What is the Problem with the Oud of the Arabs?

Thanks to the recent popularity of aromatherapy in the West, we now have a very clear sense of essential oils and their various uses. We know what an essential oil is, and what it is not. If someone says, “I put some lavender oil on my neck to help me relax,” we know she means lavender essential oil, not synthetic lavender oil, or lavender oil blended with other aromatics, or diluted with jojoba.

The same conception of essential oils does not exist in Arab culture. If I were to tell a Jordanian, “This is the finest Oud oil money can buy,” and hand him a bottle of Borneo 3000, he would not take the contents for agarwood essential oil any more than he would take them for synthetic Oud oil, or agarwood oil blended with synthetic aromatics, or diluted with cutting agents, or even for an attar or oil based perfume containing no agarwood oil at all. So long as the fragrance is strong, and characterized by woody, leathery, or smoky scent notes (i.e. vaguely implies an ‘Oudy’ fragrance), it is Oud oil.

In the Arab world, ‘Oud’ is a fragrance category – not the more-precious-than-gold essential oil of the Aquilaria tree. It is a type of smell – not a specific ingredient that is extracted from a particular substance in a particular way.

Just as we have ‘musk’ hand lotions, ‘amber’ incense cones, ‘rose’ soaps, which smell like musk without necessarily containing any deer musk; smell like amber without necessarily containing any ambergris; smell like rose without necessarily containing any rose otto; in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates they have ‘Oud’ mukhallats, soaps, perfumes, air fresheners, even scented paper tissues. They smell like Oud but don’t necessarily contain any agarwood oil.

Now because Oud oil is so strongly associated with Arab culture, and because a lot of Arab companies are marketing their so-called ‘Oudh’ on the internet, this misconception regarding the true nature of Oud oil has also crept into the minds of Western consumers. And the same essential oil enthusiast that will proceed with the utmost caution in purchasing sandalwood oil, even from the best known sources, will not hesitate in ordering his bottle of Oud off an auction website, from nameless sources in the Far East.

But this quickly leads to compounded ignorance, because the same individual will eventually come to think of himself as a connoisseur, whose discriminating taste is capable of endorsing and authenticating even the foulest, most poorly adulterated specimens of ‘Oud’ that were ever sold….