Qi Nan

Kyara. Kinam. 

When it comes to the world’s most expensive aromatic, all sorts of romantic imagery pop into people’s minds when the word gets mentioned.

Scenes of silence. Garbed monks sitting for the maestro’s procession. Kodo leaders tenderly preparing a stash of ash for half an hour to bliss out on a fleeting whiff of the agarwood world’s undisputed champion: Qi Nan.

As for me? I think of the China boss who chain-smokes, convinced he’ll die if he stops. Of another boss whose teeth are stained red from chewing betel nut non-stop – the one who now extends a handful whenever we visit him. (One nut’s got the kick of six coffees, they say.)

Yes, my kyara Sifus and the monks they train with come to mind as well. The kodo sessions, too. But more than that, I think about our Taiwanese wizard’s Schott Duran bottle filled with bits of kinam he’s about to dunk into my cup of tea – and Kruger’s coffee.

Not men in suits or women in gowns, but the biggest agarwood kingpin I know sitting in his shorts shaving off a sliver from a piece of oud he refused to sell for $800,000. Oud tycoons so obsessed by this peerless olfactory wonder they give their lives to it.

So, when I hear “kinam”, I see pictures painted with passion; hardened old-timers who lost fingers to get their hands on some.

When you’re barely able to capture the scent of kinam in oil form at all, how’d you imagine you’d capture the lingering cool flush that jets through your nasals after a spritz of perfume?

You can do it with tuberose or rose – add those in good amounts and their scents will shine through. Even pure oud is doable… and has been done.

But to experience that kinamic prickle your taste buds taste as you inhale a whiff of kinam? – that’s a different story.

Medicinal, bitter, replete with the piercing opening and thick body at once sharp and dense, fat with kyara’s resinous bite.

Built on the same distillation blueprint used to create Kyara LTD, Qi Nan was composed using wild artisanal oud distillations from the Vietnam/China border and Cambodia. In turn, these ouds have been individually steeped in our Royal Tonkin musk.

You may read that as if it’s been done before. Tonkin musk pods macerated inside Vintage Chinese, Vietnamese, or Cambodian oud itself? To then hand them over to you in a spray perfume…

That’s not all. Each bottle of Qi Nan also contains half a gram of the exact Hainanese kyara skins that went into distilling Kyara LTD – right inside your bottle. If you know anything about tincturing, you’d know the effect this has – and that the skins would sell for $300 per gram.

You can do a soliflore and stick with the ouds only – tincture Kyara LTD and you’re done.

But crafting a proper perfume is different from presenting stand-alone aromatics. There’s the smell – the notes and the ingredients. But then there’s also the theme. How these notes unfold, what they try to capture, and how the scent is its own rendition of the experience.

Qi Nan mirrors Notes From Underground’s structure, so the fusion of musk-infused ouds makes up a full third of the compound. The effect of old Tonkin musk on any ingredient is incredible. But imbuing agarwood with the now-extinct musk’s tenacious zest not only adds to the aromatic profile of each oud – the steeped musk pods also directly enhance their diffusive qualities. Then, to also mirror NFU’s potent projection, a cast of diffusive aromatics support the oud, including emerald cypress, rosemary, juniper berry, ylang ylang, pure blue lotus, and the rich sweet of beeswax.

Courtesy of decades-old Tonkin infusions that act like nitros to boost the lift of the fragrance, your first spray will hit you with a piercing splash of green incense; oudy, with a soft bitter punch backing up a semi-sweet chord that lets you smell blue-lotus’ creaminess but in powdery form, with a dab of clove and pepper behind it, all layered around its Kyara LTD core.

In addition to the Tonkin musk infusions, the entire carrier is made of very, very old grey and black ambergris from Sultan Qaboos’ treasury. This means that Qi Nan is lush with exalting fixatives nobody even uses today to create a fragrance that smells of another time. Plus, if you know good ambergris, you’d recognize the powdery crushed-seashells effect it adds to the kinamic powdery glaze that covers Qi Nan’s profile.

A perfumer only gets one shot at debuting a kyara perfume. This is the EO Edition. And we’re fortunate to offer you this edition in Habib Dingle’s signature full-grain Italian calf-hide pouch… olive green, to match the green oud incense betel nut cocktail you’re about to douse yourself with!

Top Notes:
Betel Vine, Cardamom
Emerald Cypress, Apple
Sichuan Pepper

Heart Notes:
Beeswax, Rosemary
Juniper Berry, Ylang Ylang
Blue Lotus

Base Notes:
Cambodian Oud + Tonkin musk infusion
Vietnamese/Chinese Oud + Tonkin musk infusion
Sultan Qaboos’ Grey & Black Ambergris

Additions:
Hainan Kyara Skins

*Qi Nan contains insanely rare ingredients and is not a perfume you can easily reformulate, even if you wanted to. That’s why this edition will not be made again and will not be available once this batch sells out.

Featured Testimonials…

This scent boosts you into full zen mode

 

Beautiful green wafts with a menthol like freshness meet ambergris and kinamic ouds.

 

Performance and longevity of this perfume is outstanding. I’ve applied two tiny sprays on my collar last night and I woke up smelling this beautiful green oud smell.

 

The leather case is epic as usual, and I hope that we will see some more leather releases in the near future again (maybe for oudfest )

 

This is one of the perfumes that I’ll safe for special occasions since it’s so extraordinaire and calming down. Great composition!

 

UPDATE:

 

A kinamic dream for every perfume enthusiast. It’s not just a perfume it’s an experience…

 

Qi Nan is very round, smooth, definetly over the top and not a your typical oud based perfume. No edges, no overtaking notes and everything seems to work perfectly together in this dark green juice.

 

The performance is crazy, it’s starts with a huge blast of green incense and it slowly transforms into a more and more medicinal-bitter-sweet kinamic oud smell without loosing the green aspects completely.

 

The musk overdose in this perfume turns it into a nuclear scent, it’ll last on your skin until you wash it off.

 

One of my favourite things about Qi Nan is the menthol note. I don’t know if it’s the ambergris or a mix of different aromatics that’s causing this refreshing note but it’s absolutely stunning.

—Chris A / Germany

The ultimate zen juice ideal for spiritual occasions, it clears your mind.

—Kamran K. / UAE

It’s very deep. It’s a very dense green profile. This just buzzes your brain. It’s a very attention grabbing perfume. It has a little bit of bitterness to it with a menthol edge to it where it just opens your senses. This is just about the bitter woods and mintiness. This stuff is insane. You can feel it more than you smell it … It’s almost transportive with just how cooling this scent is. You breath in and it’s cooling. The musk is in the supportive role here. I’m really, really enjoying it. I’m very happy I made the impulse buy with it. 

—Ryan S. / USA

In my perfume collection in 2021, I ranked this No.1.

—C.F. / China

Note from a Customer

Qi Nan is really special👌🏽.

—Saven S. / Germany

How is this stuff not illegal? Or at least heavily regulated? I don’t need to give you twelve words, three letters are enough – WOW!

Frozen in time as you gaze at people from all walks of life saunter or scurry along, you lift up your cup to your mouth. A wondrously large cloud of coffee steam engulfs your nose. Perhaps if you too were walking through the street with your cup in hand, you would only get hints of it, but instead, you are enveloped by this rush of refined energy. What’s more, there is a camphorous buzz from the Cardamom infused in your coffee, reminding you that you’re somewhere between East and West. More than just Cardamom pods, you feel Tibetan Musk pods providing an extra animalic caffeinated kick to your cup. There is a slight shimmery white feel, maybe Mastic or Ambergris accompanying the blend.

But for those in need of more, let me tell you… Some fragrances you might like the smell of. Others might evoke emotions. Then there’s a category that makes you talk to yourself not knowing what just hit you! I was kind of losing hope and thinking that oud just wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m more drawn to musk heavy scents. But Qi Nan has at least added a question mark to the end of that sentence and made me wish that Kinam was actually IN my cup of tea.

I’ve developed a routine. Before I try new fragrances I take a thorough shower. All clean and neutralized I put the scent on the top of my hand, wrist, neck and some on the uppermost buttonhole area of my collar or an equivalent piece of fabric. This time was not supposed to be any different. A small dab on the top of my right hand. Then for some reason I went straight for the collar and woops… One wrong move and basically the whole sample vial was absorbed into this tiny area of cloth… Luckily I was not wearing white! I had to go out to take care of some errands. Hand to nostril. Started with a sweet sugary almost Coca Cola kind of smell strangely enough reminding me of Private Blend. Progressing into a candyness à la Purple Kinam, the perfume. Are there wafts resembling the luxurious citrusy wood profile from the opening of the Tonkin Musk perfume? Herbal. Medicinal. MINT! That tasty children’s toothpaste. Or is that just a Swedish thing? Swedish Jenka chewing gum too. I don’t even know… And it is NOT even about what it SMELLS like…

What is in this stuff?

One deep breath from my infused collar and my nose has numbed, my spine is shivering and my mouth is filled with the TASTE of it!

I am craving more and my head is getting lighter… I won’t lie, I really enjoy it, maybe even a bit too much. I mean, I’ve literally taken off my shirt and I’m diving my head into it with empty lungs, taking deep inhales till I physically can’t get any more air in… Hope nobody’s watching…

Joy mixed with fear… Have I just discovered another rabbit hole to go down? As a Muslim I don’t celebrate any new years, not even the Hijri one… But I think I accidentally just took a sip of the EO champagne. Asking myself – IS THIS HIGH EVEN HALAL?

—Dominic D. / Sweden

While I wait for my Qi Nan Attar, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the PP that I was lucky to be gifted by a very generous friend. For me, this is a clean and fresh scent perfect for early Fall or Spring when the temperature is in the 60sº F after rainfall.

The opening has a sharp menthol vibe that mellows out over time to reveal a woody agarwood core that gently purrs along without overpowering the other facets of this PP. The menthol note is similar to what I get from certain high-end EO Borneo oils such as Brunei Kynam. Aside from the oudy core reminscent of agarwood burning on slow heat, there is a general feeling of cool green herbs in the background. I also get whiffs of incense here and there.

I would wear this in the setting mentioned above or during a session of spiritual seclusion. Simply put, this is a very “zen” scent that fans of EO owe themselves to try out. I’m really excited to find out how it compares to the attar version.

—Sameer K. / USA

One of my personal top-buys this year.

—Bruno L. / Austria

A new legend on stage: Sweet bitter menthol and a fresh breeze with warm amber waves from the multi-faceted Kinam Ocean. Medicine for the soul! Infinity!

Green…blue…later a little bit red. Like a Supernova in the colorful galaxy of scents! And time stands still again!

—Evren / Germany

Second Review: “After a long and stressful day at work, Qi Nan is the perfect fix for the busy mind and soul, very calming and soothing.

The attar smells very close to the perfume but a bit less sparkly, and not as beastly in projection obviously, but still a great attar to have around, pretty much a pocket-size Qi Nan that you could dap a bit on the back of the ears, or on temples.

This should be on your number 1 priority list, over everything else from EO. You know how all the semi-bespoke and oudfest special editions had Kinam Oud oils added to them as the enhancer and booster? But they are still based off of one form of composition or another (be it using Iris Ghalia, EO1/2/3 or whatever) as the backbone? Well, Qi Nan IS the enhancer all on its own. Qi Nan would be something you wish to add to other compositions to enhance their core profile. 😎 This is essentially a Kinam in sprayable form brother. Having a bottle of this is equivalent to having 30ml of Kinam, half a spritz to 1 spray and you’re good to go.”

Ben W.  • USA