A Sensory Pursuit
While visiting Qatar you might pass in front of a perfumery with some kind of pieces of wood on display.
This is oud, it comes from the wood of the tropical Agar (Aquilaria) tree that includes 15 different species. When the wood of the tropical Agar (Aquilaria) gets infected with a parasitic mold called Phialophora Parasitica, it reacts by producing a dark and fragrant resin that looks like a piece of wood.
Oud which is also called agarwood, oudh, agalocha, aloeswood, or eaglewood is used as one of the rarest perfume ingredients in the world and has been used for centuries in India, Southeast Asia, in the Middle East, as well as in China, and Japan.
The perfumery industry uses it in its form of oil (dehn al oud) or resin (oud mubakhar).
On one side, the resin is only triggered by the mold, it's estimated that a total of 2 percent of these trees produce it. Plus, many of these trees are now threatened species.
On the other side, the oil of oud is extracted by distillation from the wood or by melting the resin and can be applied directly to the skin as it is non-irritating.
According to Catherine Helbiq from Liveabout “Due to its rarity, high demand, and the difficulty of harvesting it, oud oil is perhaps the most expensive oil in the world. The annual oud market is around $6 billion, and its value is often estimated as one-and-a-half times the value of gold. For these reasons, it's occasionally referred to as "liquid gold."
The specific value of any particular oud, however, varies depending on the source. Certain tree species produce more valuable oud, and the region where the trees grow is a factor as well. Not to mention, oud that occurs naturally is more expensive than oud produced by an artificial infestation of the mold.”
Indeed, according to the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences, oud oil can cost as much as more than $30,000 per kilogram depending on its purity.
Oudh (in Arabic) is valued strongly by perfumers who use it most often as a base note (as it ends to stay on the skin long after the others dissipate).
Oud note is described as warm, sweetness mixed with woody and balsamic notes, strong, musky or animalistic, undeniably it is a complex scent.
According to Chandler Burr, the famous perfume critic “It has a very particular scent and there is nothing like it on the market. It’s dark, rich and opaque.”
For me this penetrating signature, soulful and hermetic note, lift smoothly a corner of the veil of the Qatari identity.
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Cecile Quenum shoot the photo I choose to illustrate this article.
Click on the photo to reach Tracesdelumière, Cecile Quenum's website.
