Monsieur Oud

Creating a cologne from oud oil isn’t just a challenge – it’s almost paradoxical. Colognes are crisp, fresh, and fleeting, while oud is deep, dark, and complex. The two seem like natural opposites… even at odds with each other. Yet, that contradiction is exactly what inspired Monsieur Oud.

Unlike synthetic perfumery, working with natural materials is an exercise in patience. Ingredients evolve, shift unpredictably, and refuse to be tamed. One slight miscalculation, and the entire composition must be redisgned or redone from scratch – sometimes requiring a year’s wait for the next harvest. But that unpredictability is what makes natural perfumery so exciting; so intoxicating.

My fascination with Walla Patta planted the seed for this creation. There’s just no other oud that matches its striking floral and aquatic nuances; and it’s potential as the core of an attar. This composition is so dependant and so rich in Sri Lankan oud that while working on the drafts, I had intended to call it “Nuit de Ceylan”. 

Fine Sri Lankan gyrinops naturally carry hints of frangipani, osmanthus, orange blossom, and mimosa – notes typically associated with bright, ethereal fragrances rather than the dense, resinous world of oud…

The idea stuck: What if these elements were drawn out and amplified? What if an oud could wear the skin of a cologne?

At the heart of Monsieur Oud is a triad of rare, highly coveted materials: Sri Lankan incense-grade oud, with its cool and meditative essence, and aged Kupang sandalwood, where the greenest, mintiest Walla Patta smolders the vintage santalum with an almost electric vibrancy, turning its natural creamy butteriness into a zesty, verdant zendo. This foundation is then pushed further by the raw intensity of wild agalocchas to inject a wild, primal edge.

The floral heart is equally unconventional. Some of the world’s rarest flowers converge – frangipani, French mimosa, our signature red champaca, and the most elusive motia, one so unique it registers more as animalic musk than traditional jasmine. To complement these natural wonders, Italian florals weave into the composition to adorn that zesty Walla-Agallochan-Santalum trio.

Bright, invigorating top notes further play on the oud vs. cologne contrast. Japanese bitter yuzu, Italian bergamot, Brazilian rosewood, Paraguayan guaiacwood, and silver fir balsam create a freshness that’s pure springtime. Spiced with pink pepper and a whisper of civet, these opening notes introduce the unexpected duality of Monsieur Oud – a fragrance that is simultaneously bright and shadowed; an oud cologne, sticky as the greasiest kinam resin. Flower-green upon resin-green upon Suriranka-green.

For years, I immersed myself in the scent of Suriranka Senkoh, wearing it obsessively, morning to night, losing myself in its intoxicating floral and aquatic embrace. That experience fueled my desire to craft something unprecedented – a scent that paid homage to Walla Patta’s aquatic majesty while redefining what oud could be in perfumery.

Monsieur Oud has been an endless evolution. It’s a fragrance that has undergone so many transformations, continuous refinement and experimentation. This has made it one of the most ambitious, most intricate, and most personally demanding composition I’ve ever undertaken. But is it finished? Perhaps not. Some creations defy completion, continuing to evolve just as the natural materials within them do. Take a whiff, in the hot and the cold, the dry and the wet, indoors and out, and smell what I’m talking about – Monsieur Oud evolves from one wear to the next, all while showing off that Silani cologne core – at 100% concentration!