Areej Le Doré - Al Oud Extrait de Parfum 35ML

Fragrance Description

Al Oud by Areej Le Doré is a Oriental Woody fragrance for women and men. This is a new fragrance. Al Oud was launched in 2024. The nose behind this fragrance is Russian Adam. Top notes are Oud and Bergamot; middle notes are Cambodian Oud, Patchouli and Coumarin; base notes are Assam Oud and Indian Oud.

Fragrance Notes

Top Notes

Agarwood Oud

Bergamot

Middle Notes

Cambodian Oud

Coumarin

Patchouli

Base Notes

Agarwood Oud

Indian Oud

Al Oud is a Russian Oud classic – he is a man who loves the feral, bleu cheese blast of a good Hindi oud, and here, despite dressing it up with a touch of berried Cambodi and a bear pelt-ish Chinese oud, Al Oud’s Hindi profile rings out as clear as day. Forget the other notes – there is no contest. My brother’s ex-girlfriend, who was French (still is, I assume), would visit my husband and me in our small apartment, and microwave her bleu cheese for 30 seconds before scooping it up into her mouth on a cracker. The intensely animalic aroma would impregnate the walls, the curtains, and the furniture for a full week afterwards. 

The oud in Al Oud smells similar, albeit crossed with that unmistakable bile duct sourness of the wood rot that sets in with a long, long soak of the oud chips in a barrel of water. Later on, there is scads of hay, leather, horse sweat, dander, and damp horse blankets, as per the Hindi oud rulebook. 

Over the years, I have come to appreciate the nobility and complexity of Hindi oud, but there is a note here that I cannot love, and that is the scent of pelt rot, specifically the stale, claggy aroma of an animal fur that has been closed up in a small space without having been fully dried or aired out before storage. I can take the scent of dry rot – but leather or wood or wool that is even slightly ‘wet’ at the edges starts to degrade quicker, tipping it over the edge from ‘pleasantly musty’ to alarmingly unhealthy or wrong-smelling, like the smell of a wound under a tightly wrapped bandage. Though it is similar to Russian Adam’s own History of Indian Oud, Al Oud is a little rawer and far less spicy, so I instinctively like it less. But that’s just me. A Hindi oud nut will like this just as much as they would any of Feel Oud’s Hindi-style distillations.