mercredi 24 juin 2009

Pure Oud and Back to Black By Kilian: Olfactory Velvet



And now... back to perfumes, to breathe in a little beauty!

How annoying is it that in the newest things I’ve sniffed, two of the bottles that have my name on them should happen to be By Kilian, i.e. eat-pasta-for-a-month expensive, and what’s more, that one of the two isn’t even out until September? I see a lot of trips to the BK stand to get spritzed with the under-the-counter testers in my future…

I’ve always been seduced by the concept of oud – more for its reputation for being dark and a bit of an acquired taste than for its rarity and price – but the rough ride of the Montales sends me shrieking for my smelling salts and I haven’t yet worked up the courage to take on Arabian ouds and with them, the whole of Middle-eastern perfumery (though that day will come).

Pure Oud, now, that’s another story. It certainly smells like it ought to be the real stuff: smooth, velvety, barely sweetened by almond, warmed with a touch of tobacco by immortelle, dragged a little further into leather by a smidge of inky castoreum and, oh, yessssssssss: civet. This is the dark, musty lair of a sleek-furred beast, with metallic saffron alluding to the blood of the prey. It’s purring, though.

Back to Black/ Aphrodisiac has the same smooth, velvety feel but in a more glowing tone: a tobacco gourmand, perhaps remotely inspired by Tabac Blond but very close to the apple and honey flavored tobacco used in narguilehs, like the one I smoked in a seaside café in Alexandria thinking of Lawrence Durrell (whom I was to meet two weeks later in the South of France). On my skin, Back to Black exhales a slightly over-ripe fruitiness and boozy amaretto warmth before yielding to beeswax, cured tobacco leaves on an oak moss bed, and a floral wisp which is probably the honey. On the young male S.A.’s skin, however, Back to Black smells of apples (though the notes say raspberry) and much more strongly of honey; a second male tester brings the tobacco – rich, Casa del Habano humidor tobacco – to the fore on a vetiver-patchouli base. During the time I spent at the By Kilian counter, I saw no less than three women get sprayed and swoon… Back to Black is delectable, rich, and, yes, probably deserving of its “aphrodisiac” label. It soaks into skin as though you’d spent a lazy winter afternoon in a wooden yali by the Bosphorus, bathed in the fragrant smoke of the hookah. Baudelaire would’ve approved.


Image: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Odalisque

17 commentaires:

  1. I am a huge fan of By Kilian-- Straight to Heaven is in my top 15 (maybe even top 10) frags. It's strange but lovely how each one of their fragrances seems to be a secret for each wearer... on me, StH is all smoke and metal and does not smell at all how the notes sound. I have only smelled a few others from their line (Dangerous Liasons and Prelude to Love), but I am interested in them all. Where can you test the new one? And is it meant to be unisex or more masculine?

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  2. Oh, good googly-moogly -- between these two and the last couple of Octavian's reviews I'm having a pretty serious perfume jones. I wold love these, wouldn't i? Must. Get. To Paris. Grrrrrrr...

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  3. Pure Oud sounds purely kickass! I'm not an immortelle fan, but if it's got some raunchy civet in there, I can make amends.

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  4. I can't believe I'm actually drawn to a Kilian scent! The oud sounds fantastic. I felt the same way about Montales, until I tried Original Aoud...all the beauty I was looking for, without all the powerhouse rose & musk in many of their other creations.

    As always, many thanks for the previews!

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  5. Gator Grad, Back to Black won't be out until September, but the counters may already have the testers (they did in Paris). It can be worn by men and women.
    Pure Oud is out but fiercely expensive. In theory it's more masculine, but its smoothness makes it suitable for women, in my opinion.

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  6. Amy, don't you have a By Kilian counter? Not that I don't want you in Paris, girl, but... actually, you could probably come over for the price of the oud!

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  7. Aimée, it is very beautiful. The immortelle is not very prominent. The whole thing stays very close to the skin.

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  8. Dane, then I probably must go and try Original Aoud. The huge rose/oud/woody-ambery base combo usually gives me a raging headache!

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  9. Oh great, thanks. I'll send you my credit card bill.

    :)

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  10. Nathan, I'm sure it'll make great reading... ;-)

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  11. Hmmm, these sound just delicious. Perhaps worthy of some extended sniffing on an upcoming trip to Paris?

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  12. Have mercy, D!

    And to think I will have to stop snarking about Kilian, to boot. It's really too much...

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  13. Alyssa, Kilian's a pretty good target for snark, granted, but the fact is he's got a few really good things out there.

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  14. Ooooh, just received my bottle of Back to Black. I'm getting a big hit of cherry pipe tobacco and almond. Not as much sillage as I expected, but very dense and hovers like an aura on my skin. This is going to be great snuggled up in a sweater this winter!

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  15. Tara, I'm looking forward to giving it more of a go myself, thanks for the heads-up!

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  16. nothing can be compared with pure oud its absolutely fabulous you go straight to heaven!

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