Beauty and the Beast: Men Tien

Vision:

Transform EO No 3 into dark sultry rose (akin to Sultan Red Rose Attar) without the citrus/lemony sparkle.

Method:

Any perfumer will tell you that realizing this vision is a task far easier said than done.

For one, it meant deconstructing No 3 entirely and building it from the ground up to incorporate the structural changes before we even get to the major additions.

Some of the modifications include using a combination of rose damascena absolute and ruh gulab. The absolute to counter the lemony sweetness (and not using Ta’ifi, of course) with ruh gulab to help retain No 3’s diffusive piercing profile. 

In addition to No 3’s oudy base, a handsome addition of Tigerwood 1991 went on top, for its darker resinous oomph, plus a dose of agallocha to interact with the spices, amping them up while toning down any remnants of citrus.

One of the major challenges you’ll face is how to not lose No 3’s signature sweetness once you’ve tampered with the citrus pitch, which was a core feature of the fragrance. This was in part solved by incorporating castoreum and hyraceum, both beautiful sweet modifiers.

There’s a way to help to darken a quintessential rose-oud perfume and also remove frankincense without losing its resinous fixative property that’s probably occurred to you already…

Myrrh!

Red, resinous, but much less sweet than frankincense, with a more earthy tone that works surprisingly well with old Tigerwood oud – where else would you smell these two in action?

And now, the star: Men Tien. This is the caliber of oud that took years to source, months to distill, dodging border closures, political unrest, and the treacherous currents of the agarwood trade. This isn’t over-fermented scrapings or cloudy hand-scooped oils. This is the Red Dragon’s den; piercing, bitter-zesty, and soaked in red resin. This bespoke edition contains 5 grams of Men Tien.

Smell it next to Nha Trang or Royal Guallam and you’ll run straight into the same Indo-Chinese kinamic DNA. The kind of oud that doesn’t smell like anything locally distilled in Myanmar. It’s cleaner, sharper, and soaked in kyara verve. A tribute to my Sifus’ kyara heritage, and proof that kinam isn’t limited to Vietnam or sinensis.

Result:

EO3 turned into dark sultry rose… and then some. If you were searching for a bold rose-oud perfume fattened up with the most sought-after botanicals most perfumers don’t have access to, then get a whiff of this beastly beauty! EO3, reimagined in the shadow of the Red Dragon. And if you’ve smelled Men Tien before, you already know: this isn’t just perfume. It’s proof.