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Oud Stallion isn't groundbreaking. If you've dabbled in leather perfumes, you've likely smelled this before. Floral and fruity nuances are used to bring liveliness to leathery and woody notes.

It opens with rose oxide sourness, cherry sweetness and an almondy facet from benzaldehyde. Sweet contrast to western oud accord is further supported by a touch of cinnamon. The overall scent profile leans youthful, making for a pleasant wear.

Similarly to Oud Maracujá and Oud Cadenza, Jordi utilizes a neat mixture of spices and aroma chemicals with fresh, citrusy and piney qualities. Thus, car interior leather and fake oud are very easy to digest, almost like an appetizer.

After 30 minutes, I'm picking up leather, cherry and jammy rose (think somewhere between lychee and raspberry) grounded by dry cedarwood. The bubblegummy undertone becomes more apparent once coumarin and vanillin show up, along with chocolaty patchouli.

Performance is in line with other Crivelli extraits. 32% oil concentration offers great longevity (10+ hours) with loud initial projection. It's less smoky than Tuscan Leather Eau de Parfum while saffron makes it spicier than London Extrait de Parfum.

While King Blue boasts a barnyardy aspect and certainly wasn't created for people who aren't familiar with Indian oud, it's a surprisingly fresh perfume. Yes, it still develops into a dry scent, but it avoids the pitfall of amber-ouds: powderiness.

Even with Assam oud and a 35% oil concentration, projection is good, without any cheesiness. Alexis Grugeon and Hamid Merati-Kashani used a clever combination of bittersweet mandarin, rosy pink pepper and dirty blackcurrant.

Animalic tinge is noticeable during the first hour, but only on skin. In the air, it comes off as a fruity perfume with a Middle Eastern twist. The interplay between forest fruit and Assam oud has a fermented quality to it, reminiscent of slightly overripe fruit, or fruit that fell down from the trees and should be thrown into a compost.

Eventually, earthy and smoky woodiness of Assam and oak intertwines with a warm and dry amber accord. However, the lingering, still somehow juicy fruitiness prevents it from turning into the usual dustiness of your average amber-oud.

Furthermore, once leather and sandalwood start working their magic, they offer a smooth, almost velvety contrast. Add chocolaty patchouli to the mix and you're in for a long-lasting drydown (10+ hours) which feels like a textbook Amouage.

King Blue is an amber-oud with a mild animalic edge that's balanced by fruitiness. Definitely sample it first if you don't have much experience with Indian oud. If you're familiar with the ranch life and/or dated a horse girl, you might quickly fall in love with this fragrance.

Silver Oud is a polarizing perfume. Revered by some, hated by many, it's a masterpiece by Cécile Zarokian and the most refined take on Assam oud. As with most scents that contain real oud, it's not a love at first sniff, especially given the challenging opening.

Yes, it smells barnyardy. We're talking about drilling into an agarwood tree and infecting it with a fungi, then extracting the produced resin, cutting it into woodchips, soaking them in water and using steam distillation to create the oud essence. Behind the stinky mask hides a woody heart with chocolaty, fruity, leathery, medicinal, metallic and smoky facets.

Even at very low concentration, it still takes a while for this dense essence to fully open up. As such, the animalic slap in the face can last for 30 minutes (sometimes longer) before all of the aforementioned nuances start coming to life. I'm patient when I'm cooking, knowing the food will eventually taste great. I can be patient with my fragrance as well.

During its barnyard opening, oud is accompanied by cypriol, patchouli and virginia cedar. That's right, earthy and woody notes. Patchouli and cedar have some sweetness to them, but other than that and a few aroma chemicals, there's no escape from the animalic oud.

It gets better once vanilla and ethyl maltol enter the mix with slightly distinctive sweetness. At this stage, the cedar is gone and the dry leatheriness of castoreum is more pronounced. Once birch starts to bloom, masculine smokiness takes over the scent profile. Ambrarome adds a sweet nuance to the drydown - something between caramel and coca-cola.

Silver Oud is earthy, smoky and woody with animalic and leathery facets. The opening isn't pleasant, which is the downside of Assam oud. Keep in mind that magic happens in the air. Try to avoid smelling your skin for the first hour of the wear. Personally, I prefer spraying it behind my ears and at the back of my neck for a monstrous sillage.

Oud Cadenza is the most intoxicating spicy/sweet perfume I've experienced. The quality of Givuadan's Orpur® ingredients is truly remarkable and it comes at a 32% oil concentration. On my skin, it lasts for 12 hours with 4 hours of nuclear projection.

At this point, I consider Jordi Fernández to be the master of Oud accord. The way he uses it to ground spicy/sweet compositions is ingenious and gives his work a distinctive character. This woodiness is such a great catalyst - it makes the lingering spiciness more pronounced and all of the gourmand notes more palatable.

The opening is a great blend of spices; cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and saffron. It doesn't take long for western oud to show up, along with an underlying sweetness from dates and toasted cane sugar. After about 30 minutes, it settles into a mixture of caramel and woods, with hints of cocoa butter and vanilla extract already showing up.

It might sound too sweet, but Jordi uses a few compounds with citrusy and floral qualities. This brings airiness to the scent and balances the sweetness. The drydown phase consists of vanilla, cocoa and smoky myrrh. Saffron and labdanum create a leathery nuance, while patchouli and cedarwood provide a woody backbone.

As Omnipotato said, Ombré Leather is the standard by which other leather fragrances are judged. Sonia Constant uses black leather that doesn't smell creamy or animalic, but rather like the leather seats in a new Mercedes. Combined with a sweet and earthy backbone, this is a powerful scent, but it's also warm and inviting.

How does it compare to the direct competitors? Tuscan Leather Eau de Parfum is more masculine and challenging, with raspberry and jasmine to combat slightly animalic leather. It also has a mild ashtray nuance due to frankincense. Needless to say, Ombré is tame and mass-appealing compared to its older brother.

Godolphin ditches the pungent notes, keeps the raspberry at the top and adds more florals in the heart. Therefore, the leather is easier to digest than in the other two scents. The fruity and floral notes eventually fade and Ombré has a sweeter drydown.

Back to Ombré. The opening is challenging, perhaps even too much for some. I enjoy the way Sonia uses a mixture of spices and florals to provide a lift and some balance to notes that would otherwise be nauseating. I enjoyed it in Noir Extreme Eau de Parfum where she used cardamom, saffron and florals to smooth out the cloying kulfi.

You can expect the same thing to happen here, except with dominant leather. The spices give it a bit of airiness and shift your focus while jasmine works its magic and balances the thick leather with its fresh and sweet floral quality.

Drydown is where things get intruiging. Leather is around, but the overall scent profile is more sweet. The amber base blends with patchouli and moss, giving off a vibe that I can only describe as dark. It's resinous, earthy and dense, with hints of leather. There's more character and intrigue than in your average amber base.

Performance is solid, I get at least 10 hours on skin with my 2023 batch. Ombré also sticks well to a leather jacket; I usually do like 2-3 sprays every other week. I recommend getting the 50ml bottle, as 3-5 sprays will last you a whole day.