The Library Collection

Opus XV - King Blue Amouage 2023

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7.2 / 10 125 Ratings

A new perfume by Amouage for women and men, released in 2023. The scent is woody-oriental. Projection and longevity are above-average. It is being marketed by Sabco Group / Oman Perfumery.

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Main accords

Woody

Oriental

Leathery

Animal

Spicy

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Blackcurrant

Mandarin orange

Pink pepper

Heart Notes

Amber

Frankincense

Base Notes

Assam oud

Leather

Oak wood

Sandalwood

Patchouli

Perfumers

Alexis Grugeon, Hamid Merati-Kashani

Videos

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Ratings

Scent

7.2125 Ratings

Longevity

8.8116 Ratings

Sillage

8.3114 Ratings

Bottle

8.7108 Ratings

Value for money

5.885 Ratings

Submitted by Omrfrq, last update on 13.04.2024.

Interesting Facts

The fragrance is part of the "The Library Collection" collection.

Reviews

9 in-depth fragrance descriptions

09/16/2023

5
Pricing 10
Bottle 7
Sillage 8
Longevity 2.5
Scent

Nektario
30 Reviews

Translated Show original

Nektario

It is certainly extremely polarizing

As an Amouage fan, you have to test every new one, and wait every year for the new one or ones that are sure to appear.
This one is downright nauseating after spraying it on........ A strong animalic, unfortunately fecal oud is very noticeable. You are tempted to wash your hand immediately and keep the scent away. Ashamed, you look around to see if someone is simply............But like most real Orientals, it takes time. And not too little. After 30 minutes (which can be a long time), it becomes much tamer and more pleasant. There is no hint of mandarin or blackcurrant (unfortunately, as I like both very much), the Blue King (probably a reference to the extra expensive Blue Oud wood which is also called Kennan) remains a heavy, strong and leathery oud fragrance that is very masculine and certainly worth a try outdoors in winter. In the office with closed doors it is unacceptable and downright provocative. A fragrance for lovers and extreme fragrance lovers, why not. But certainly not for me.

07/21/2023

8
Pricing 10
Bottle 9
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

Omnipotato
56 Reviews

Omnipotato

Helpful Review 5

A Leather Oud for Kings!

The press statements for King Blue are pervaded with language of contradictions - the real and the unreal, the impossible and the mundane, fire and nightshade. The main oxymoron present in this fragrance is the meeting of sweet fruits and amber, and smoky leathery oud.

On first spray, you get a whiff of the mandarin and blackcurrant. However, these are not juicy photorealistic fruits but rather bitter and dark representations. A little later, the saffron-y amber emerges and adds a bit of sweetness, but not a vanillic creaminess, more like the sharp burnt cotton candy vibe of Baccarat Rouge 540 Eau de Parfum.

Then the real star of the show appears: a smoky and leathery oud that in my head seems like a combination of Epic Man and Opus XIII - Silver Oud. Many have already compared King Blue to Silver Oud and there is definitely significant overlap in the oud accord in both. However, King Blue adds so many more dimensions. Another fragrance that is similar is Haltane which has a similar saffron note that gives the BR540 impression. However, the oud in King Blue is of a much higher quality.

Overall, I think this latest addition to the Library Collection is a worthy successor to Silver Oud, and I can see it becoming one of my favorite oud scents of all time. The oud is toned down enough by the other accords to not be in-your-face and heavily animalic, but it is also not the clearly synthetic ouds used in Haltane, Oud for Greatness, Oud Wood Eau de Parfum, etc. One of my new favorites from the house of Amouage.

EDIT 8/23/23: Each time I put this on I'm getting another dimension of this fragrance. The first time, which is when I wrote this review, I mostly only got the leather and oud from the start and the fruitiness was not that apparent. The next time, I got more of the mandarin orange. When I put it on today, I got juicy, almost bubblegum-y blackcurrant! Which dried down into the wonderful smoky oud that is of course the star of the show. I am loving this fragrance more and more with each wear. Possibly one of my favorites of all time now.

03/26/2024

10
Bottle 9
Sillage 10
Longevity 10
Scent

Zourak
2 Reviews

Translated Show original

Zourak

Helpful Review 6

Funky, smokey fruit

I don't even remember how I came across it, but I think I came across it through a recent statement that was shown to me on the home page.

I was initially interested by the two very contrasting reviews that were available at the time. One loved it, the other hated it. Then I wanted to form my own opinion and ordered a sample. I spontaneously told a perfume-loving colleague who said to me: "I think I have this at home. My mother got it as a goodie." So I quickly drove to him. Together, we tested it on paper first. As is the case with oud with animalic notes: pure cow dung. It didn't give either of us anything positive, but I still took a spray on my hand and continued my evening. I kept smelling my wrist, and it was during this phase that my statement was born. When I presented it to my mother, she said: "Ashtray".

A few days later, my own bottling arrived and I continued testing. Spoiler first, I gave myself a bottle for Christmas.

About the fragrance itself: it starts, as I would like to quote an American Youtuber, funky. Yes, that's definitely true. You can smell a certain animalic quality that definitely goes in the direction of cowshed/cheese. However, this is quickly joined by a delicious tangerine-currant syrup. Not fresh, tangy fruit, but a boiled-down syrup that is really powerful and delicious. Over time, however, this syrup melds with the smoky incense and oud, some leather and amber. I can hardly smell any notes individually, either I am too inexperienced or the composition is too perfectly blended. I think both are true, but the syrup stays with me for almost the entire fragrance. As the day draws to a close, amber becomes more present for me, spiced by patchouli and the woods, it radiates a pleasant warmth for the last of the well over 10 hours of lasting power. If you are traveling at the weekend, take King Blue with you on Friday and you will still be accompanied by it on the drive home on Sunday.

For me, this is an absolutely wearable work of art. From the name, King Blue, which plays with the classic expectation of a "blue fragrance" à la Bleu de Chanel or similar, to the inspiration of the perfume, the painting "The Art Of Living", which for me really fits like a glove, to the really perfectly balanced, wearable fragrance for someone who wants to stand out from the crowd.

If you dare and you like the fragrance notes, I can only advise you to test it, King Blue will definitely take you on a journey.

In fact, I know first-hand that video footage of the creation was filmed with the perfumers, but this has not yet appeared online.

Finally, a few comments: I don't believe in the hundreds of "compliments" that many influencers promise. My Arab colleague at work commented when I wore the King Blue to the garage on a Friday: "Can I ask what you're wearing? It smells like that, Arabic?" A friend who I introduced to the niche world and who likes to test bottlings with me said: "I smell olive, phew, that's kind of harsh."

11/28/2023

6
Pricing 10
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 6
Scent

SeoulBrough
32 Reviews

SeoulBrough

What Is Going On?

January 20, 2024:

This isn’t for me. The notes are miles apart from each other and does not create a fragrance bond. Also, it just does not smell good.

Hard pass.
————————————————————
Received King Blue today.

What the hell is going on with this?

It’s not the oud that bothers me in this fragrance. Yes it’s kinda fecal within the first five minutes, so what…no problem. It moves from that stage rather quickly. It’s everything else built alongside of it. This fragrance is all over the place. There’s no cohesion and I don’t find this blended well. The blackberry, smoke, frankincense and oud are isolated and going in different directions. I like harmony in my fragrances.

I’m going to give an updated review in thirty days, but so far, this is a very polarizing scent.

Hey…if you like it, then I love it.

07/25/2023

2
Pricing 9
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 6
Scent

NicheOnly
44 Reviews

NicheOnly

An exponential decline in profile from the minute you put it on

In-doors test with a sample I got from Jovoy.

Opening: Aromatic, slightly sweet. The sample instantly gives me the same vibe that I remember getting when I first sprayed on Opus XIV - Royal Tobacco - the top has a licorice-like note driving sweetness to it, very comparable to Oud for Happiness. On initial impressions *just in the air*, I absolutely love it. When I first smell it up-close, I get a fairly mild, wearable oud. After smelling it up-close just once, my nose resets and I notice that unlisted licorice top note is generating a massive cloud around me.

But the decline in profile is exponential. After just 1 sniff up-close and the licorice cloud, I felt like the oud part of this scent seemed disappointing for €455 - it seemed too simple. But at least the profile seemed worthy of an 8 or 8.5. But then it started to go animalic, and this is exactly the type of profile that I don't want - the dead/cooked fish type animalic that I instantly recognize from my most disliked scent of all-time being Hamdani. Oddly enough, this is my second time in the last week smelling assam oud in a blend. Parfumo hasn't yet listed these 4 scents, but in Masque Milano's Ruby Collection where they are dropping 4 oud flankers of their popular scents, the Oud flanker to II-II Mandala (Mandala Oud, not yet on the database) has this exact same vibe. The scent goes smoky from around 1.5-2 hours onward.

Performance wise, I would say it starts going quiet at around 10-11 hours. Sillage may open with that licorice cloud, but it is clearly nowhere near true nuclear scents. My TLDR is that it smells fine if you don't smell it up-close. And for anybody thinking this is more wearable than Jubilation XXV Man or that this smells like Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait de Parfum... those statements are outrageous to the point where I got my head in my hands.

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