Amber Aoud Roja Parfums 2012 Parfum

This is the fragrance that made me fall in love with the world of perfumery.

It was only the second niche fragrance I ever bought, and I still remember exactly how it happened.

I was at the boutique, completely fascinated by it, but the price made me walk away. Before leaving, I sprayed it a few times on a blotter and took it home with me.

For an entire week, I kept smelling that blotter. Day after day, I found myself going back to it, and by the end of the week I realized I had already made my decision.

I went back and bought it, despite the price.

If there’s one fragrance that makes me look forward to winter every year, it’s this one.

To my nose, Amber Aoud is elegant, sensual and incredibly luxurious. Everything feels perfectly blended, creating a fragrance that never fails to impress me no matter how many times I wear it.

One of my favorite memories with it was after a date. The next morning, she told me my fragrance was still on her hair and that she had completely fallen in love with it.

Moments like that are exactly why this fragrance will always have a special place in my collection.

I'd say that this to me is much more a Rose Aoud than a properly Amber Aoud. It doesn't have the thick, vanillic and incense aura that you would expect from a classic Amber approach, and it also doesn't have the woody, light, sometimes plastic modern aura that you get from woody ambery bases. Leaving this aside, this is a good, silky and rich aoud and rose orchestration, surrounded by a velvet suedish touch which lingers discretly on skin. Altough the fragrance seems to be more complex, it relies basically around these three facets, creating an harmony which is very pleasant to be noticed all day. It has a great longevity, a small sample lasted all day on me, and while i see a lot of quality on here, it seems to me very safe, something made for the one which is willing to pay for quality and wants and oud rose orchestration which softens the rough aspects of this noble wood. It's at least worth a sample.

One of the quintessential rose-ouds every fraghead needs to try. I actually think this is a particularly Arab/Middle-Eastern take on this DNA, despite the fact that it was made by a British perfumer. There is this honeyed rosewater-y aspect in Amber Aoud that is also apparent in certain ambery mukhallats, at least the few I've tried. And the "amber" here like in those mukhallats is not the traditional vanilla/benzoin/labdanum combination but rather that dense honey-like syrupy sweet scent. I don't actually get a lot of vanilla apparent in Amber Aoud. I don't want to say zero, since there might be a bit of vanillin shoring up some of the harsher notes, but it definitely doesn't strike me the way it would in a Western-style amber like "Grand Soir | Maison Francis Kurkdjian"

The "amber"/oud/rose accord takes precedence over the floral chypre that is also hidden away in this fragrance (bergamot opening; floral heart; animalic, resinous, mossy base), but it is still there and gives a slightly vintage feel to the fragrance. But the main star is really the rose. The oud dirties it up a little bit but it stays delicate and oddly fresh despite the obvious presence of heavy resins and woods.

I remember trying this in store on strip and loving it. I came home and immediately put it on my wishlist. But after a couple of buys gone bad because of only testing on strip beforehand, I decided to test every fragrance on my wishlist on my skin. Despite my positive review, I think I've decided against a full bottle of Amber Aoud. It is much more floral and vintage-smelling than I remember. But for the right person this can definitely be a 10/10, and even a signature fragrance.

A kind gentleman at bergdorff in nyc was kind enough to make me a 2ml sample of amber aoud to take home with me. I was beyond excited to try it out and see what all the fuss was about and what an $800 bottle of fragrance smells like

Powdery rose bomb with some ambergris and benzoins, thats all i get. No oud, no woodiness, no animalic notes….just rose, rose and more rose.

Don’t get me wrong, it smells nice, but having “oud” in the name is so misleading, if there is any in here, it’s at such low trace amounts it’s undetectable to my nose. Also, very feminine leaning in my opinion.

If you want a REAL rose oud fragrance for men, just get ombre nomade, its half the price and double fragrance this could ever hope to be.

Delightful and unique way in perfumery to start a dificult and astringent chord of oud, ambergris and rose. Like no perfume that I could test. Then begin to shine the saffron and soft ambered texture. Starts very promising, but then the initial strenght goes down and ruins, in my opinion, a perfect smell; an "unstable-stabilized" perfection of oud. Perfume turns into an ambered soft common base mixed with saffron that we all have seen before, and we can get of many other perfumes in a cheaper range of prices. I can see clear references to Red Aoud of montale. Worth the price? Sample yes. Full Bottle.. I don´t think so..