Description
Abdes Salaam Attar’s Oud Caravan series is the world’s first (and probably only) crowd-sourced oud perfume collection. Commissioned by an Arab customer to compose an oud perfume for the Gulf region, Dominique Dubrana decided to make it an open source project, enlisting the help of a group of oud connoisseurs on Basenotes.com to stress-test his offering. Oud Caravan No. 1 was originally intended to be the sole perfume in the endeavor ? what Dubrana termed ??the Ultimate Oud Fragrance?? ? but like a really good conversation with a circle of friends, nobody wanted it to end. Riffing off each other in endlessly creative ways, Dubrana harnessed the energy of the group to create the first, then second, and finally third Oud Caravan. Today, all three Oud Caravan perfumes fit together thematically and sequentially as a cohesive statement on the mysterious material that is oud oil.
Oud Caravan No. 1 was composed to provide the oud beginner with a primer on what the material actually smells like. To this end, the perfume amalgamates several key characteristics of different oud terroirs and blends them into a seamless whole to give the wearer an idea of the real deal, without compromising on wearability. In Oud Caravan No. 1, the camphoraceous, minty bite of a Borneo-style oud gives the opening a punchy freshness that contrasts delightfully with the animalistic warmth of the aged Indian oud that lies just beneath. Imagine a Bengali tiger and what he smells like: you sense the clean fur of the animal himself, but also the peppery heat of his breath and the dried-straw inkiness of his dung. Indian oud, especially the aged stuff, as used here, is the stuff of Kings – as noble as it is ferociously animalic. Spicy, masculine, and leathery are the three words we’d choose to describe this statement-making scent. Wear it to mark your territory.
