Echoing the note’s power, Mona Kattan, the Dubai-based founder of Kayali fragrances, says she feels confident and empowered every time she wears an oud fragrance. Voelkl believes oud can add a level of mystery to a scent.
How is oud incorporated into fragrances?
Oud is commonly used as the base of a perfume’s olfactive pyramid to “enhance woody notes and add depth to the fragrance,” says Christie. It’s mostly incorporated with other woody notes like sandalwood, patchouli, or vetiver (although it plays really well with musk and amber too).
For such an aggressive note, oud is surprisingly versatile and great for layering with other scent profiles, says Kattan, whose brand has combined oud with vanilla, tobacco, rose, and a coffee accord. It pairs beautifully with rose, in particular, creating a seductive contrast with the flower’s delicate, dewy scent, says Jan. Dior Oud Ispahan, Hermès Oud Alezan, and Molton Brown Rose Dunes are all captivating examples of that very combo.
Similarly, oud’s dark earthiness enhances lighter citrus and aromatic notes, helping them smell more “alive and effervescent,” says Christie. You’ll often see bergamot and oud brought together, as in Juliette Has a Gun Another Oud and Jo Malone Oud & Bergamot Cologne Intense, and niche brands have started experimenting with oud and herbaceous ingredients, such as DS & Durga Notorious Oud (which combines the note with lavender absolute), Parfums de Marly Haltane (clary sage), and Chantecaille Oud Fumé (rosemary).
Ouds also go incredibly well with gourmand and fruity notes, taking the sweetness down a notch with dark smokiness. The past two years have seen a surge in these edible-inspired ouds, including Kayali Oudgasm Café Oud (an oud with a cappuccino accord), Byredo Rouge Chaotique (an oud blended with bergamot, lemon, plum, and praline), and Edeniste’s Oud Ghazal (a dizzying, delicious eau de parfum that smells like oud has been drizzled with black cherry liqueur).
Can oud be found in other fragrance formats?
The oud frenzy in the West is pretty limited to personal fragrance, but that doesn’t mean ancillary oud products aren’t out there—you just have to know where to look. Wood chips scented with perfume oil, called “bakhoor” in Arabic, have been used in the Middle East for centuries, including agarwood chips soaked in oud. Kattan created bakhoor versions of her Kayali Oudgasm collection, as well as a Rose Oud Hair Mist. “It is very common in the United Arab Emirates to layer your oud oils with your perfumes and finish your fragrance routine by burning oud as a way to scent your hair and clothes,” she explains. “I use them as a way to complement my fragrance layers, but also to help extend the longevity of my scent.”
Dior and Molton Brown both have hand soap and body lotion versions of their popular oud-based perfumes, while Tom Ford and Maison Francis Kurkdjian offer oud-scented bar soap. For wash-off products and bigger items like lotions, Christie says, it’s primarily synthetic versions of oud being used because of the larger sizing (more on that below), although Mexican brand Amoraria uses real oud essential oil in its Saffron Oud Room Spray, which you can buy if you happen to visit one of the company’s boutiques in London, Mexico City, Cancún, Los Cabos, or the Four Seasons Miami.
Why is oud so expensive?
Compared with notes like rose and vetiver, organic oud sources are quite rare. In natural forests, approximately 10% of wild aquilaria trees produce agarwood (although some estimates put that number as low as 2%). Then it can take at least 25 years for the tree to naturally produce harvestable oud, Voelkl says. Additionally, the amount of oud an infected tree produces can vary greatly; just because a tree is big doesn’t mean it will contain a lot of agarwood. Given these factors and the fragrance note’s global popularity, natural oud sourcing has become fraught to keep up with demand.
