God bless Bertrand Duchaufour for finally making a fragrance that I like. I've been whimpering out in the cold these past 21 months, scratching at the door of the Duchaufour Appreciation Club to no avail, but with the introduction of Al Oudh for L'Artisan Parfumeur, I'm no longer the wretched Duchie outcast I once was -- I can now proudly present my own personal key to the big Bertie City and fall to the ground in a long overdue fit of writhing, cultish ecstasy as the great perfumed gates swing open wide.
Or something like that.
Al Oudh is Mr. Duchaufour's horse in the trendy oud-fragrance derby. It seems like every niche brand is scrambling to produce its own variation on the oud genre, and when I first heard that Duchaufour was getting in on the act over at L'Artisan (where he's now the resident in-house perfumer), I experienced 50% high hopes and 50% dread -- high hopes for a masterfully produced oud fragrance, and dread that it was going to be yet another Duchaufour that I just didn't "get".
But with its arid cumin intro, warm rose and patchouli heart (lightly sweetened), and drop-your-jaw oud-smoke finish (i.e. the smell of aromatic wood chips burning in a brazier), Al Oudh is an expertly blended scent that's a showcase for the Duchaufour touch, his trademark restraint resulting in an oud that's rich and full without running you over or knocking you flat.
And with its list of scent notes, I was fully expecting Al Oudh to run me over or knock me flat. Or both! Cumin, cardamom, pink pepper, date, rose, neroli, incense, saffron, leather accord, oud, Atlas cedar, castoreum, civet, sandalwood, patchouli, myrrh, vanilla and tonka bean . . . I had 911 ready on speed-dial as I pumped the first spray from the bottle.
There's a healthy dash of spices in the getting-to-know-you phase of Al Oudh, especially cumin and saffron -- cumin is native to Syria, which makes it a logical choice as a lead-off to an Arabian oud, while saffron's aroma is described as "reminiscent of metallic honey with grassy or hay-like notes". Spicy cumin is traditionally used in cooking to draw out the sweetness in a dish, and it's the sweetness of roses, dates and vanilla that the cumin coaxes to life at the heart of Al Oudh, mingling with the grassy-honied saffron, dry leather accord and fuzzy-wuzzy musks (castoreum and civet) before sliding down the scale into a base of woods (oud, cedar, sandalwood and patchouli), myrrh and the golden, carmelized tonka bean that appears to be the new go-to ingredient for the niche fragrance base.
In her explication of Al Oudh, fragrance and culture analyst Denyse Beaulieu writes: "Yet for all its feral aromas, Al Oudh manages to be both distinctly recognizable as an oud . . . and sufficiently subtle for Western noses . . . if you love to roll around in animalic leather and spices, if a hint of pong sends a thrill through your spine, my how you'll love Bertrand Duchaufour's neo-oriental gem."
She also mentions that Al Oudh elicited a surprisingly enthusiastic reception during her recent perfume seminar at the London College of Fashion: "The two men of the course, a Thai and a Frenchman, both said they'd get it for themselves; three young women, two Chinese and one Vietnamese, said they'd get it for their boyfriends . . . and there we were, thinking the Asian market was all about fruity florals! They got positively frisky about the dirty notes."
And the indefatigable Robin at Now Smell This writes: "Al Oudh is a bold, very enjoyable outing. The opening is a highly spiced citrus, only slightly medicinal . . . That's followed by a mellow, rather soft rose laid over a lively and rather skanky blend of oud and animalic notes, lightly sweetened with vanillic notes and with faint undertones of stewed dried fruits."
Personally, I don't find Al Oudh particularly skanky or feral -- but I appear to enjoy cumin as a spice note more than the average sniffer. It doesn't smell sweaty or dirty to my nose, but instead, comes across as full, deep and exotic. And since genuine animal musks are rarely used in contemporary perfumery, especially in perfumery created for the Western market, the civet and castoreum notes in Al Oudh aren't overly funky -- so I encounter a sublimated threat of darkness and flesh, but not the real deal.
And really, how funky and skanky can a fragrance be when it's frosted with a decidedly sweet and luscious vanilla, not to mention all gussied up in the balsamic tones of tonka bean? But, and admittedly, there have been several studies regarding the superior sniffing abilities of females vs. males (just ask Avery Gilbert), so while I'm assuming that I'm striding through the lobby of my neighborhood bank in a warm, pleasing whirligig of leathery spices, sugared dates and incense smoke, I might actually be felling all poor, innocent females in the vicinity with my hot solar flares of Al Oudh funk.
Go figure.
The bottle is a special edition for L'Artisan, decorated with an Arabian motif and featuring metallic gold lettering, topped by a gleaming heptagon cap etched with a heraldic crest -- a new direction for L'Artisan for a wide release, but one which immediately signals Al Oudh as a breed apart since this particular bottle style has been previously used only for the L'Artisan special harvest series.
The longevity of Al Oudh is terrific, and this is where the EDP formulation shines -- eight to ten hours after application, and it's still clinging tenaciously to my skin, with a sillage that's not monstrous but certainly noticeable. For example: when I picked up the mail at the concierge desk in our downstairs lobby this evening, the desk guy said, "What's that cologne you're wearing? I really like it -- it's different!" . . . and there was a large desk between us, so the Al Oudh was making its presence known while not gassing out the entire lobby space in the process.
But my favorite experience while wearing Al Oudh was what I call "the epiphany on the treadmill" -- after a full day of Al Oudh, and long after I thought it had retired for the evening, I climbed aboard the treadmill at the gym and started huffing and puffing my way through an hour (okay, okay -- forty-five minutes!) of cardiovascular trauma. After thirty minutes, with my body temperature rising and heart-rate racing, I was hit with a glorious face-full of pure oud smoke, unlike anything I've smelled from any other fragrance house: charred wood and a sweetly resinous smoke.
I'd read from numerous sources how the agarwood tree is not only harvested for its oils to be used in perfumery, but the wood is also burned as an incense. I've always wondered how it smelled as burned wood -- well, the finish-line of Al Oudh, jump-started with the body heat from excercise, gave me exactly that.
With such a delicate and beautifully smoky note tucked away at the tail end of Al Oudh, apparently activated by an elevated body temperature (because I only smell this particular rendition during strenuous activity), I'm thinking that it has the potential to be one hell of a high-summer fragrance, skanky cumin and all.
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