Oud Oil Reviews - MAIN THREAD

[RobertOne]

Tested out EO Dhul Q last night. Smooth, deep, dark, earthy, grounding. Caramelized sweetness throughout most of the journey. No fruits here. Ample dose of smoke and burning incense. Not firewood-harsh smoke , but the pleasant kind of smoke from high quality incense. Lasts very long too!

The smokey aroma was clearly distinguishable even after 6 or 7 hours. Even after all that I could barely detect the signature Thai dry down. I even doubted myself, "Did I read the Thai label wrong?"

I rinsed my hands a number of times throughout the whole duration, which says a lot about its longevity.

Then this morning I found an email about this oil's pre release offer. What a surprise

Portable incense in a bottle. Incense lovers beware! You might get addicted to this.

I'll need to spend more time with it to uncover its other delights. One small swipe for a single night is not enough.

@Ensar

Dearest Sir,

Hellfire And Damnation, Are you trying to kill me?

You know, you could just come round to my place, truss me, sell off my organs slowly on the Chinese market while I lay in an ice-bath without anasthetic and it would be much less painful than all the covetousness I am experiencing.

Call yourself Ensar Oud, do you?



More like Ensar Dé Bloody Torquemada!

I thought the worst frustration that was Oud-related is when I blissfully unawares took a naughty little swipey of filthy dirty, dirty good Dr. Hindi while motoring, but no, you had to go and release that Oud.

Sigh.

I was discussing when I will re-enter the workplace earlier but mostly thanks to you (!!!) I might very well accelerate the timetable and cut out living in SE Asia just in order to get my more than fair shake of that as well as Archipelago, Purple Kinam, Sultan Ahmet, Oud Ahmad, Xiang Liao Ling, Green Papua, Borneo 500, all your olde ouds.... your kitchen sink....

Of course, one of the most peturbatory things about this situation is that after I get those treasures from you and start swiping I probably will not be able to even muster up a humanly decent amount of spite to mentally cast at you!

So please accept this with my most genteel regards now.

Now, on a slighly more serious note, I see that it is marketed as Aroha Kyaku +.

Well, I'm going to disagree with you publically and on one of your own Ouds, no less, and say that while it might be technically and artistically superior to AK it but no other Oud you or anyone else will ever produce can be as special as AK.

It was my first.

It opened my mind up to the wonder and splendour of every other Oud and I think because of that I react to it in such a profound way.

***** Rant Concluded *****

By the way, is it just me or did anyone try AK as their first and feel strongly about it too?

 

[5MeO]

RobertOne - I understand your frustration, however I can assure you that Ensar will feel no remorse for the troubles he has caused you - he has seen many families torn apart, children left to go hungry, nations divided, the spread of famine and depravity - all caused by people who wanted "just one more bottle!" Ensar is accustomed to such things.. He even accepted my offer to send him my frail, dilapidated grandmother for use as a house servant, in exchange for a single .3g sample of Sultan Ahmet (the oil is wonderful btw, entirely worth it)..

 

[RobertOne]

Feel Oud: Blue Malayu

Aquamarine. Muskiness. Balsamic Notes. Hint of Neroli. Nuance of Cordovan Leather polished with Saphir. Smooth layers of Creamy Butter. Ozone.

This is once again a variation on the theme of the previous two reviews I gave on Adam's creations but this is also at the same time very different.

If this could compliment a perfume then it would be Mr. Hulot's Holiday.

If so-called marine scents could smell this they would turn tail and run out of shame.

As for the feeling, yes, there is a little of the relief effect there but only a trace, this one is not so much about the feeling but about the ambience and structure of it's notes.

The minty after aroma is not much akin to Thai mint but has more of a faint spearmint tang, inhaling deeply I feel my lungs open up as if this were a asthma nebuliser, the camphor tingles not in my nose but midway inside my chest. Deeply cooling tingles.

Now, this is unexpected.

I am stuffing my greedy fat face with some post monster bedtime theraputic ice cream (b&j banana split) and lo and behold, it's a Brillat-Savarin moment.

All the flavours, textures and even faint aroma from the ice crean just got raised to another level entirely!

Oud cuisine.

As if my habit was not expensive enough, eh? Obviously the Borneo types would be great aroma spikes in subtle fruit or herb ices but imagine what would marry with FO Old School Thai (carob, cardamom with honey?) or EO Jing Shen Lu that I have yet to try (mild matcha or plain buttermilk? With sugar to sweeten or birch syrup or even xylitol?!)

An hour after application the drydown is fully underway to a powdery character.

8 hours later and the marine character now possess an underlying sweetness, a very happy scent profile indeed.

Further and unexpected update:

My short term memory has improved. Not by that much but certainly a little. I can't say of course that it was just this particular Oud as I have reviewed two with a similar scent profile recently but it's something to think about.

 

[Tuff]

Xiang Liao Ling - EO

My first Maroke. I thought I had an idea of what a Maroke would be based on previous exposure to other Papaun or New Guinea oils. Boy was I wrong.

First swipe of XLL and everything went black. Slowly coming to I was overcome by the thick, deep, and fantastic aroma of primal earth. Overgrown jungle vegetation, dankly resinated great-great-grandmother trees towering above. Oversized insects swarming, scattering as a T-Rex roams, hunting, queen of her jungle. Like my own surreal episode of The Land of the Lost.

XXL swipe number two. Everything goes black. Slowly coming to I am immediately hit by an intense, ancient, deeply dark green scent. Earthy and dry. Some incense is burning, the faint flame flickering above. Water trickles somewhere near. The sounds of swords being sheathed, armor being tighten and I know I'm in the depths of a medieval castle. Trapped as those above are readying for war.

Man. This stuff is intense. It is amazing and ancient. But that does not mean it isn't smooth. Man is it ever.

I'm afraid of where swipe three might land me.

Great imagery! It was actually similar to mine so here is my review
Xiang Liao Ling - EO :

Back in 1987 I met this very interesting cat in biofeedback classes in college. He was an ancient looking hippy, like Gandalf. His whole being emanated old wisdom. So I finally asked to hang out with him. He said he lived in Bolinas. Well, Bolinas is this crazy hippy town near Stinson Beach where they tear down the road signs from highway 1 so you can never can find the town nor find your way around Bolinas unless you know how. The hippies all moved there in the early 70's, took over the water board, and stopped issuing sewer permits, so no new buildings ever got built. Your only hope was to buy an existing house with an existing sewer permit. It was a novel idea and kept out normies for many decades, but sadly the economics of supply and demand caught up and now a house in Bolinas sells for $2m or over. So I started driving to Bolinas to hang out with this crazy cat. He was a member of The Well, which was the Whole Earth Catalog's novel BBS that was a precursor to what the WWW would become. The dude was so hooked up, he used to do sound for the Fillmore East back in 69 to 70 in New York so he knew -everybody-. Stanley Owsley, Rock Scully, when this guy did mail order tickets for Dead shows, lets just say he was never turned down for any request for any amount of tickets. He actually found me a place to live there, which can be extremely hard to find a rental there, and I lived there for two years. My next door neighbor was Paul McCandless, the reed player in the most amazing world fusion avant garde Jazz band ever, Oregon (Ralph Towner is their guitarist).
Oregon on youtube:

So where is this leading you may ask. He had an old hippy van that he had been driving since the early 70's. Think Scooby Doo Van. This van had been to at least 1,000 dead shows, and god knows where else. It smelled of the Original Patchouli Tree, from the Great Patchouli Bang of 1966. It also smelled like it had been parked outside in Bolinas (Stinson Beach) for 25 years. It was an awesome comforting smell, something I thought I'd never really experience again since around 1993. But Xiang Liao Ling smells just like his van. So if anyone ever asks you what that smell is on your wrist, you just tell them it's the smell of old hippy van parked in Bolinas for 25 years. It smells like the dwarves dug too deep and unearthed the Patchouli Balrog who slayed them for not heeding the warnings of harnessing energies beyond their control.

Xiang Liao Ling goes on tame, you will wonder if you actually applied enough for the first thirty minutes to an hour. Then the scent seems to slowly combine like a rubiks cube being solved in front of your nose, and becomes the Big Bang Patchouli Smell, of whence all Patchoulis began. It becomes a solid wall of smell, a fortress, interlocking, comforting, old, like the great wall of China. It is polite enough that it does not intrude, but it does defend.

P.S. Ensar/Kruger uses the musician Hamza El Din in one of their videos on youtube, here is The Dead playing with Hamza El Din live, thankfully I was able to see this back in the day as it happened:

Hamza El Din starts at 54:00
Kruger's great use of Hamza in his video:

 

[bhanny]

@Tuff
Awesome man. Seriously awesome. Thanks for sharing that.

 

[RobertOne]

Great imagery! It was actually similar to mine so here is my review
Xiang Liao Ling - EO :

Back in 1987 I met this very interesting cat in biofeedback classes in college. He was an ancient looking hippy, like Gandalf. His whole being emanated old wisdom. So I finally asked to hang out with him. He said he lived in Bolinas. Well, Bolinas is this crazy hippy town near Stinson Beach where they tear down the road signs from highway 1 so you can never can find the town nor find your way around Bolinas unless you know how. The hippies all moved there in the early 70's, took over the water board, and stopped issuing sewer permits, so no new buildings ever got built. Your only hope was to buy an existing house with an existing sewer permit. It was a novel idea and kept out normies for many decades, but sadly the economics of supply and demand caught up and now a house in Bolinas sells for $2m or over. So I started driving to Bolinas to hang out with this crazy cat. He was a member of The Well, which was the Whole Earth Catalog's novel BBS that was a precursor to what the WWW would become. The dude was so hooked up, he used to do sound for the Fillmore East back in 69 to 70 in New York so he knew -everybody-. Stanley Owsley, Rock Scully, when this guy did mail order tickets for Dead shows, lets just say he was never turned down for any request for any amount of tickets. He actually found me a place to live there, which can be extremely hard to find a rental there, and I lived there for two years. My next door neighbor was Paul McCandless, the reed player in the most amazing world fusion avant garde Jazz band ever, Oregon (Ralph Towner is their guitarist).
Oregon on youtube:

So where is this leading you may ask. He had an old hippy van that he had been driving since the early 70's. Think Scooby Doo Van. This van had been to at least 1,000 dead shows, and god knows where else. It smelled of the Original Patchouli Tree, from the Great Patchouli Bang of 1966. It also smelled like it had been parked outside in Bolinas (Stinson Beach) for 25 years. It was an awesome comforting smell, something I thought I'd never really experience again since around 1993. But Xiang Liao Ling smells just like his van. So if anyone ever asks you what that smell is on your wrist, you just tell them it's the smell of old hippy van parked in Bolinas for 25 years. It smells like the dwarves dug too deep and unearthed the Patchouli Balrog who slayed them for not heeding the warnings of harnessing energies beyond their control.

Xiang Liao Ling goes on tame, you will wonder if you actually applied enough for the first thirty minutes to an hour. Then the scent seems to slowly combine like a rubiks cube being solved in front of your nose, and becomes the Big Bang Patchouli Smell, of whence all Patchoulis began. It becomes a solid wall of smell, a fortress, interlocking, comforting, old, like the great wall of China. It is polite enough that it does not intrude, but it does defend.

P.S. Ensar/Kruger uses the musician Hamza El Din in one of their videos on youtube, here is The Dead playing with Hamza El Din live, thankfully I was able to see this back in the day as it happened:

Hamza El Din starts at 54:00
Kruger's great use of Hamza in his video:

That was a ramble in the very nicest way possible, Tuff.

I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords and you again to the forums.

 

[bhanny]

Nice. How long do you wait in between swipes if you don't mind me asking and where did the third swipe take you?

Hey John! Like a day in between. More to follow on swipe three..

 

[RobertOne]

FO: Piara.

This will be the shortest review so far.

It initially opens with the same Thai basilmint character of many of his oils and then 15 minutes later, I kid you not...

It's a homage to EO Purple Kinam.

It gets about 70% of it, I think.

Astonishing.

 

[RobertOne]

FO: Lee Lawadee

This Oud opens with lots of delicious honeycomb, followed by some sort of heavenly camphor where Adam's blue basilmint take the background.

This Oud sings hereafter at the top notes. It's all about delicious sweetness and flowers. This equals EO Oud Yusuf as a feminine scent, it's so sweet and light that I can think of dozens of desserts this might be added to.

Hours later and the floral nature still sings on, this is when I cheat and go to the product page, it's a blend of Oud and frangipani. This foxed me as I have never smelled it in such a simple mixture.

I think personally this would be a lovely fragrance for women.

 

[RobertOne]

Last FO for a while: Din Dang

Woods. Oud lift. Coffee. Green. Flora.

Of all the Ouds from FO so far this one has the most heart notes for me. The perfume 'cloud' is dense here as is the complexity. For the life of me pinning this one down to individual notes is all but impossible.

15 minutes in and the scent changes from these notes to Adam's signature blue basilmint.

One hour later and onwards it's back to the start!

This Oud is all about lovely calm relaxation.

 

[5MeO]

Great reviews RobertOne!

Most of feel Oud's oils share a wonderfully smooth and sublime quality, I see this as a sort of "signature" to his creations..

 

[RobertOne]

Great reviews RobertOne!

Most of feel Oud's oils share a wonderfully smooth and sublime quality, I see this as a sort of "signature" to his creations..

I think you have it there.

Ensar's Ouds in my experience about telling stories, each of them united by an aesthetic but set in very different places. Adam's for the most part are variations on a theme with notable exceptions being OST, DH and perhaps Piara.

 

[halim89]

I think you have it there.

Ensar's Ouds in my experience about telling stories, each of them united by an aesthetic but set in very different places. Adam's for the most part are variations on a theme with notable exceptions being OST, DH and perhaps Piara.

hi robert do you test FO dr hindi What can you say about it thank you

 

[RobertOne]

hi robert do you test FO dr hindi What can you say about it thank you

Hi halim89 and welcome, yes I did review it in this very thread, just leaf back to page 7.

Incidentally, you might find it very rewarding to read threads from the start, expecially the artisans' talk.

 

[bhanny]

ENCENS ROYALE 1985
Sister to Oud Royale 1985. I believe I said it before, the pedigree is clearly evident. But there is more. They both share that ancient, deep, heavily-resinated, pure ouddiness. So no worries ER85 had those genes passed on. But OR85 eventually goes a bit into the heavy, green, moist jungle. Thats when sister ER85 splits and stays a bit more spicy, woody and pristine. It is quite nice and incredibly well balanced. Another gem to be pulled out of the Maestro's vaults!

I think I said it before, those who like OR85 and Tigerwood95 will likely love this. Those who are looking for a vintage smelling oud will love this (to be accurate this IS a vintage oud, its as old as my wife ). It will hold a nice spot on Ensar Oud's Olde Oud I would guess, but this one will likely go quick, given the fondness of OR85 and TW95.

 

[RobertOne]

Kyara LTD 2012

The initial swipe was not as I imagined.
There are scents here, notes I have never experienced so far.

I am enjoying a base of leather, a faint whiff of extremely potent loose black tobacco, a mid note of camphor intermingled with TW '95.

Yet, hitting the very top almost at the edge of perception is a note of such quiet intensity that I almost feel numb with it.

Is that Kyara?

It's a note played from a glass flute, ringing and spreading one beautiful high to the sky.

The mental imagery it evokes is quite clear. It's a stunningly beautiful figure of indeterminate sex, dressed in earthen toned robes in the branches of a giant redwood playing that flute to the heavens.

10 minutes.

The high note is ever more powerful and piercing now, in a smoky wreath of spice. Allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg.

30 minutes.

The Kyara note keeps ringing like a crystal bell, the basenotes acting as the perfect counterpoint but now joined with the most bitter and costly chocolate on earth eaten with sips of strong hot green tea.

It would be foolish to deny that this note both sublimely sharpens the mind and shatters tranquillity by the other side of the coin.

My awareness has increased and my anxieties have been quelled, this is absolutely psychotropic.

2 hours in.

The extreme intensity of the Kyara has now married well with the roots, it's now a joy to live with.

My now faint memories of Nippon, Osaka in the last stroke of the 80's are mostly of women, delicious food and drink but I did also visit a shrine or two and make a stab at culture.

The incense in these places begin to approach what this is. I can see why this is so treasured by the Japanese, it evokes the feeling of zen as clearly as the aroma of frankincense in a catholic church on christmas does piety.

3 Hours.

Unification continues. The Kyara is now nested firmly upon the wreath of spices, where it now begins to show a hint of yuzu or perhaps just lemon, this might be my brain assigning note to aesthetic.

This is once again an Oud that challenges my preconceptions of what an Oud is. At the three hour mark it's not really a scent symphony anymore as would be understood as such, it's a composition of notes as Philip Glass at his most concise would play,

5 hours.

The intensity has receded now but the Kyara is now firmly to the fore again. The spice wreath is now hand in hand with a pronounced Oud incense lift.

Today has seemed much easier than normal, every problem or stress seems to have been sandpapered to smoothness.

Final edit:
Normally it's easy to assign colours to Ouds for me, but I took a while to realise that I had been tardy with this one.

Loam brown. Starry indigo. Tea Green. White Kyara.

 

[Taha]

...and hence, my all-time absolute favorite oud.

 

[Oud Learner]

Robert,

What region is the Kyara LTD 2012 from? From your description of the scent profile i could guess Cambodia?

From Japanese culture perspective, Kyara is only from Vietnam. But Ensar has been known to reproduce certain facets of the green note from non-Vietnamese wood.

I am not sure of the wood origin of Kyara LTD 2012 though.

 

[Oud Learner]

Yes it seems to get very confusing between the Japanese perspective and Chinese but i feel the Chinese philosophy makes a little more sense rather than saying Kyara can only be found in one region. Although i cant speak on the subject because i have no experience dealing with Kyara/Kinam.

I guess the reason is because the Chinese is mainly interested in the wood for curving purposes, whereas the Japanese is using it for Kodo and has a certain criteria for the aroma. Having say that, I do believe the Chinese still value highly Kyara wood from Vietnam, judging from the market value for them.

 

[bhanny]

This is always an interesting debate, one I only have a little experience with, at least with the actual wood. What are your beliefs Oud Learner? I've read both arguments to some degree. Sampled only a few woods from each, Vietnamese Kyara and Non-Vietnamese Kinam. I definitely fall on the Chinese thinking side. Again, only a little experience on my own. Anyone else care to weigh in?

SOTD. Actually two. Port Moresby and Koh Kong Experment.