Face to Face with ‘Arabian’ Oud: Part 2

Walking out from one perfume shop into the next, what I found in the Emirati malls and outdoor markets was that nothing had changed since my first visit there many years ago.

‘Thaqeel’ and ‘Kalakassi’ are household names in oud circles in both the East and the West. At $680 and $545 per quarter tola, respectively, these are two oils at the top of many an oud lover’s wishlist. A bit of an enigma, the Thaqeel in particular has become fabled as one of the must-have oud oils.

A few months ago, a guest came over with his bottle of Thaqeel (purchased from a Canadian vendor) eager to hear my thoughts on it. Coincidentally, the oil was a hot topic in online discussion forums at the time, and I didn’t hold back reporting how stunned I was to pick up an unmistakable note of synthetic musk in it. I was heavily reproached for my impressions, which some took to be borderline blasphemy.

This time, it at least smelled pure. Mediocre, but pure. When I asked the dealer where the oil was from, he said India. ‘Indian?’ I thought. The oil remained an enigma. Every time I smell it, it’s different. Way different. It was like the producers aren’t even trying to hide the fact that they sell different mixed batches under the fame of a single title.

The experience reminded me once more that there are two types of oud: the oud in the mind and the oud in the bottle.

How can you expect to find pure oud in a store which is just one in a chain of 200, 300, 400+ others?

How do you keep your display cases filled with dark and heavy agarwood chips, in each of these 200, 300, 400+ stores?

If you’re clueless about what’s happening on the agarwood scene, there’s nothing wrong with this picture. And that’s fine. We aren’t expected to know what goes on behind the scenes in everything we get involved in.

The Gulf perfume companies have never (as far as I know) been guilty of deliberate false marketing. In the Gulf, oud has to do with cultural identity and ritual. The companies are able to associate an entire market with a specific culture – oud is an Arab thing. Outwardly, they never make any explicit claims about what they’re offering. None of them advertise selling ‘pure essential oud oil’. They sell ‘oudh’, whatever that means.

The Gulf companies have been successful in creating their own market, and unsuccessful in educating that market. Just like French perfumery created the eau de toilette generation, with everyone versed in keywords like ‘musc’ and ‘amber’, with little knowledge about these ingredients. And that’s fine. Most people are fine with generic.

But you’ll always have puritans on the fringes who need to get to the roots of things. Apart from the price tag, Thaqeel makes no promises. Just like Clive Christian. You’re only paying for the price. Depending on which outlet you go to, you might walk out thinking Thaqeel is the most prized Cambodian distillation ever conducted. A few months ago, you’d have thought it was just another blend of oud and synthetic musk. While last week, it was a Hindi that smelled like a mediocre cultivated Thai oil. At the end of the day, you’re being asked to put down $680 for a quarter tola you really know nothing about.

Even if you’re not from the Middle East, your understanding of oud is likely to be as diluted as the stuff you buy here. This is how effectively ‘oud’ has been promoted through the years. Today in Western perfumery, instead of Jasmine you get methylheptine carbonate. In ‘oud’ shops, instead of oud oil, you get dioctyl phthalate. And that’s fine… as long as that’s what you’re being told.

 

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