I don’t remember exactly when I first heard of oud, but it must have been in the late ‘nineties via my friend Peter Wilde, who had developed a low-temperature extraction method for naturals that gave stunning results. He sent me a 1 ml sample of oud extracted by him, and it was unlike anything I had ever smelled before (or since, for that matter). It brought to mind the Sweetness from Strength biblical allegory of a dead lion—ripped apart by Samson—in whose mouth bees have made a hive that gives honey. The rich, honeyed tobacco sweetness against a terrific giraffe-piss + chicken-coop background was irresistible. At the time, I had no idea that oud had in fact been used as a perfumery material for centuries. The first Western fragrance to use it was, according to Michael Edwards, the phenomenal Balenciaga pour Homme (1990), but no fuss was made about it at the time. Then several things happened.
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