous" to describe anything, it spontaneously cropped up in my brain in response to the way the scent gets my thought pistons firing and response gears grinding to the tune of all my favorite things: wood, smoke, leather, honey, a smooth whiff of polished florals . . . and chocolate? Yes, chocolate -- a really fine, dark, bittersweet cocoa with a hello as sure as silk and an appealingly raspy afterglow that comes trailing behind.
Okay, so -- what does any of that even mean? Here's what it means: 1.) take a toasted oak barrel, fill it with champaca flowers, orange blossoms, cinnamon bark, patchouli leaves, clove spice, tupelo honey, genuine agarwood oils and the best Belgian cocoa money can buy; 2.) shellac the florals in the honey and soak the patchouli leaves in the agarwood oil, stir until thick; 3.) slather the thickened mix in a paste of cinnamon and clove spices, powder with a liberal dusting of dark, bittersweet cocoa, then seal in a cast iron pot and simmer over low embers all night until the first light of daybreak -- voila!
Oudh Lacquer.
But you know, even that doesn't seem to do it justice because I've only had such a short "getting to know you" period with this particular piece. A couple of days just doesn't seem enough to get at the truth of a fragrance anymore -- I mean, we've developed a glancing acquaintance and all that, but I'm ordering a bottle tonight and will report back in a few weeks after I've had the opportunity to take it out to dinner, watch some movies, go shopping together, drink a couple of bottles of great wine and maybe watch a few sunsets, sharing a bench on the rooftop deck.
But perhaps it says enough right there that I'm already contemplating a future with a fragrance I only just met.
***Note: Oudh Lacquer lasts all freakin' day! It's over ten hours after application and it's still going strong. Which is a terrific thing, because the best part of it is its sweet incense smoke + deep cocoa drydown.
Ms. Zorn creates some of the more interesting fragrances you'll never find in a department store, but you can find Oudh Lacquer online: Oudh Lacquer
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