Anyone who follows me here knows how much I love Oud Wood and how significant my issues with its longevity and sillage were.
With my first bottle, I experienced such poor longevity that I returned the 100 ml to the seller after just 7 days.
In the following months, I spent hours and sometimes days researching potential reformulations, batch codes, ingredients, bottle sizes, etc., until I decided in April of this year to give the fragrance another chance and a 30 ml bottle joined my collection. At the same time, a 50 ml bottle was nestled in my Easter basket, for which I am truly, truly grateful to my dearest partner.
And what can I say - I simply love Oud Wood above all else! The smoothness, the woods, the coolness... The coolness? Yes, the coolness: It radiates a distant coolness and at the same time a comforting warmth. Cool, aloof wood with subtle nuances of oud. Soothing cardamom. Noble sandalwood. Rounded off by the warmth of tonka bean and the restrained sweetness from the subtly used amber. A dream.
If it weren't for the longevity - 5 to a maximum of 7 hours, then even under the best weather conditions and the strongest air conditioning, this fragrance is done. Unfortunately.
So, an alternative had to be found. An alternative for which I would have been willing to spend a lot of money just to get a longer-lasting Oud Wood scent.
During my research, I eventually came across Bois Oudh from DUA Fragrances. If you believe the reviews, Bois Oudh is an identical clone of Oud Wood, only with massively improved longevity. "Oud Wood on steroids," so to speak. When DUA had a promotion, I jumped at the chance: I ordered 3 bottles blind - fortune favors the bold. And a little spoiler right away: I definitely won.
I have already written several comments on other DUA fragrances: F‘ing Fabulous and Royal Chariot Attar. While the former is somewhat easy to guess, Royal Chariot Attar is a dupe of the fragrance Layton from the house of Marly.
These comments were always direct comparisons between the original and the dupe. I structured these comparisons into a FOREWORD and then the REVIEWS for BOTTLE, OPENING, HEART NOTE, BASE NOTE, and a CONCLUSION.
And I will spare myself that here at this point.
Because:
Contrary to all my skepticism and doubts, Bois Oudh is indeed a nearly identical clone of Oud Wood. Bois Oudh has a subtly sharper (and in my opinion, actually better) opening, while Oud Wood comes across as very, very balanced and smooth right from the start. Bois Oudh is very, very present from the very first moment, not loud, but distinctly noticeable. It is like a more intense version of the original.
By the time of the drydown, you can skip the "nearly" - because: The fragrances are identical. Bois Oudh is miniminimally creamier and sweeter, yet still a wonderful and balanced scent. A truly successful composition by DUA.
While Oud Wood in its base note, which unfortunately sets in very early with this fragrance, becomes very, very subdued and lets the scent pleasantly fade with amber and tonka bean, Bois Oudh seems to never leave its heart note and thus never reaches its base note. Already from the heart note, amber and tonka bean are present in Bois Oudh, making the scent beautifully warm and creamy with its wonderful, cool woods, but this masterpiece only truly comes to an end very, very late.
Bois Oudh may be slightly more linear, but it is at least as beautifully dreamy and multifaceted as the original.
The big plus point of this fragrance lies in its longevity: This is already above average for me. While Oud Wood unfortunately lasts only between 5 to a maximum of 7 hours, I can still smell Bois Oudh the next day, so a good 10 to 12 hours later. Then, it is only very subtly and lightly, but still distinctly recognizable as Bois Oudh. On clothing, it actually lasts until the next wash.
The sillage is also significantly better with Bois Oudh than with the original, although it is not a sillage bomb. Freshly sprayed, it is still a room-filler. After about one to two hours, however, the sillage from the opening diminishes. However, even after several hours with Bois Oudh, one is still very noticeably perceived from a certain distance, and in just two days of testing, I was already asked three times if I was wearing Oud Wood. After 7 hours, the sillage still radiates about half an arm's length away. - Please read the update on sillage below. Spoiler: Stronger than described here!
CONCLUSION:
I honestly have no idea how DUA manages to create such brilliant dupes and hit every nuance so perfectly that one might think it is the original.
However, I am absolutely convinced by the scent itself as well as by its performance regarding longevity and sillage, and I believe you definitely get more for your money - aside from the ugly bottle.
But I also don't want to deny my favorite brand, Tom Ford. Tom Ford is a brilliant fashion designer and for me an undisputedly excellent artist in our beautiful world of fragrances.
The bottles are worlds more beautiful, more elegant, and more prestigious.
And yet: With Bois Oudh, you get a truly great Oud Wood alternative with clearly better longevity and sillage.
However, it must be clearly stated here that at 50 USD for 30 ml plus shipping costs and customs fees, it is a somewhat cheaper option, but by no means a cheapie.
Peace Oud. Uh... Out.
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I had to correct the sillage from 7 to 9.
I wore the fragrance for the first time at work today - in the morning, I sprayed two sprays on my shirt and two more on each side of my neck (so a total of four on my neck).
At noon, 4 hours later, when another lecturer was about to take over my classroom, she asked me if I had bathed in perfume today, as it smelled so strongly in the room afterward. She added that the scent was even noticeable in the hallway.
When I got home this evening, about 9 hours later, my partner said she could already smell me when I entered the foyer of our apartment (she was sitting in the living room, about 30 meters away from the foyer).
NEW CONCLUSION:
(Blind) Purchase recommendation: 100%. Use cautiously, as it has extreme longevity and sillage. Even now, 12 hours after application, I can still smell the drydown extremely intensely.
By the way, it seems to me that the scent has "matured" - when I first wore it about a week ago, it was already very strong in terms of longevity, but the sillage was by no means as pronounced.
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