Perfumes: Oud is the ingredient of the moment

Huzaifa Nezar he is a young influencer on Instagram. But he doesn’t deal with luxury cars or watches, or real estate: he’s a salesman oud, the wood that is worth more than gold, also called “the perfume of the gods”. In fact, he goes by @21oud. At his store in Sana’a, Yemen, in the city’s largest shopping mall, the Emad Center, he keeps a two-hundred-year-old version in a safe that he opens just for us.

Oud, superstar of perfumery

We are probably holding around 20 thousand euros in our hands without realizing it because we only see some sticks: the fact is that the most concentrated bottle of essence that Huzaifa sells, which is very small, costs 250 dollars alone.

«The finest qualities of oud wood cost up to 70 thousand dollars per kilo: I have 45 thousand per kilo for the most demanding. The least expensive one costs 12 thousand” explains Huzaifa, who adds: “Here in Yemen, despite the war, the rich are there and they make false claims to buy my oud.” Otherwise you have to go to Saudi Arabia, for those who can afford to travel.

An ancient and precious note

Oud, also known by the names Agrawood and Aloeswood, is the resinous aromatic heartwood of the aquilaria treeoriginally from South-East Asia, highly appreciated for its pleasant fragrance and therefore used as incense. In the history of Islam and in daily practice, reduced to incense, it is used as a natural fragrance for clothing, environments and people, burning it in the bukhura small traditional brazier.

This is not lacking in any self-respecting home, even the poorest, and oud is a unisex fragrance: with this essence women perfume their hair and hijabs, men their long robes and jallabies. It is a rare commodity and, over time, it has become increasingly so: only an average of seven aquilaria trees out of a hundred can produce resin.

In fact, this fragrance is the aquilaria tree’s response to the presence of fungi or mold on its wood. When the aquilaria tree is attacked by these bacteria, to protect itself it secretes a dark, aromatic resin that soaks the wood and it is all the more aromatic the older the tree. But, and here lies the difficulty in identifying it, it is only visible when the trunk has been cut.

Alessandro Cancian, professor and researcher at the Institute of Ishmaelite Studies in London, as well as a perfumer himself, explains to us that there is a 19th century Islamic treatise on perfumes. He presented it during the Cini Foundation study day in Venice: «Karim Khan Kermani, who died in 1871, was the author of this treatise on perfumery, allusively titled “Mijmara”, or “Censer”: here elements of physical aromatherapy are discussed. spiritual and Kermani himself presents numerous recipes for perfumed creations of different nature, as well as instructions on methods for extracting essences from raw materials, in the context of an articulated discussion on the sayings of the imams on spirituality of perfumes”. It goes without saying that oud finds a privileged place here.

An olfactory trend in the West

Until about ten years ago, oud remained an oriental curiosity and, in Western perfumery, it was relegated to a very luxury market line intended only for Arab customers from the Gulf: the reason was the fact that the fragrance was foreign to Western noses and, last but not least, the evaluation prevailed that, to fully develop the fragrance, naturally adaptable to every pH of the skin, required the use of considerable quantities in the laboratory.

Then, some fashion houses dared: Tom Ford for men, with his Oud Woodor the Parisian Francis Kurkdjian with the Oud Satin Mood for women. Gucci, Armani, Chopard and Joe Malone have also approved oudin softer versions combined with roses, but they preferred to use a synthetic version, i.e. a replica reproduced in the laboratory, with harsher notes that recall leather, while the natural essence is sweeter and balsamic.

There are niche perfumers who specialize in the reproduction of various combinations of natural oud, with boxes costing more than 2 thousand euros, but they are not the most expensive of all. To get to the highest quality in the world, you have to give in to the fragrances produced by Roja Haute Luxborn from the experience of the British perfumer Roja Dove, defined by New York Times “the biggest nose in the world” or, differently, “a master tailor of perfume”.

Roja Dove works only with the highest quality materials that cost much more than pure gold: from May rose to Grasse jasmine, up to natural ambergris, and covers them in embroidered silk boxes, closes them with 24-carat gold-encrusted caps and combines them with scented oil candles, mixing them with the finest wax precious and scrupulously poured by hand. In essence, it magnifies the best that nature can offer with uncompromising, perfectly sustainable work.

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