Oud Wood & Amyris 100BON 2017

My former choir director was, in addition to his role as church music director, also an honorary professor at the Lübeck University of Music. He once mentioned that you could immediately distinguish aspiring singers from future organists just by the way they enter the building. More on that later.

With a bit of goodwill, it does indeed smell a little like oud, with a latent cheesy note. This naturally provokes thoughts of the explicitly oud-free ‘NOOUD’ by Baruti, which ‘Oud Wood & Amyris’ cannot match in terms of volume or confidence. Yes, the camouflage oud almost stealthily retreats in favor of a peppery and cedar-ventilated sandalwood interim cream that appears gently sweated.

After about an hour, a blend of cedar-dominated, dull wood lingers around, which is supposed to be given a hint of oud through a background acidity. Unfortunately, this only partially succeeds, as the focus is too much on the light wood, whose aroma moreover touches the boundary of synthetic wood. As it develops, one can only suspect a hint of a barn note directly on the skin, which has been hurriedly sweetened a bit. Nice attempt.

The scent is thus primarily interesting as a lesson in how differently non-oud can be interpreted. ‘NOOUD’ is, to pick up the image mentioned above, the broad-legged and loud singer striding in, while ‘Oud Wood & Amyris’ is a particularly shy organist who prefers to use the side entrance to avoid being addressed.

The longevity is barely six hours, as after that only a remnant of plain wood remains, which I would now certainly consider synthetic; it reminds me of MGOs. Alongside, a few molecules of a diffuse creaminess with a bitter undertone wander around.

An unpleasant finish. Once again, 100BON fails to capitalize on a typical pound of natural fragrance perfumery: rich base notes.

Conclusion: Well, just a nice attempt. And apparently, 100BON's scents are not necessarily cream-heavy.

I thank Bellemorte for the sample.

P.S.: I simply assumed that the scent in question explicitly does not use real oud but tries a recreation. It is certainly not mentioned anywhere.