Joe
Resident Artisan
Glad to see you post here!
Welcome
- Thread starter jalil
- Start date
-
- Tags
- oud tigerwood royale
Welcome! I'm in the south Bay
OudSniffingSurvivor
Oud Fan
Joe
Resident Artisan
Indeed, yes, that was my first species as well!
as I’m sure all of us are too. At least I like new perspectives and experiences to share with us.
mixmastermattyp
Oud Beginner
Hi!!
I just joined this morning because last night I received my first samples from ensar oud. I ordered the sample set, 0.3 g of four different ouds.
Initially I had intended to start by diluting the Vietnam organic cultivated sample because I figured it would be wasteful not to mention impossible to try to handle such small quantities neat. I couldn’t help but try to sniff the wand though and accidentally dabbed my nose. There wasn’t even any visible on the wand so it had to have been less than I milligram that I applied, but of course the musty amberiness hit my receptors immediately. I was quite pleased despite the fact that this would likely affect my evaluation.
I proceeded to dilute 30 uL into 1.5 mL for a 2% solution and dropped two drops onto my wrist. Without bringing my wrist to my nose within a few moments the warm resinous quality diffused its way to my nose. After maybe ten minutes I finally decided to sniff it as gently as I could. It has a sort of wet basement mustiness, reminiscent to me of patchouli, which I love very much. It also has a sort of pungence, but not an acidity, that reminds me something of blue cheese. A couple years ago I had enjoyed the Vietnamese oud from Eden botanicals. It had a sweet, syrupy character if I recall correctly. The mustiness and pungence distinguish the ensar Vietnamese organic from the Eden botanicals sharply. It was only during the dry down, after a few hours, that the sample from ensar began to take on a sweetness that was reminiscent of the Eden sample.
Now it’s the next morning and the cravings are hitting. I think I will apply a similar quantity, about two drops of the 2% solution, and layer on maybe two sprays of morrocan rose absolute 0.01% solution (I prefer Bulgarian but this is what I have), and a spray of 0.1% ambroxan solution before I go out. I also want to evaluate the other samples with a fresh nose, but what can I do?
By the way I have a question. Ensar sent me a “pure parfum” and an “extrait”. I assume the parfum is pure fragrance, no alcohol. Is the extrait a 30% mixture of fragrance materials in alcohol or what?
They also sent me a free tiny sample of wild oud which I’m excited to try. The sample is so small it’s amusing. It says 0.15 g but it looks like they just tried to dump out all the oil and sent me a vial just with residue. Anyway, it should be plenty to evaluate.
Looking forward to meeting you all
Matt
I just joined this morning because last night I received my first samples from ensar oud. I ordered the sample set, 0.3 g of four different ouds.
Initially I had intended to start by diluting the Vietnam organic cultivated sample because I figured it would be wasteful not to mention impossible to try to handle such small quantities neat. I couldn’t help but try to sniff the wand though and accidentally dabbed my nose. There wasn’t even any visible on the wand so it had to have been less than I milligram that I applied, but of course the musty amberiness hit my receptors immediately. I was quite pleased despite the fact that this would likely affect my evaluation.
I proceeded to dilute 30 uL into 1.5 mL for a 2% solution and dropped two drops onto my wrist. Without bringing my wrist to my nose within a few moments the warm resinous quality diffused its way to my nose. After maybe ten minutes I finally decided to sniff it as gently as I could. It has a sort of wet basement mustiness, reminiscent to me of patchouli, which I love very much. It also has a sort of pungence, but not an acidity, that reminds me something of blue cheese. A couple years ago I had enjoyed the Vietnamese oud from Eden botanicals. It had a sweet, syrupy character if I recall correctly. The mustiness and pungence distinguish the ensar Vietnamese organic from the Eden botanicals sharply. It was only during the dry down, after a few hours, that the sample from ensar began to take on a sweetness that was reminiscent of the Eden sample.
Now it’s the next morning and the cravings are hitting. I think I will apply a similar quantity, about two drops of the 2% solution, and layer on maybe two sprays of morrocan rose absolute 0.01% solution (I prefer Bulgarian but this is what I have), and a spray of 0.1% ambroxan solution before I go out. I also want to evaluate the other samples with a fresh nose, but what can I do?
By the way I have a question. Ensar sent me a “pure parfum” and an “extrait”. I assume the parfum is pure fragrance, no alcohol. Is the extrait a 30% mixture of fragrance materials in alcohol or what?
They also sent me a free tiny sample of wild oud which I’m excited to try. The sample is so small it’s amusing. It says 0.15 g but it looks like they just tried to dump out all the oil and sent me a vial just with residue. Anyway, it should be plenty to evaluate.
Looking forward to meeting you all
Matt
Alamande
True Ouddict
Welcome aboard! Sounds like you are already hella experienced with various perfumery materials, dilution, etc. Great to meet you.
EO told me via WhatsApp that all their perfumes, including the ones labelled ‘pure parfum’, are pre-diluted in perfumers alcohol. Maybe they are a little loose with the terminology in that regard….some of the sprays are labelled ‘parfum’, others ‘pure parfum’, others ‘absolue’, etc.
While it varies from oil to oil and vial to vial, I usually find that 0.3g is enough for several days’ of neat wear - enough to evaluate whether it would be worth buying more. I think I’m correct in saying that most of us here are generally ‘swiping’ oud oils neat, but experimenting with dilution is awesome and will surely reveal nuances that aren’t so apparent in the neat oil. I also know that some of the folks here keep neat alcohol to rinse out empty sample vials so none is wasted.
You’re absolutely right that with the .1g samples it becomes much harder to get the product out of the vial and make a meaningful assessment. Plastic toothpicks can help there. Some of our vendors have moved to shipping samples in small Wheaton-type high-recovery vials, which seem to be better for storage than the clear plastic-capped ones, but they don’t come with a dipstick, so you need a toothpick for those.
Last edited:
Hi!
Joined recently so thought I'd start my first post here.
Have bought oils from EO and AA over a number of years. Took a break and slowly getting back into the raw stuff again. Hoping to find information on stuff I've missed over the years, advice from time to time and new ways to enjoy what I have and stretch it out without compromising the integrity of the scent.
Joined recently so thought I'd start my first post here.
Have bought oils from EO and AA over a number of years. Took a break and slowly getting back into the raw stuff again. Hoping to find information on stuff I've missed over the years, advice from time to time and new ways to enjoy what I have and stretch it out without compromising the integrity of the scent.
fluffyball
Oud Beginner
Hi/salaam,
I'm in Norway for work but I'm from the UK.
I love oud and have done for many years. I was first introduced through my grandfather who had Hindi oud (pure and blended), after his death it became a hobby and a way to remember him.
I'm also looking into making perfume so I'd love to meet people who can guide me through the process. I'm currently looking for suggestions for a good perfumer's alcohol something that big brands would use and doesn't have a smell to it.
Apart from sprays of which I have plenty. My pure oud collection consists of the following;
Krassnna oud oil 24ml
Hainan oud 6ml
Looking to expand more.
I love travelling and exploring local scents/culture around scents. I'm going to Malaysia next looking for recommendations from the community if you know any good places in Singapore, Malaysia mainland and Langkawi. (I fly out next week so please respond to this haha)
Pretty open minded and looking to make friends who are in the hobby. Would love to meet some of you IRL and just nerd out over good perfume
A new hobby in looking to explore is hydro distillation.... It's a rabbit hole and I may need a guide lol
DubOudh
Aster Oudh
Welcome and just so you know the rabbit hole here is well illuminated by many great experienced collectors and creators. Our rabbit hole even has sign direction hung up to help you get around.
Mr.P
oud<3er
Welcome. this hobby provides all kinds of interesting avenues to explore so I wish you much enjoyment.
The premium alcohol to use is pure 95% edible ethyl alcohol.
"Perfumer's alcohol" will have some other chemicals added to it to render it inedible (and therefore MUCH cheaper per
gallon because there is no added vice tax - literally a fraction of the price of edible alcohol). In the US there is over $13 of tax on a single gallon of edible alcohol! It's the only kind that I use however I'd rather not have all the denaturant in it and I'm not manufacturing on a large scale so it's not a huge expense.
in the old days folks were often using more aromatic alcohols like relatively unrefined grape spirits which contributed their own aroma to the perfumes. Some people may try to track down alcohol distilled from grapes or other sources for the sake of authenticity, and I imagine that that's a case where a high price for a perfumer's alcohol would be merited - for example I would imagine a gallon of alcohol distilled from grapes to be considerably more expensive than one from corn.
alcohol is a chemical and when it's in pure form it just smells like alcohol, you won't find odorless alcohol. when you hear people talk about deodorized perfume alcohol they likely just mean highly refined alcohol like Everclear. In the past you couldn't get stuff like that - the alcohol you would purchase would come reeking of still notes, and the particular aroma of whatever the carbohydrates were used during fermentation. So a perfumer in the old days would have to go through some steps to clarify and clean up the aroma of each of their fresh batches of alcohol, try to neutralize some of the offensive notes, bring it all to a common aroma to use as a general purpose blender. Not so much an issue these days
from what I've read one common way to mellow fresh alcohol was to put a small amount of orris root or benzoin resin, ambergris (or one of a couple of other roots or resins) into the stock bottle and to allow it to sit for an extended period of time. The still notes dissipate, the small amount of orris or resin creates a gentle shared sweetness, perhaps even absorbs or alters some of the annoying notes of the freshly distilled stuff
Last edited:
fluffyball
Oud Beginner
hello Mr P,
thank you for the warm welcome and the detailed response.
i tend to buy my alcohol form the UK when i visit the family. the one i tend to buy is https://icanlondon.com/p/ican-london-perfumers-alcohol-base-250ml/ but im not sure if this is what bigger brands use. the % seems to be high but i was wondering if there was anything else out there that was pure-er and something that could help with better and more consistent results. i did some googling and apprentl what i need is called SDA 40B or the UK equivlent would be TSDA-1
i find that this current alcohol has a stinging sensation when the EO itself is rather gentle and soft on the nose. but once the EO and alcohol is mixed the overall smell has a more chemical and synthetic smell to it. i thought maybe swapping the alcohol will help hence the question.
the mix is anywhere from 10-20% EO and i use both synthetic and natural ingredients.
Mr.P
oud<3er
The term "perfumers alcohol" doesn't have a specific definition it's kind of up to the perfumer to decide what they want to use (unless there are some local regulations that requires some additional agents be added to the alcohol to render it non-potable).
Alcohol is alcohol so it's always going to have that sting and initial intense aroma, although it should evaporate quickly leaving only the essential oils behind.
the SDA alcohol you referred to will have something like bitrex in it to make it undrinkable, it should be pretty cheap because of that
SDA alcohols for perfume use are specially denatured with chemicals that make it unpotable but don't affect the aroma too much. Alcohol which is denatured for other purposes may have smelly chemicals added.
Alcohol is alcohol so it's always going to have that sting and initial intense aroma, although it should evaporate quickly leaving only the essential oils behind.
the SDA alcohol you referred to will have something like bitrex in it to make it undrinkable, it should be pretty cheap because of that
SDA alcohols for perfume use are specially denatured with chemicals that make it unpotable but don't affect the aroma too much. Alcohol which is denatured for other purposes may have smelly chemicals added.
fluffyball
Oud Beginner
That's Very helpful, basically there's a lot of jargon that I need to avoid and marketing traps 🙂
headspace
Oud Beginner
Hello! Just joined and wanted to introduce myself. My name is Dee and I'm located in northern California.
I have had a love of Gonfu Cha Tea for about 7 yrs now. This love of tea brought me on many travels in S.E.A. and this is how I stumbled into the land of agarswood/Oudh.
I fell in love with Oudh two years ago in Malaysia where I accidentally stumbled into an agarswood shop while searching for tea.
The shop owners were very helpful and friendly. They let me smell some Wild Malaysian Oil that they called "King Royal Oudh" and oh my goodness aside from the multilayered wonderful olfactory overload.. I had no idea I would have such a visceral experience from it!
This experience left me with a deep desire to learn more about agarswood/Oudh in the same way I have learned tea... Through experience and connection with others.
I'm excited to learn here. Thanks for having me ❤️
I have had a love of Gonfu Cha Tea for about 7 yrs now. This love of tea brought me on many travels in S.E.A. and this is how I stumbled into the land of agarswood/Oudh.
I fell in love with Oudh two years ago in Malaysia where I accidentally stumbled into an agarswood shop while searching for tea.
The shop owners were very helpful and friendly. They let me smell some Wild Malaysian Oil that they called "King Royal Oudh" and oh my goodness aside from the multilayered wonderful olfactory overload.. I had no idea I would have such a visceral experience from it!
This experience left me with a deep desire to learn more about agarswood/Oudh in the same way I have learned tea... Through experience and connection with others.
I'm excited to learn here. Thanks for having me ❤️
fluffyball
Oud Beginner
Welcome Dee!
Do you by any chance remember where that shop was in Malaysia? Or possibly the name of the shop?
headspace
Oud Beginner
I am doing my best to track down the shop info to post in here. Once I do I will share!
ahmedibnabid
Oud Beginner
Hello, been lurking on the forums for a while now and thought to introduce myself. My name is Ahmed, I'm from Dubai and only recently started getting into perfumes and attar (last Eid). I've learned a ton already and have taken to some recommendations by the learned and experienced members and have been pleased. I hope to learn much more and grow in this journey. Also thank you all for generously sharing your knowledge and taste! It is truly appreciated.
fluffyball
Oud Beginner
Welcome Ahmed salaam aleykom
What attars have got ATM? Would love to see your attar collection🙂
Hello everyone,
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
My name is Mohamed and I'm a new member here, glad to join the community. I came across Ouddict while researching how to identify natural oud, I was using Claude, and it mentioned this forum a few times, so I cam to check it out directly.
I'm still farily new to oud, but I've already started exploring and have a question I'm hoping the community can help me with. A couple of years ago I bought a Cambodian Moataq oud from ASQ, I don't remember the exact name anymore, but it was around $100 for 1/4 toula (3ml). I noticed its smell turned a bit strange after it came into contact with water. More recently I bought Cambodi Khas from Arabian Oud, and its smell didn't change even after it came into contact with water. I'm trying to understand whether it says something about quality or authenticity.
I want to learn if there is a way to tell genuine, 100% natural oud from the rest, ideally at a moderate price point.
Thank you all
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
My name is Mohamed and I'm a new member here, glad to join the community. I came across Ouddict while researching how to identify natural oud, I was using Claude, and it mentioned this forum a few times, so I cam to check it out directly.
I'm still farily new to oud, but I've already started exploring and have a question I'm hoping the community can help me with. A couple of years ago I bought a Cambodian Moataq oud from ASQ, I don't remember the exact name anymore, but it was around $100 for 1/4 toula (3ml). I noticed its smell turned a bit strange after it came into contact with water. More recently I bought Cambodi Khas from Arabian Oud, and its smell didn't change even after it came into contact with water. I'm trying to understand whether it says something about quality or authenticity.
I want to learn if there is a way to tell genuine, 100% natural oud from the rest, ideally at a moderate price point.
Thank you all
Mr.P
oud<3er
There is no simple general way to identify purity in oud. There may be ways to detect very obvious / clumsy adulteration if you have lots if experience with oud, but even if you know oud like the back of your hand, you will never pick up on a sophisticated dilution without a chemical test analyzed by an expert.
