Top Notes 
Woody notes
Heart Notes 
Smoky notes
Drowsy Iris
Base Notes 
Oud
Amber
Musk06/24/2025
ClaireV
969 Reviews
ClaireV
1
Natural-smelling, slightly sheepshit-like oud over chemically radiant amber
I'm sensing a theme here - Thomas Kosmala seems to like pairing one natural-smelling material with a fake or aromachemical one (a simplified way of making a perfume). In No. 9 Bukhoor, I give Kosmala full credit for using an authentic-smelling oud note, which doesn't mean that he used real oud, just that he ponied up the dosh for a superior-smelling oud synthetic from Firmenich or Symrise (don't worry, though, because he's passed the cost of that decision down to us poor schmucks - this costs $100 more than Tonic No. 1). I like the way the oud note smells in this composition - it is authentically rugged, sheepy, and full of those matted straw and deep leather notes you get in a real-deal oud oil, but skips the honeyed piss and shit notes you sometimes get with the more feral ones. Whether it's worth it to you to pay $100 more for a polite, nipped and tucked facsimile of a real oud oil is really up to you. It comes cloaked in a sticky, gloppy fruit-amber and lots of that scratchy, radiant woodchip note Kosmala likes so much. So much meh for so much money.
By the way, real bukhoor, which is basically woodchips (not oud chips) soaked in rose, myrrh, frankincense and other oils, and either smoked loose over a burner (mabkhara) or pressed into a gummy soft brick to break off into single-burn 'nubbins' of incense (kind of like softish incense cones but in a pressed wodge the size of a peppermint patty), does not smell at all like this scent. No. 9 Bukhoor winds up smelling like cheap bro-wood with a vaguely exotic tint, the oud note departing the scene with indecent haste for all $275 you're shelling out for it. Real bukhoor is sweet, incensy, ambery, and yes, usually mega cheap-smelling, but it smells a hundred times better and more honest than this trash. Neutral rating purely for the very good oud material front-loaded into the first 30 minutes.
By the way, real bukhoor, which is basically woodchips (not oud chips) soaked in rose, myrrh, frankincense and other oils, and either smoked loose over a burner (mabkhara) or pressed into a gummy soft brick to break off into single-burn 'nubbins' of incense (kind of like softish incense cones but in a pressed wodge the size of a peppermint patty), does not smell at all like this scent. No. 9 Bukhoor winds up smelling like cheap bro-wood with a vaguely exotic tint, the oud note departing the scene with indecent haste for all $275 you're shelling out for it. Real bukhoor is sweet, incensy, ambery, and yes, usually mega cheap-smelling, but it smells a hundred times better and more honest than this trash. Neutral rating purely for the very good oud material front-loaded into the first 30 minutes.
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