My life through the sense of smell

#1
Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
-Vladimir Nabokov
The words above are a reflection of my feelings about the sense of smell and the only thing that gives me more reflection are the smells themselves!

I can still remember the smells of my childhood-cut grass, our Christmas tree, baby powder, grandma's house, mom's lasagna, milky way bars, peanut butter, rolled up slices of Wonder bread, chlorine in the pool and many more! Some say a song brings back memories, but smells seem to be ingrained in our brain cells waiting to be recalled by a hint of their memory!
As i grew into my teenage years, nature was the main source of my smells. I loved being outdoors. I lived by the ocean and every day after work you could find me walking on the beach enjoying the fresh smell of the water whose mist which would cover my face as a crescendo to the music of the waves breaking against the shore. When not at the beach, i would be off to the parks and forests. The smell of the trees and flowers permeated my being! Ahhh! Just the thought of it now takes me back.

Ironically, i hated smells in a bottle. While most of my peers were lined up to buy the best colognes and aftershaves, i was more content to go 'natural' which was more due to my ignorance about fragrances than anything else. Sweat to me was more 'natural' than the strong, almost nauseating fragrances you'd find at a department store. 'Poison' was the name of one famous fragrance of the time and believe me, the name was appropriate!
My first real appreciation of a plethora of natural smells happened as i was walking in a market in Cairo. I was smelling Egypt!. From spices sold in open sacks lining the streets to incense burning in the mosques, my head was spinning, undoubtedly due to the shock of so many natural scents attacking my senses at one time! There were also the sellers of 'bottled natural essential oils', rolling them on anyone who walked slowly enough to come within their reach. I actually thought the smells were quite good and unusual. Later, I found out that most of them were cheap imitations pawned off on unsuspecting tourists and naive adventurers like me. I would, in time, find my way in the path of fragrances and spirituality, understanding the Divine relationship between the two.
So, after years of roll-on oils and perfumes of suspect origin, the door of 'REAL' essential oils was opened to me by a man called..................................Ensar!
To be continued...........
 

Rasoul S

Well-Known Member
#2
Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
-Vladimir Nabokov
The words above are a reflection of my feelings about the sense of smell and the only thing that gives me more reflection are the smells themselves!

I can still remember the smells of my childhood-cut grass, our Christmas tree, baby powder, grandma's house, mom's lasagna, milky way bars, peanut butter, rolled up slices of Wonder bread, chlorine in the pool and many more! Some say a song brings back memories, but smells seem to be ingrained in our brain cells waiting to be recalled by a hint of their memory!
As i grew into my teenage years, nature was the main source of my smells. I loved being outdoors. I lived by the ocean and every day after work you could find me walking on the beach enjoying the fresh smell of the water whose mist which would cover my face as a crescendo to the music of the waves breaking against the shore. When not at the beach, i would be off to the parks and forests. The smell of the trees and flowers permeated my being! Ahhh! Just the thought of it now takes me back.

Ironically, i hated smells in a bottle. While most of my peers were lined up to buy the best colognes and aftershaves, i was more content to go 'natural' which was more due to my ignorance about fragrances than anything else. Sweat to me was more 'natural' than the strong, almost nauseating fragrances you'd find at a department store. 'Poison' was the name of one famous fragrance of the time and believe me, the name was appropriate!
My first real appreciation of a plethora of natural smells happened as i was walking in a market in Cairo. I was smelling Egypt!. From spices sold in open sacks lining the streets to incense burning in the mosques, my head was spinning, undoubtedly due to the shock of so many natural scents attacking my senses at one time! There were also the sellers of 'bottled natural essential oils', rolling them on anyone who walked slowly enough to come within their reach. I actually thought the smells were quite good and unusual. Later, I found out that most of them were cheap imitations pawned off on unsuspecting tourists and naive adventurers like me. I would, in time, find my way in the path of fragrances and spirituality, understanding the Divine relationship between the two.
So, after years of roll-on oils and perfumes of suspect origin, the door of 'REAL' essential oils was opened to me by a man called..................................Ensar!
To be continued...........
@ehab
i wholeheartedly agree. yet we live in a spectacle society. when i chat oud even with wine and whiskey friends, they have a genuine surprise or worse, look down on me and ask: " what is with this oud stuff? are you crazy spending these sums of money on 1 or 2 grams!!!" yet they have no problem spending 10-20-50 folds the sum on a painting or a statue or jewelry or a turbillon watch. i dont judge. not one bit. to each their own. i explain calmly and neutrally to them that you buy that painting to give you pleasure for your eyes. you invest in that sound system to give pleasure to your ears. that cashmere scarf or sweater to give pleasure to your skin. is the same thing with perfume or scents... yet much to my surprise, people still don't get it! it is incredible! the sense of smell is our strongest sense yet our least used one, valued or appreciated.

people say seeing is believing. i don't accept it or buy it until i see it. yet our eyes are lying to us all the time. we can't see past few hundred yards well. we barely see in the dark. so many visual illusions... our nose, on the other hand, is far more trustworthy and carries more truth within it. i explain all of these and while i may get a half ass nod, I still don't get to have them see what i see. oh well. more oud for us and our likes. but it sucks at the same time, cause we can be having a vastly bigger community of like-minded people and our artisans, especially those living on the grounds, going thru the risks, the hardship,... deserve to make a much better living from bringing us these treasures.

beleive it or not even fragheads dont get it. they kidna get it, but when they can get a litre of muscone or ambroxan for the price of a few grams of the real thing, they dont see the value, the hook, the attraction. and when one speaks of the effects of these natural scents on the mood, brain, soul and the body, they recall lavender, mint or worse alcohol and drugs... oh boy...

any thoughts?
 
#3
Hi Rasoul,
As you said, 'to each his own'! We can only turn them on to the experience. They wouldn't be so astonished if they were to meet some of the oud masters whose life is imbued with this spiritual and sensual oil!
To quote a spiritual master, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do'..........or smell!
 
#4
..........there was a lot of talk around the community about Ensar and his outrageous oils and ..............................................their prices! One thing that intrigued me was the way people talked about him and his products. Although price was always discussed, it was always mentioned along with quality.
At social gatherings of the brothers, there was an out-of-this-world smell permeating the air. One time, it would smell like a tropical jungle, another time like being in a oriental market similar to the ones i had been in during my trips to Egypt. And other times, like no scent i had ever smelled before, spiritual, yet earthy, sweet, yet with a hint of the animalic scent. I was mesmerized and at the same time obsessed by it. I had to get my hands, or should i say nose, on one of those ouds!
After nosing around the brothers for the most desirable scent (they're all desirable but when one has limited funds, choice is everything!), I found my love! Kalimantan!!! I managed to save enough money to buy 3 grams. At first swipe, I was in heaven!
I used it sparingly, but all things must pass and so it did after 10 months. I immediately went into withdrawals. By that time however, there was no more to be had. And so, i drifted back into the world of cheaper oils of unknown origins. It would be some years before i had the good fortune to buy oud again. The wait was worth it!!!
 

Rasoul S

Well-Known Member
#5
Value is in the eye of beholder. Maybe oud is a necessity for some but is more of a luxury for most. Market corrects the price and dozens of factors play into it.

I have said before that green oil kyara is actually not expensive at all. What!? How you might ask?

I have managed to take 0.1 gram of it and further splice into 20+ pieces. Each of which is able to deliver a huge ooomph for many long seconds (time stands still when inhaling the vapors of it) or even many minutes if the temperature has been managed properly (low low low low). No kidding no exaggerating. If you take the price and divide by number of experiences you will see that it can be super doable and affordable by many.

Ditto when it comes to some oils like white kinam, Kyara Ltd, agar auras Royal oils, etc. maybe the initial per gram price tag shocks many, but a little of these oils goes a long way. Some oils last a few hours or so on my skin while others have gone 24+ hours.

This is obviously not to say only the oils from these two respected gentlemen go all the way, but only that due to my personal aesthetic alignment with their work I am more intimately familiar with their oils than many other respected distillers. Some other oils That spring to mind are feel oud hawsa and imperial oud shah jahan.

Also i am not saying is only the case with pricier oils. IMHO eo hainan 05, Oud Royale Sri Lanka, agar aura kanzen, imperial ouds Ceylon royale, kedah thaqeel and Vietnam zephyr also punch way above their weight.

My 2 cents.
 
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