The Library Collection

Opus XV - King Blue Amouage 2023

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7.4 / 10 182 Ratings

A 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

Smoky

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

7.4182 Ratings

Longevity

8.9165 Ratings

Sillage

8.3163 Ratings

Bottle

8.8162 Ratings

Value for money

5.9129 Ratings

Submitted by Omrfrq, last update on 01/21/2025.

Interesting Facts

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

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Opus XIII - Silver Oud

Rausch

Oud for Happiness

Tobacco Oud Intense

Khanjar

La Yuqawam Ambergris Showers

Reviews

17 in-depth fragrance descriptions

07/21/2023

8
Pricing 10
Bottle 9
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

Omnipotato
155 Reviews

Omnipotato

Helpful Review 6

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 | Initio", 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.

12/11/2024

8
Pricing 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

Smirky
305 Reviews

Smirky

Helpful Review 5

King Blue - magnificent oud fragrance

King Blue is liquid gold - very, very good. Opening is oud-y and challenging, although in my case I did not get fecal, manure pile or barnyard. King Blue opened with a very strong cheesy odor and you can throw in some stinky feet too lol. The challenging phase for me only lasted about 5 minutes which was a surprise. (Or maybe I'm just getting used to these challenging openings lol). Then a smooth, very ripe/fruity accord appeared over the oud base. As the life of King Blue progressed (in terms of hours) the ripe fruity accord diminished as did the oud and it became a more smooth creamy sandalwood/woody fragrance. (By "sandalwood" I don't mean a pickle scent.) In comparison, especially with the woody accord, King Blue is smooth and creamy while Silver Oud is sharper and has more of an edge.

Performance is phenomenal. Longevity is over 12 hours on skin. I noticed that even at the 10 and 12 hour marks I picked up whiffs without having to move around. However, the next morning it was gone from my skin. But it came back strong when I put on yesterday's t-shirt for my morning cardio. I hadn't sprayed my t-shirt but King Blue absorbed into the shirt. King Blue is quite oily and leaves a sheen on the skin. Sillage and projection are quite strong.

King Blue is a very masculine fragrance. To market this as unisex is ridiculous. If you're new to oud or have only experienced "oud" via something like Gucci Intense Oud, be careful. This is the real thing and at a 35% concentration. That explains the price which I still rated as OK because of the ingredients. King Blue is not for the bubblegum boys or cotton candy callants.

I'm gonna have to look where I can get the best price now with the holiday sales going on. I need this juice. It's addictive!

11/28/2023

6
Pricing 10
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 6
Scent

SeoulBrough
36 Reviews

SeoulBrough

5

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
69 Reviews

NicheOnly

1

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.

---

12/11/2024

6
Pricing 10
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

Wusubi
16 Reviews

Wusubi

3

Welcome to the cowshed

While the title is a bit of a joke, let me preface this by saying that King Blue isn't a fragrance for users who aren't familiar with Assam oud. In Opus XIII - Silver Oud, the oud has more of an introductory role of Eddard Stark, but in King Blue it has a role of Jon Snow as one of the main protagonists.

If you aren't used to perfumes with heavier doses of real oud essence, this product simply isn't intended for you. I would recommend dabbling in some scents with "fake oud" first and slowly building your way towards Silver Oud. Once you learn to tolerate its incredibly harsh, animalic opening, it's a good time to get your nose on King Blue.

Enough teasing, how does it smell like? What about the fecal allegations? To me, it smells more pleasant than Silver Oud, where the oud is more animalic for the first hour and then steps back. In King Blue, you can expect the barnyardy type of oud to prevail for 6 hours. It's a 12-hour type of a scent, so half of its lifetime.

However, it doesn't smell overly animalic or fecal. It reminds me of a compost with fruits that either fell from the trees or have worms in them. As the fruits start to rot, you get the inexplicably charming smell of fruitiness and manure. That's how I would describe the first half of King Blue's wearing experience.

Despite coming at a fearsome 35% oil concentration, I find King Blue easier to digest than Silver Oud. That's because Alexis Grugeon and Hamid Merati-Kashani utilized an uplifting combination of aroma chemicals. Mandarin and limonene are combined with pink pepper and floral nuances from benzyl salicylate, citronellol and linalool. It's still Assam oud left, right and centre, but it's not overbearing at all.

Given the presence of oud, the other ingredients also smell more dark and rich. You could say the oud brings out the worst (or best) in them. Blackcurrant doesn't smell all delightful like your usual forest fruit note, it reminds me of slightly rotten fruit, which is divine here. The sweetness of amber isn't just soft and warm, but can come off as rubbery.

I wouldn't say this fragrance is too smoky, despite listing frankincense as a note. Much less smoky than Silver Oud, in fact. I suppose a lower concentration of frankincense was used to complement the naturally smoky attribute of Assam oud. Combined with the ambery heart, it has an oriental vibe and it certainly feels like wearing an Amouage.

Speaking of which, it wouldn't be a perfume from Amouage if it didn't have a second phase. Once oud takes a backseat, a wonderful mixture of creamy sandalwood and leather acts as sort of a soothing experience, like sharing a cigarette after sex. The deed is done, you can relax and enjoy smooth leathery woodiness with sweet earthiness of patchouli.

In conlusion, King Blue is a woody and animalic scent with some fruity and amber nuances that make it rather digestible. Oud is prevalent for half of the wear, so keep that in mind. This would most likely smell fecal and repulsive to me a few years ago, but now it smells pleasant, like a farm or a ranch during autumn. Bonus points if you dated a horse girl or worked with horses, this will bring back some great memories.

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