Oud Zarian Creed 2025

Imagine you’re this fungus, rotting away for, like, 80 years. Wouldn’t there be any higher goals in your life than be discovered and picked up by the house of Creed? No, I didn’t think so. Those lucky pieces of rotting wood are now extracted and form the base of Oud Zarian, for you and me to enjoy.

“So what’s it like?” I hear your restless minds think. Well… that’s a tough nut to crack. I know this perfume smells a lot like licorice in the first hour or so. It then dries down into a softer, powdery sweet rose. With far far away, somewhere in another galaxy maybe, an interesting skin-like scent. Maybe it IS my skin, I’m not sure. Oud, is that you?

The thing with oud is, I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to smell like. There’s so many different faces to it. Is it medicinal, is it barnyardy, is it sweet and chocolatey? We’re bullied by designer (and niche) brands, fooling us with synthetic oud all the time, and there are so many new fragrances with the oud-monicker coming out all the time. So does it contain the real thing? Creed says it does. But Creed’s full of BS all the time, so that doesn’t even account for anything.

What I do know though, is that this perfume smells bloody great. I’m not a huge fan of the licorice opening but that powdery rosey drydown, that’s something else. Two sprays and it lasts all day. Clinging to your clothes like there’s no tomorrow. Fabulous, chique smelling. Nothing medicinal, nothing tiresomely heavy. You’ll want other people to smell you and compliment you because damnit you smell good!

So yeah it’s a great perfume and I hate it that I like it. Because it’s Creed, with all its BS stories surrounding them. Creed, with their milking their best assets. That and because it’s bloody expensive.

I think this one's being unfairly panned a little bit. Sure it's got the same licorice/frankincense combo as Opus XIV - Royal Tobacco, but that hardly means it's unoriginal. I swear I'm not going to go into another rant about how Outlands doesn't actually smell like any fragrance it's compared to, but it's physically impossible for a fragrance to smell like Oud Zarian, Layton, African Leather Eau de Parfum, Encens Suave Eau de Parfum, and Ani Extrait de Parfum all at the same time. Stop trying to make Outlands seem derivative. It isn't derivative. Neither is Oud Zarian derivative of Outlands, not even in the slightest. It might share an amber aromachem or two, but what fragrance doesn't?

Ok, with the rant out of the way, Oud Zarian opens with a blast of fall-themed spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves; a veritable pumpkin spice blend. I'm surprised these aren't listed out in the note pyramid and are just "spicy notes," as they are one of the highlights of the fragrance, and are carried through atop the tonka bean and myrrh. Of course, there is the aforementioned licorice/frankincense combo from Royal Tobacco here as well. After a couple of hours, the spices fade away, and even the licorice to an extent, and you're left with a kind of honeyed myrrh/patchouli that stays on the skin for quite a while, but doesn't project much.

And what about the 80 year aged Oud Choron that Creed won't stop talking about in the promotional materials, you may ask? It's about as present here as in Royal Oud, which is to say, none.

Is it worth the money? At retail, absolutely not. At 30-40% off, maybe, if you prefer the spicy/sweet nature of Oud Zarian to the smokiness of Opus XIV - Royal Tobacco. They're similar enough that you only need one of them in your collection, and I personally definitely prefer Royal Tobacco.

For decades the masculine side of Creed's catalogue was known for making various fresher masculine fragrances ranging from citrus aromatics and aquatics to fougères and chypres. In the last few years, we've seen Creed enter different waters, likely in an attempt to increase sales by offering products typically worn in the fall-winter seasons. This started with Delphinus and Centaurus just last year (in 2024) and Creed's latest Oud Zarian is another fragrance in that direction.

By Creed's standards, Oud Zarian is a completely different creative direction. However, relative to the broader market, this is a case of nothing new as Oud Zarian has two very clear inspirations, both from the Omani brand Amouage which also share the same perfumer. The scent opens with a sweet-spicy combination of licorice, ginger and incense with the execution falling somewhere between Amouage's Opus XIV - Royal Tobacco and Amouage's Outlands. Oud Zarian features a prominent oriental-spicy-woody base structure, predominantly smelling of incense and myrrh with the sandalwood and dare I say the oud being more prevalent in the final dry-down. I would argue that Oud Zarian is closer to Outlands in the top and the heart because of the sweetness which remains a part of the structure for the first ~2 hours. As the scent continues into the final dry-down, it does get closer to Royal Tobacco, but I wouldn't say it ever fully gets there, given Opus XIV - Royal Tobacco is built on tobacco and birch tar (which give it a more challenging nature) with no sweetness in the base.

I don't see any obvious flaws in this scent's execution and I find the multitude of accords enjoyable. I get moderate-to-strong performance with what I'd call very relevant longevity and sillage for a Creed product, initially estimating around 12 hours of longevity the sillage being strong in the top before transitioning to moderate ~2 hours in. An underwhelming part about Oud Zarian is the pricing: we are talking €495/100ml retail which is above both Outlands (€420/100ml) and Opus XIV - Royal Tobacco (€365/100ml). We're still early on in this scent's life cycle, so there's a chance this will get to 50% of retail in the grey market, but in September 2025, I am still seeing Outlands hold strong at around €320-340 while Royal Tobacco has been somewhat cheap for a while in the €180-200 area. That means I'd rate the value on the poorer end.

All-in-all, Oud Zarian doesn't really bring much value to the market with Outlands being a superior product and Opus XIV - Royal Tobacco being a more complex alternative. Instead, Oud Zarian is yet another example of a house (i.e. Creed) hiring a perfumer (i.e. C. Zarokian) to create something very similar to the same perfumer's past products. While we've recently had more egregious examples of this (see: Dominique Ropion copying Vanagloria to make YSL's Babycat and Penhaligon's Eau the Audacity), it nonetheless can't leave a good taste in your mouth, knowing this is yet another anti-consumer creative direction about to kick into 5th gear.

This is a fragrance you need to respect. And by that I mean give it some time on your skin, and a couple of genuine wears before you judge it.

I admit when I first tried it I had a negative reaction to it because of that incredibly strong opening. The top notes hit you like a flaming falling tree in a forest fire from the first sniff. It is similar to the coffee and liquorice in the top of TDH Intense by Hermes and I refuse to believe the notes when they are trying to tell me there is no coffee or liquorice in Oud Zarian. It is there: clear as day and dark as night. The coffee is more Espresso Oud than TDH Intense, and the aniseed note much less in your face than in the latter. Also here are some intense smoky notes and some incredible spices. I get cardamom, cinnamon, ginger powder (not zingy fresh ginger), some dry vanilla, fenugreek/asafoetida, a little bit of dry cumin and star anis. The spices are gourmand and the coffee is mouthwatering but it is not a gourmand fragrance really, unless your daily breakfast is two double espressos, four cigarettes and sex. Twice. Before 10am.

Yes the opening is challenging but nowhere near as much so as I thought it was on first spray and I actually enjoy it very much now. The bergamot and rose are an absolute masterclass in how to control such powerful top note accords. Cecile Zarokian has created another masterpiece here. I actually think this is as good as or even better than Outlands, and it blows my mind to even think that based on my first reaction. It went from dislike to absolutely-cannot-live-without in two wears.

The drydown is a study on how you take a volcano of smoke and a forest of wood, a warehouse of roasted coffee and enough spices to fill a bazaar and weave into it some gold, frankincense and myrrh and then add some extremely high quality oud to add yet more richness, but somehow manage not just to keep it wearable but to elevate it. It will stay with you for 14-16 hours plus and last for days on your clothes and it does project off you the whole time.

Let's talk a bit about how you wear this. It is unisex in a way I couldn't have imagined and for all the heaviness and smoke is not just a formal night out fragrance I don't think. You shouldn't overspray this. But if you get the dosing right, this is - and I cannot believe I'm saying this - work safe. Incredible stuff. I dont know any women who would or could wear this I don't think but I sure would like to meet one.

Layering combination: A base layer for Jovoy - Remember Me.

Three Word Summary: The Middle East

Scent - 10/10
Drydown - 10/10
Sillage - 10/10
Bottle/packaging - 10/10
Performance - 10/10

The perfect 50 score.

Imagine mixture of 3 fragrances. Toni Iommi, Royal tobacco and Outlands. Then strip away fruitiness from TI, and thin out RT and Outlands. Remove all the challenging parts od Royal Tobacco, all the aromatic facets of Outlands and all the resinous sides from both. Overload it with cypriol, and you will get Oud Zarian. Name is completely missleading, i would like to know where is the oud in this creation. I have no idea where is Creed audience in this story, this has nothing to do with the Creed dna and legacy. Lets be real, this fragrance smells amazing, but if you are looking for originallity, stay away from it, i think for the price asked, it needs to be groundbraking release. Performance is nuclear as always with Cecile, but i would not place this fragrance not even in her top 10 ever. If you are owning Outlands, this is redundant, if you are owning RT, this is redundant, if you are owning Tony Iommi, this is redundant. She could make this fragrance way better, but i think she had to hit the breaks, cause it needs to be mass appealing, so it can sell.