Best Oud for Greatness by Initio Parfums Prives Alternatives & Similar Perfumes

Perfumer: Chris Maurice

From the master perfume responsible for most of the Xerjoff range, Moon Glade is a very unconventional take on lavender. The perfumer added a charred coconut shell nuance and poured sweet peach compote to the clean musky vibes of the herb.

Perfumer: Pierre Guéros

“ExpLOud marks the beginning of a new creative synergy: Laboratorio Olfattivo meets Pierre Guéros, perfumer at Symrise. This great traveller and connoisseur of Middle East immediately seduced us with his sensitivity, his human curiosity and his ability to establish an empathic contact with other cultures. Without hesitation, we entrusted him the mission of giving body to “our vision” of Oud. ExpLOud was born, as an aromatic explosion based on the most precious and luminous of Ouds, with floral notes to lift and twist the characteristic scent of this unique raw material which has already experienced numerous interpretations on the market”.

Roberto Drago

“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Le Mat explodes with sweet earth, heaven-sent patchouli anchoring a sensual chypré homage of rosa centifolia from Grasse, the strange complexities of immortelle, cloves, black pepper and Egyptian geranium.  A talisman of balsamic blessed absolution that will boldly defend mind and body.

A perfume of divination and tarotology. Le Mat, the Fool, Jester and Journeyman, also a symbol of chance, enigma and propulsion, end and beginning. It’s a card of 0 and XXII, a powerful icon of the Major Arcana, cards of symbols and numbers that portend future and fate.  We must turn over cards and accept fate, walk forward into new futures, lives and loves. We may not have all the tools for survival, but we have hope and defiance.

An involving fragrance inspired by a cherished love poem — Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. This sublime ode to the enduring nature of devotion and emotional connection is interpreted here as a sueded blur of amaretto and patchouli. Orris and labdanum further deepen the union of souls.

SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Cozé short for French 'c’est osé' “this is daring”. The fragrance was the start of Parfumerie Générale and a dedication to perfumer’s father. Cozé was inspired by a cigar box which belonged to him: Cohiba, Monterrey, Trinidad surrounded by ebony wood.

A snapshot of a sensual night for two on a veranda overlooking a tangled garden. Cognac is shared, its boozy intimations amping the intoxicating amber scent lifting off warm skin. Earthy patchouli adds grit to the grace.

PERFUMER
HONORINE BLANC

 Perfumer: Miroslav Petkov

A bestial intense animalic amber serving the visceral image of a wild stallion. Patchouli and labdanum harmonise to a rich decadent leather while hits of oriental osmanthus add to the floral sweetness which in turn is balanced by spicy cypriol and vetiver. Stunning and magnificent.

A meditation on untamed nature, lost marshes, primeval fires. A dusky oud softened by labdamum and tonka, sharpened by rhubarb and saffron, toughened by tar and smoke.

The concept of the smell is walking among giant sequoias, so tall the sunlight never reaches the ground, breathing crisp air of a coniferous forest. Expect a seriously dark woody character, more on the drier resinous side of the woody spectrum.

The perfume has a smoky nuance but neither in the creamy way of Le Labo's Santal 37 nor in the outrageous gunpowder way of Beaufort's Tonnere. Woody Mood's smokiness is a gentle facette combined from smoky nuances of frankincense, sequoia and black tea.

X OUD presents itself with a whole set of olfactory opposites.
From spicy Indian oud to the sweetness of black currants, white rum and with a glow from patchouli, smoked leather and saffron these ingredients blends against musk, pineapple, apple and jasmine.

With X OUD, we wanted to maintain the original Indian Oud throughout the whole experience so we used a technique that gives the scent of the original Indian Oud a crystal clear role from start to finish.