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Browsing by tag: oud

Robert Piguet Casbah, Nasomatto Pardon & Linari Fuoco Infernale ~ fragrance reviews

Posted by Kevin on 18 July 2012 33 Comments

Robert Piguet Casbah, Nasomatto Pardon, Linari Fuoco Infernale fragrance bottles

I do not exaggerate; at this moment, I have SIXTEEN perfumes on my desk that ‘deserve’ reviews…for summer. The best I’ll be able to do (summer is going by fast) is combine these fragrances into four or five reviews; so today I’m writing about three fragrances I like and never got around to reviewing when they were released.

Robert Piguet Casbah

Robert Piguet Casbah (from the Nouvelle Collection and “dedicated” to Morocco) was developed by perfumer Aurélien Guichard and includes notes of cedar, iris, pepper, nutmeg, angelica root, vetiver, tobacco leaf, smoky floral accord and incense.

Casbah is a rich, leather-incense fragrance (it would fit in perfectly with the Comme des Garçons incense line). As I sniff Casbah, I detect pepper, nutmeg, smoke and vetiver (while wearing Casbah, the spice notes sometimes blend with the incense smoke to create the aroma of an exotic, well-spiced dish cooking on a hearth). Casbah is a well-blended incense fragrance; the note that stands out most forcefully is leather (a smooth, semi-sweet leather). As I wear Casbah, I notice a shift from the early “food-y” stage of the fragrance to a more “churchy” incense scent near the end of the perfume’s development…

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Histoires de Parfums Petroleum ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 20 June 2012 47 Comments

gas pump

Admission: I was a clandestine gasoline sniffer. As a child, whenever I filled the gas tank of the lawn mower or outboard motor, I’d save, and sniff, the cotton rags I’d use to mop up the gas can; those gasoline-drenched rags smelled heavenly to me. Enter: Histoires de Parfums Pétroleum (by perfumer Gerald Ghislain). In the Pétroleum PR materials, reference is made to “Black Gold”…and I’m not sure if that’s describing oud or petroleum (both would qualify for that title, I guess, and both aromas are present in Pétroleum).

Pétroleum includes fragrance notes of oud, bergamot, orange, aldehydes, rose, amber, civet absolute, leather, patchouli and white musk; the fragrance opens with strong aldehydes tinged with orange and smooth, almost powdery, leather. As this rather “lush” opening subsides, I detect the “petrol” aspect of the fragrance…

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Humiecki & Graef Blask ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 16 May 2012 34 Comments

The perfumista chorus constantly chants “Enough Oud!” “Stop Oud!”** and all of a sudden I’m beginning to feel protective of oud perfumes. True, the market is flooded with oud fragrances but it’s also flooded with sport and gourmand and jasmine colognes. The perennial pet of the perfume world, orange blossom, gets to star in fragrance after fragrance without complaints from the “perfume gallery.” Oud is like any other ingredient; it can be placed in an unimaginative setting, or showcased with ingenuity.

Recently I’ve come across several oud fragrances that deserve respect; Humiecki & Graef Blask is one of them. You can read the convoluted “backstory” of Blask here. I’ll just say it was created by the perfume team of Christoph Hornetz and Christophe Laudamiel and has fragrance notes of bay laurel, “red wine,” walnut wood, floral notes and agarwood/oud.

Blask opens with a warm, rich bay leaf aroma…

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Van Cleef & Arpels Precious Oud ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 28 March 2012 13 Comments

Van Cleef & Arpels Precious Oud

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…

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By Kilian Incense Oud ~ fragrance review

Posted by Angela on 20 June 2011 35 Comments

By Kilian Incense Oud fragrance

A long time ago, a friend who was a painter gave me a book. I can’t tell you now what the book was about, but I remember the rich scent of his work soaked in its pages. For days, I buried my nose in the book to smell the turpentine, oil paint, and raw wood of his studio. The smell brought back the giant landscape he was working on while a cat padded over the cement floor to jump into my lap as I talked and nursed a glass of red wine. This is what I think of when I smell By Kilian Incense Oud Eau de Parfum.

Incense Oud, the third in By Kilian’s Arabian Nights series, was developed by perfumer Sidonie Lancesseur and released earlier this year. By Kilian’s website lists among its notes incense, oud, cardamom, rose, and labdanum. Probably, like many fragrances, it has something citrusy and fleeting for top notes, but I don’t smell it. And probably there’s something more complex in its body, but I don’t smell that, either.

What I do smell is a surprisingly sinuous — although definitely present — incense sweetened with sandalwood…

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