While working on my 2023 Holiday Gift Guide, I tested out three mouthwatering new-to-me scents from Scentbird. I kind of can’t get them out of my head, so I wanted to give each of them a full review. These rich, deep fragrances are unisex woods & oud fragrances that are perfect for our dark Canadian winters, and in my opinion are some of the best oud perfumes that you can find in a scent sampling program right now.
Hermetica Vertical Oud review
Opens with a beautiful, fresh, sweet burst of cinnamon-powder-but-not-cinnamon-powder. You get the sweetness of raspberry with the sexy dryness of leather and sandalwood here. What I love about Vertical Oud is that it smells so different up close versus at a distance—it’s easy to see why this one is so popular.
Up against the skin, you just smell that rich, leathery base; it reminds me of a more complex version of Le Labo Oud 27 (which I am currently so tired of.) But then, at a distance, you get these sweet, delicious, powdery wafts of fragrance instead. This is a little hollow. It’s not particularly filthy, which is what I like in my ouds, but I imagine Vertical Oud will be rather sexy and feminine on a man or masc. Its drydown is shockingly small for an oud, and reminds me of holiday lattés and s’mores, for some reason.
Rag & Bone Oddity review
Where Vertical Oud is synthetic, Rag & Bone Oddity is light and complex. I’m slightly obsessed with this. It’s spicy and gorgeous, and it smells—honestly, it smells exactly like a mix between a horse stable and an antique shop with an incense stand. I know that must sound a bit off, but it’s everything I didn’t know I wanted to smell like. It makes me feel deeply nostalgic, and its leather notes are actually leather notes: Think saddlery instead of spice.
Oddity is surprisingly light given its note profile, and lifted with vanilla bean. What it lacks in staying power it makes up for in smoke and wood.
Initio Oud for Greatness review
Initio Oud for Greatness is a cult-favourite oud with a heart-clenching price tag—usually around $400 CAD. So, being able to try it and dabble in a bit of it through Scentbird is a bit of a treat. It’s often described as Baccarat Rouge 540 with oud splashed in, which has always sounded wildly tempting to me.
Oud for Greatness was designed by Initio Parfums Prives to be a unisex fragrance. It opens with notes of saffron, nutmeg, and lavender listed, with oud as its middle note sitting on a base of patchouli and musk. It has enormous sillage (even sitting unsprayed around the bottle) and it’s dark, peppery, and thick: If this was edible, it would be smooth and sticky, like molasses.
Unfortunately, I find Initio’s Oud for Greatness perfume to be overwhelmingly sweet. It does so in a way that’s interesting, but I want more filth from it. The synthetic analog that Initio uses here in place of agarwood extract is too clean—I feel like you almost need a bit of sweat on your skin to get this one really going.
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Disclaimer: The products mentioned in this post were supplied by PR for editorial consideration.
