Black Friday @ EO

I am going to make this short and sweet. The spirit of your post is not appropriate to the decorum here. Reasonable disagreement and discussion are healthy and informative, but your post includes neither. I am going to ask that you please edit out the personal attacks on your own. Otherwise I will do it for you. And do not even try to go down the road that I am protecting Ensar or whatever. That would insult my intelligence and I do not take kindly to that. Ensar is free to pursue his own interests and business practices as he sees fit. You can pursue your own. Let the market decide the rest. Good night.

We try to not insinuate, my brother, but rather report that which we see with our eyes as simple facts of the market. Most of the major houses in the ME have salaried chemists on the payroll, who are in charge of molecularly isolating certain scent compounds that are then mixed with other things, standardized and homogenized for vast consumption by the masses, and then put in a fancy bottle. In many cases, the bottle is worth more than the oil it contains.

Actually, if I count the number of distillers I know it's probably a lot less than 10. I've tried dozens of distillers' oils one way or another, but have found it wise to stick to my one or two loyal craftsmen (@Kruger being one of them) over the years, mind my own business about what I distill, and do things the way that suits my own particular taste.

I think you've highlighted the crux of the problem we all face in the oud community, in some of the things you mentioned. I think the crux of the problem is that most people see this as a 'business' gone 'fraternity' gone 'madhouse' because of all the different assumptions that are made, and with which everyone judges others. I have customers from every corner of the globe, and everyone brings their own cultural values, morals and aesthetics to the table, which leads to radically different expectations with regards to their favorite 'vendor'.

The problem is, I don't see myself as a vendor at all. Hence the confusion and heartache for some of my customers. Quite simply, I have a particular aesthetic that I like to purvey. Others have their own aesthetics. Your cultural norms and values are radically different to mine. You cannot judge what I do unless you put yourself in my shoes and see the world through my eyes, and smell the wood through my nose. I am NOT willing to put myself in your shoes and do something for the sake of selling merchandise in a 'market'. It's like going to a painter and saying he can make a lot more money by investing in mass produced replicas of great originals, rather than focusing on the 'vision' or aesthetic the particular artist has in mind.

I am not here to dominate your market. Abdul Samad and Ajmal have already done that, much better than I can ever aspire to. What I am here to do, and which pains certain other 'artisans', is to express myself freely and fully the way that my own God-given nose smells fit. If you like smelling what I smell, you're welcome to partake in my craft, my dear. If you don't like it, you're free to click away and not bother yourself with my hallucinations.

As for the 'personal laundry' bit, I'll be the first one to tell you that talking about others in a way they dislike is a sin. Hence, each time someone talks about 'genius' when referring to something on my website or refers to me as someone 'money hungry' because I have overheads and costs I need to meet each month, I don't like it. When someone is a vendor offering samples of his upcoming lines to buyers in private, yet to the public he and his partner pretend to be genuine end users and customers just like everyone else, that needs to be called out for what it is. I don't see that as laundry.

I don't know where you grew up, my brother, but in New York City we tend to be up front and direct about certain things. There is no laundry here: The man is a vendor. He says he runs an independent forum, unaffiliated with any brands, yet he has two brands he's already advertised to buyers of my old oils he likes to resell. Some people on that forum keep calling for transparency. Maybe some of those calls should be addressed at the administrators. Where I come from, very few people would put in overtime in a venture where they have zero financial interests, as a mere service to community.

If it came to 'airing laundry' as you say, the discussion wouldn't be focused around this one fact. The way someone conducts business is pertinent information, and is not dirty laundry as far as I see it. I wonder how you would feel if someone took tens of thousands of $$ worth of merchandise from you and never paid you, then launched an 'anonymous' platform to undermine you and tarnish your image.

Wa alaikum as salaam.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/flmt1.gif

I cannot even respond to this. How did you guys meet the Prophet Muhammad, or are you referring to someone else you think is the Messenger of God? Sorry for this but I am confused by that statement. Islam also teaches us to respect one another no matter what, seems you are on a trend of choosing what parts of Islam you want to follow and which you prefer to ignore. Be all or none because its quite confusing. Have a drink and think about it.

I also do not give a damn what people say about me, my products, or anything associated with me.

My friend, do you not see the allegations being made in his outlandish post? How you answer that will determine your worth to me.

I have nothing to answer and my worth to you is about as important to me as the bug that hit my windshield this morning.

I would like to recommend to everyone, please hold off on your posts in regards to what's going on, on the other forum.

Active contributing members only:

If you have not sampled any of our Organic Ouds, please PM me for FREE SAMPLES (.1 gr) in the next 24 hours! You may choose any combination of the following:

Oud Yusuf
Oud Mostafa No 5
Jing Shen Lu
Oud Dhul Q

Note: A shipping fee of $25 applies.

Stay tuned for more special offers and free oud giveaways!

#MOCA!

I would love to take you up on that offer Ensar, thank you for your grace. May KEK grant you many rare crisp green Pepe's in karmic return. I will be putting an order in, in a few days, so just put it aside and save it for me plzzzzzz. <3

Ensar my 25% commission still applies right? Well I take payment only in kinam and kyen!