Oud Brouillard

Image:

A warm, exotic forest scene with fruit trees and oud woods, evoking a dense Thai woodland.

Description of notes:

The composition is created in the best traditions of sweet, fruity oud aromas reminiscent of Thai oud oils. It has a dense woody-cashmere aura with soft powdery animalic nuances of castoreum. Voluminous yet unobtrusive, this fragrance envelops you like a warm, sensual blanket of refined woody notes. The top unfolds with juicy peach and plum, merged with the earthy depth of cypriol and a subtle hint of orange zest. As it settles, creamy santal, luxurious cashmere, and rich agar woods form an elegant heart. In the base, musk, labdanum, orris, and amber create a smooth, musky-powdery foundation that lingers softly on your skin.

Specialty Perfume

Oud Brouillard stands as a specialty fragrance, distinguished by its heart of authentic Thai Trat plantation oud essential oil (Aquilaria crassna) that forms its luxurious woody-fruity foundation. This exceptional material, aged for six years and sourced from Thailand’s Trat province, elevates the composition into the realm of artisanal perfumery, making each bottle a testament to the extraordinary complexity of aged plantation oud.

Thai Trat oud represents one of the most sought-after expressions of Southeast Asian agarwood, renowned for its distinctive fruity profile that sets it apart from other regional variations (you can read more about regional differences in the article The Multilayered World of Oud). Unlike wild-harvested oud, this plantation material offers remarkable consistency while maintaining the profound depth characteristic of premium agarwood. The six-year aging process allows the wood’s natural resins to develop extraordinary complexity—transforming initial animalic intensity into waves of exotic fruits, spiced incense, aged cedarwood, and warm myrrh-like resins.

What makes this material particularly exceptional is its captivating evolution profile. The initial 40-minute development presents an intense, almost challenging animalic character that gradually reveals itself as a profound olfactory journey. Those who persist through this initial intensity are rewarded with an extraordinary transformation—waves of smooth woody qualities reminiscent of aged Mysore sandalwood, bursts of exotic fruits like aromatic fireworks, and nuances of cocoa, mandarin zest, and aged leather that create an utterly mesmerizing experience.

The rarity of this specific Thai Trat oud extends beyond its aged character to its current market availability. This exceptional material has become increasingly scarce and is now completely out of stock in the international fragrance market, making existing reserves virtually irreplaceable. Consequently, Oud Brouillard exists as a limited creation, available only while the final reserves of this extraordinary six-year aged Thai Trat plantation oud remain. Each bottle captures not merely a fragrance, but a moment in olfactory history when this remarkable material was still attainable—making Oud Brouillard a collector’s treasure for connoisseurs who appreciate the pinnacle of aged plantation agarwood artistry.

History of Creation:

Olfactory impressions and associations are vital in my work, so I often craft them intentionally (for more details, see the article How Scents Evoke Associations). It’s easiest and most interesting to do so through direct encounters with aromatic plants, as I did with acacia and the cocoa tree in the Frankfurt Botanical Garden, cistus (zistrose) in the Berlin Botanical Garden, or fig leaves in Italy. By the way, I recall my vacation at Lake Garda less for the oppressively hot days by the pool and more for the soft, gentle evenings with the powdery, dusty green scent of fig leaves. Since fig trees grew everywhere, nothing stopped me from regularly applying their sap to my wrists.

Still, bringing new materials along for study—carefully examining their facets, aura, sillage, and daily evolution—is also an excellent approach. That’s exactly what I did with this new Thai oud, taking it on a journey through northern Italy. Believe me, any natural oud is worth weeks of exploration.

The apple farm where I stayed lay in a lowland near Bressanone, at the foot of a mountain crowned by a castle. I applied the oud from a small three-milliliter vial using a stick, then set off along a path through the orchard where workers busily gathered ripe apples into huge green crates. With a slight delay, the crates were loaded onto wagons and hauled to the local juice factory, leaving behind a scent trail of ripe red apples.

Autumn had fully taken hold of the valley, and the southern slopes I headed for were blanketed in vineyards. Their yellowing foliage formed a golden cover over the hills. Some vines still bore small clusters of overripe grapes, evidently missed by the harvesters. These shriveled and yellowed berries had gathered an abundance of sugar, tasting honey-sweet and slightly fermented—an echo of peach, melon, and pear.

Where the vineyards ended, the cable car began. It swiftly rose upward, passed through a clearing in the forest, and dove into thick fog at that altitude. Nothing was visible except for the pine tops flickering beneath the gondola. Slowing down, the cabin reached a station, from which a trail continued uphill. My first breath of the damp air caught in my throat, prompting a short cough.

As I climbed further, the fog slowly retreated, revealing the outline of a gorge flanking the trail. A hill where sheep grazed emerged in the distance, their bells audible long before they were in sight. Soon, the air cleared completely.

From the summit, you can see a mountain range through which streams of clouds and moist air drift. Occasionally, a gust of wind tears away clumps of fog and carries them upward, briefly enveloping you in mist. The moist air fuses with the Thai oud, transporting you into the ambience of a humid, sunlit jungle on this autumn day.