Sultan Qaboos Oils / Ensar

[Mr.P]

Taking a blind chance and buying a flacon stamped with the royal seal where you have absolutely no idea of the contents in order to wait and see what you get. Presumably also buying this from someone who you don't know and who doesn't know you.

Got it thank you

 

[Saudalhajri]

I understand that individual bottles weren't stamped with an itemised barcode

lol

 

[dignitychicken]

View attachment 51659
lol

Well there we have it 😊

 

[Al Shareef Oudh]

Well said. to be fair, not everybody was treating it like fact - they were just trying to be respectful I think.

The reality is we are all buying little bottles of brown liquids with no way to know what's in them. We either believe whatever it is people tell us is in them, or suspend our disbelief for the sake of enjoying the story and the experience, like reading fiction... or (like I did for most of my years collecting oud) just think of it like a perfume: ingredients unknown, being purchased based on pleasing aromatic qualities only, and with no real expectation of a guarantee of 100% purity or naturality or even accuracy in terms of the origins of the material.

(Most folks i spoke with when I first started told me that 100% pure natural agarwood was never sold retail - only available through private channels to the most wealthy, etc. and I kind of accepted that as truth. In a way it was kind of a helpful bit of information even though not entirely true of course).

The actual association itself is a false elevation. There is a general assumption that because it is the oil from the sultans collection then it must be of a higher quality. On top of that there is a second general assumption which is, "these are genuinely oils from the Sultan's collection".

This is a bit different to having a oud in a bottle with lots of adjectives in the description. At least one can smell it and know that 1. it is oud or not 2. it is good quality or not 3. Roughly which region it is from. Unfortunately for SQ oils there is no test to prove it is SQ or not, and once it has the SQ label the natural human expectation is set to pay more for the assumption that it is the sultan's left overs, whilst in reality it might not be so.

 

[User]

It’s all Oud. All of the profiles you are mentioning are a cross between real Oud profiles and Ensar’s way of marketing them.

Cambodia and Borneo are just regions, and two very common origins for Oud. The Sultan’s oils are ultimately from the forest, like everyone else’s oils. His oils are not only in those categories. His collection has oils from many regions around the world.

Oud Royale is a loose term. Does it even mean anything? The original Oud Royale is great so he just kept using the name. It’s not even a type in my opinion. The ones I’ve tried are completely different from each other.

I see no through line between ‘Oud Royale’ oils except that they are all traditionally distilled oils that are very good. Also, maybe none of them are malaccensis or crassna. I don’t think there has ever been an Oud Royale oil from the Asian mainland. They come from islands - Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Papua and Leyte. I suppose it’s even possible that they are all gyrinops. I wouldn’t know.

I have never seen a “purple kinam type” oil from the sultan. I guess you might be referring to the other Malaysian oils with a somewhat similar profile. They are definitely distilled in a very different way compared to the Taiwanese distillation of purple kinam.

But again, Malaysia just exists and a lot of good Oud came from there. The Sultan and Ensar both had it distilled at some point. The sultan’s collection was vast and it became a source of that old Malaysian profile when most of everything else in the world was gone. At least that’s how the story goes.

 

[User]

I’ve sampled the various Maroke 1982 oils from three separate sources, including EO and they all are dead nuts equal to my nose

Multiple tests

It really does make me scratch my head

It’s not a mystery. They all come from the same source. Oud Royale from Ensar is the same as the ‘82 Marokes from the sultan that other people are getting. It’s all the same batch from what I can tell. Ensar didn’t distill that oil.

 

[TheGhaliyaWhisperer]

I’ve sampled the various Maroke 1982 oils from three separate sources, including EO.

Do you mind sharing which ones? Sorry I’m just looking at different sources.

 

[oudcast]

It’s not a mystery. They all come from the same source. Oud Royale from Ensar is the same as the ‘82 Marokes from the sultan that other people are getting. It’s all the same batch from what I can tell. Ensar didn’t distill that oil.

I have an SQ Maroke 82 that honestly doesn't smell like a maroke until later on. Opens very fumey-malay to my nose. Is that what EO Oud Royale is like?

 

[Saudalhajri]

I have an SQ Maroke 82 that honestly doesn't smell like a maroke until later on. Opens very fumey-malay to my nose. Is that what EO Oud Royale is like?

Grape soda, bubblegum, purple psychedelic berries, iris, creamy , incense, chocolate milk, easily one of the best if not the best Oud I’ve smelled. It doesn’t open with the fumey (gasoline-like) notes, or at least they’re not as strong as I expected. I had the pleasure of trying the one released by @SULAYM

 

[oudcast]

Grape soda, bubblegum, purple psychedelic berries, iris, creamy , incense, chocolate milk, easily one of the best if not the best Oud I’ve smelled. It doesn’t open with the fumey (gasoline-like) notes, or at least they’re not as strong as I expected. I had the pleasure of trying the one released by @SULAYM

it has been a while since I've swiped it, it just really threw me off initially because it wasn't what I expected at all. I'll try some tonight again.

 

[oudcast]

Grape soda, bubblegum, purple psychedelic berries, iris, creamy , incense, chocolate milk, easily one of the best if not the best Oud I’ve smelled. It doesn’t open with the fumey (gasoline-like) notes, or at least they’re not as strong as I expected. I had the pleasure of trying the one released by @SULAYM

I definitely get the purple now, more creamy than fumey but it has that lift. I was also thinking of the wrong vial for sq maroke 82 earlier. I have one of equal parts sq maroke 82+habz jaya qadeem+habz sultan Sulawesi, thats a whole other beast

 

[User]

I have an SQ Maroke 82 that honestly doesn't smell like a maroke until later on. Opens very fumey-malay to my nose. Is that what EO Oud Royale is like?

Yeah that sounds about right to me. I definitely see the Malaysian resemblance and it didn’t really smell like a Maroke to me at first. I really smelled the Maroke coming out when I hopped into my car one day because it was really hot from sitting in the sun.

Where did you get it from?

 

[oudcast]

Yeah that sounds about right to me. I definitely see the Malaysian resemblance and it didn’t really smell like a Maroke to me at first. I really smelled the Maroke coming out when I hopped into my car one day because it was really hot from sitting in the sun.

Where did you get it from?

I got it from a fella on a facebook group, idk where he got it from. I'm starting to notice the maroke (a slightly earthy dustiness) a bit more too in the later stages. It's very nice, it just has a bit more variety to its maroke-ness than the minimalist approach I usually lean towards

 

[SteveE]

I have from SULAYM, Ensar and a private collector

 

[Saudalhajri]

I have from SULAYM, Ensar and a private collector

Were they all the same oil? Or are there differences?

 

[SteveE]

I misspoke I didn’t mean to say SULAYM I meant KYMYA

They all seem to be very, very much the same oil, however interestingly, the 1 g oriscent bottle (via Scent Legends) I have has a very certain higher end buzz to it on the opening

I imagine these were just stored slightly differently or opened more or fewer times something like that would make a difference on those notes, I suspect!

But they seem to be very, very similar, and I love them all

What’s crazy is actually a smaller dot does more for me than a big swipe

 

[Saudalhajri]

I misspoke I didn’t mean to say SULAYM I meant KYMYA

They all seem to be very, very much the same oil, however interestingly, the 1 g oriscent bottle (via Scent Legends) I have has a very certain higher end buzz to it on the opening

I imagine these were just stored slightly differently or opened more or fewer times something like that would make a difference on those notes, I suspect!

But they seem to be very, very similar, and I love them all

What’s crazy is actually a smaller dot does more for me than a big swipe

That’s what I thought too.
In my experience, very old oils (SQ or otherwise) tend to smell gasoline-like when first unsealed. And some smell like nothing at all until they “breathe” a few times.

I almost thought I got scammed with a tin of vintage Bulgarian rose, it smelled like nothing at all, but after a couple days of breathing it came back to life and became my favorite Bulgarian. But then everyone is different with their technique, some leave the bottle sealed for as long as possible, and opening it rarely, in order to preserve that scent.
I understand what you mean, that Oud oil is a bomb, just a drop is more than enough to be enveloped in its scent. A gram goes a LONG way.