The Oud Man and the Sea

My surname is Oud. My life is Oud. And this fragrance is my tribute to the oud journey you and I have been on – and to the genre of Oud Perfumery itself.

When it comes to perfumery, I don’t follow convention or adhere to any particular school of thought. This is not a critique or a rejection of tradition – I’ve studied, assimilated, and learned from them all. It’s just that I don’t see myself as a custodian of Grasse’s rich heritage or a steward of any Sultan’s legacy. 

Instead, I’m out there in the open sea, seeking something new and struggling to bring it back to shore and share with you.

That’s part of the EO aesthetic’s appeal – you can smell this departure from tradition.

My style, my approach to composing perfumes, my selection and use of botanicals, and the way I review and refine drafts – all of it is shaped by lessons learned in the jungles beneath the oud trees. It’s rooted in the methods I observed from my sifus, in the way they practiced their craft.

It’s why EO fragrances smell so… unapologetic.

While much of perfumery has been shaped by the spice routes, EO perfumes are born from experiences with rare, once-unknown aromatics and time spent with kodo masters in the Far East. Innovating new distillation methods, birthing new breeds of oud, and learning from kyara masters has led to a genre forged through uncommon experiences, distilled into olfactory snapshots that define the EO aesthetic – and earned me the surname OUD.

Even if one were to faithfully follow a specific tradition, no one from that lineage could have imagined the ouds in the EO atelier. You’re talking about ingredients that were previously unheard of.

• Which Oriental contains incense-grade Nha Trang Sinensis?

• Which Chypre bursts with Sri Lankan Walla Patta and Mongolian musk?

• When was the last time you encountered a gourmand fragrance enriched with the cocoa tones of vintage Maroke Filarias?

• Where else can you find actual musk twirls inside in a bottle of perfume?

There’s no blueprint for oud perfumery, no rulebook that dictates how exotic ouds will harmonize with aged musks, florals, or other ingredients. And trial and error is expensive! 

In one sense, EO does carry the torch of past traditions: I believe wholeheartedly that natural aromas far surpass synthetics. In the past, natural botanicals were the norm. Today, just as it takes effort to maintain a diet free from processed ingredients, creating natural perfumes requires greater investment and dedication compared to opting for cheap, synthetic substitutes.

But EO is not just unique in technique; there’s also the ethos.

Take, for instance, the conventional insistence on batch uniformity, cloying projection, or strict ingredient limits – it feels processed, like fast food. This is in contrast to a gourmet restaurant where the quality of the dish, crafted from the freshest ingredients available that day, is what satisfies you and lets you tip your hat to the chef. 

The Oud Man and the Sea is all about oud. But an Oud Man’s view of oud is so zoomed out from the ‘oud market’ that it pains me to see the word ‘oud’ abused – I’m sure you feel the same way.

Oud has become so commoditized people take it for granted. But little do they know the true state of the oud world. All they see is generic, processed, industrialized ‘oud’ being pumped out – a production so standardized it’s even backed by a certain government. It seems plentiful. 

But what about wild, aged Pekanbaru oud? What about wild, aged Sumatran oud? What about wild, aged Malaysian oud. What about all three in one bottle?

And what if you could take such a purple-hued symphony, deep, floral-resinous oud blossoms bursting into a cloud of opulence and let it mingle with rose, mitti, and smoldering osmanthus? 

Let the dark, spicy vibrancy merge with lush thick blackcurrant laced with the sharp, aromatic heat of clove buds cracked open. Let fiery cubeb and Bengal pepper cut through with their exotic, peppery blades.

Then let smoky tendrils of tobacco curl around the slabs of resin and weave through the earthy-balsamic hues of nagarmotha and lavender. A duet of roses, where Japanese otto and rugosa absolute bloom with a heady sweetness. Pour dark cacao into a pool of vanilla and smell what it does to those majestic ouds. 

This is oud perfumery in its purest form. A tribute to nature’s most opulent gift, brought to life through years of ouding out in the jungles, sipping kyara tea with kyara sifus. All to bring back a few drops to a lucky few…

… in the scheme of history, this perfume doesn’t exist. I count myself blessed to have gone out to sea to bring back the little I can. Blessed to share it with you… because neither of us can help it. We’re ouddicted – and loving every whiff of it!

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