Ouddicts Anonymous

Ouddicts Anonymous is more than a perfume. It’s a eulogy. An homage to the vanishing generation of oud pioneers; the men whose hands ground sinking-resin before you and I tried to pronounce that new word we had just learned: “oud”.

They are the shadows behind the oud. Men who worked incognito, away from forums and fanfare. By the most of us found out about oud, these legends coaxed liquid gold from blackened gaharu. A reminder that even as the old guard departs, their spirit remains – etched forever in precious resin and EO Vials.

When I told Mr Zhao about the sadness, that everyone seems to be moving on or beyond, he shook his head and said, “Gaharu has a big problem.”

These are pre-internet men. Hardened ex-ruby hunters, many of them. Their heritage doesn’t live on in IG posts or YT reels. Their secrets are passed down behind the curtain, behind the small screens, through praxis. I learned about condensers, foreshots, and feints, and books’ worth of know-how from them by watching, asking – prying. And doing. Over and over.

They are the OGs. They are Ensar Oud. They are agarwood. They are the ouds you love. They are Ouddicts Anonymous – the true ouddicts.

This frag goes out to them, and to you. To everybody who has smelled what can’t be unsmelled. Who has crossed the line.

It starts with as a storm; an olfactory typhoon. Tin roofs crashing, betel spit, the smell of wet tobacco curling through alleyways. You could smell it before you saw it. An incense ceremony. A hurricane in Sri Lanka. The trail of OUD. 

TOP: NO CHIT CHAT

Right from the first spritz, there’s no friendly banter. Clove and figs smashed into black pepper paste that’s sharp and sensual. Galbanum entangled in oud smoke. A touch of lavender, not to be smelled but for its effect, as if trying to tame the brew. Because this isn’t a spa fragrance…

HEART: EYE OF THE STORM

Tobacco in three forms, all tasty, like a cigar lit up inside the distillery where the hot air oozes the scent of oud. Tonka creamy roast with flavor-packed tang. Champaca blooms, but isn’t meant to be “pretty” – it adds a white floral halo while Cambodian crassnas and Maroke filarias coupled with that betel zest fuel the profile.

BASE: VIOLET NARCOTIQUE

Super fine Cambodian and Maroke ouds give you notes of fruit – but with incense sticks sticking out of them – currants and blackberries, sour and slick. There’s a touch of herbaceous green, but it’s oud-laced tannic… mate, vetiver, betel vine chewed down to the stem. A trio of blue lotus, nagarmotha, and violet leaf that’s floral only in theory…

Ouddicts A. isn’t for novice noses. It smells like distillers who worked through hurricanes. Like hunters and collectors who struggled for years to finally get their hands on a piece of kinam. Like a hurricane tore through their city. It’s not for the curious. It’s for the obsessed. The ones who know what oud means – and can’t get enough!

If you’re reading this, you already know. You’ve already taken one swipe too many… and wouldn’t want it any other way. Because you, too, are an Ouddict.