Good to know.
 
Day 2 of blinding smelling the Nungkhal series from @RisingPhoenix

Nungkhal 2.

Much like the opening of Nungkhal 1, Nungkhal 2's opening is ridiculously loud and unapologetic. its untamed rawness jumps out and quickly overwhelms your senses with incredibly complex notes.

The notes I get are smoke, leather, berries, yogurt, dried Thai fruits, animal sweat, cow dung, fermented plums, and chocolate.

The opening takes about an hour to settle down and the savory dried fruits bomb welcomes you once it settles down, the fruit is somewhat reminiscent of Thai oud with this purple fruit feeling.

Compared to Nungkhal 1, Nungkhal 2 smells much more fruitier, and moist. but they share the same untamed funky leather and animalicness.
 
Which vendor is the king K nam from?
 
I wore Lucky Oud’s Hindi Kinam

This one is really nice. Smooth, warm honeyed hay and it has that slight halitosis/ambergris/sparkle effect that all high quality wild oils seem to have. The overall profile is incredible start to finish.

It dries down to a smooth guava and grapefruit, slightly bitter, spiced yogurt aroma. I love it.
 
I applied dabs of two ck co2 oils from wardlab for another look. I think I already mentioned these so I may be repeating myself. In general working with in the CK fragrance profile in a perfume context interests me, so I find all of these oils fascinating. Ejayb, Mesoud and al hind have each produced oils with related but distinct aromas. for me, it’s really interesting to see all these different approaches to try to capture the scent of this one material.


one of the ward lab oils (the pricier of the two) is very gentle and has melded smooth sweet top notes with a bit of the violet flower/sweet cassie notes (like were present in the first olefaktory ck distillate), very much a sugary ck syrup. also a kind of minty presence like some borneo oils and ejab’s wild sri 2020.

the other is very viscous and has some more complexity and contrast in the top note, a bit more rustic. Two oils in my stash come to mind: the original oriscent royal kinam (hong kong) and an oil from grandawood billed as wild sinensis co2. The royal kinam is a distillate, so obviously not a literal match, but they share a kind of punchy carrot-seed nagarmotha note that i have caught little whiffs of in various sinensis oils as well. This oil has the robust waxy bittersweet base that is present in every sinensis and ck co2 i have encountered.
 
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I love CK everything Mr. P. I rarely smell any that I dislike. It’s so interesting how different distillers can use the same materials and get different results.

I haven’t tried any from Ward Lab but I loved Olefaktory’s.
 
when was fresh was kind of "meh" and far from pure vietnamese smell but now is in the leaque with the "big boys" 😀
I feel exactly the same about this one. And his lesser brother VNSPK. But mostly about KKN. Wasn't much impressed at first, although I liked it. I even considered selling it. Then I put some on after a long hiatus and I noticed how much better it got.
 
Blind smelling the Nungkhal series from @RisingPhoenix. Day 3.

You might ask “How many Nungkhal oils are there, Taesik?”.
there are 4. so bare with me for just one more day. I’ll stop spam this space with more Nungkhal oils. 😂

So, Nungkhal 3.

aged shou puerh like femented umami. autumn leaves, mushroon, old book, old leather. it’s much smoother than the previous 2 versions. few minutes in, strawberry yogurt pops out and tickles your nose with its sour, fruity sweetness.

yes, it’s as complex as the previous 2 versions, but it’s much more approachable.

in the dry down, the scent undergoes a significant change. It becomes mouth-wateringly chocolatey, smokey, and incensey, while still retaining an old book-like quality.

this is quite an interesting oil that need more study.
 
Hold strong sproaty!
 
@AlHindOud 's Lao Gold - A wonderful oud, bright, and uplifting, with a touch of that beautiful mentholic quality, on a lush bed of delicate greenery. Ouds like these fascinate me to no end, I'm spellbound at how the artisan can extract such delicate aromas from woods. Truly one of those eye opening ouds, and had it not been for a sample included in my order, I'd never have even considered it, let alone grabbing a full bottle! Chalk that up to mentions of an infamous cheesy, salty oud in the commercial fragrance space, famed for the likes of Oudh Infini.
 
Starting to take cultivated kinam for granted… I still can’t believe it. I try to keep my wits about me, but I really bought into the whole “you will never get good oud again and prices will only climb” propaganda because the utter scarcity of oud in the US seemed to add credibility to that line. A major drive of my obsession with the oud scavenger hunt has been to try to find sources that offered a good quality, sustainable source. Didn’t see the kyara thing coming at ALL. I mean, of all of the possible varieties of oud, what are the odds that freaking KINAM ends up being fast and easy and cheap to cultivate. It’s like legalized cannabis - still shocked.

Today a swipe of mesoud’s CK oil Huaisheng. All CK oils have a fair amount of overlap which is to be expected, but also (so far) have each had some defining aspect. so it is interesting trying to tease out which particular aspect of the wood was captured whenever I smell these new types of oils. This oil has something open and airy feeling, spring forest kind of sense about it to me - something maybe a little electric and ozone/fresh air like. This oil is very much a sugary CK syrup of the smooth kind, and does not have some of the toothy notes that some CK extracts have. Sweet and minty (there it is again), something like vanillin, something almost floral as well. This would be an oud that you could apply liberally without any worry about offending - none of the “salivary” notes that some co2 oils have for example.
 
Blind smelling the Nungkhal series, Day 4.

Nungkhal 4

The opening is smoky incensey, with a spicy and almost peppery undertone.
compared to the other three versions, this one is milder and gentler. however, it is still undeniably strong.
there are fermented aspects to this, but it feels much more approachable.

I think this one is the most subtle, and nuanced version in the series.


so, @RisingPhoenix , tell us more about the Nungkhal series.

why do they smell so different despite being from the same exact region?
what crazy experiments did you conducted on these oils?
 
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