Van Cleef & Arpels launched Precious Oud last year; it’s part of the Collection Extraordinaire and was created to honor the “legendary ingredient, oud wood.” If I had been advising Van Cleef & Arpels on this fragrance, I would have suggested two alternate names for the perfume. Alternate Name No. 1: “Semi-Precious Oud.” Alternate Name No. 2: “Precious Little Oud.” My thought progression as I sniffed Precious Oud was: ‘So this is Precious Oud…Really?…No way!’
Though it bears the name “oud,” I don’t detect any oud in Precious Oud. Has the oud perfume trend degenerated to the point of simply including the word “oud” in a fragrance name and no longer worrying about having oud in the perfume? That’s pretty amusing…
