Oud For Greatness
Initio (2018)

Strong. Manly. Slight spice. Dark.
Cold weather scent. Definitely NOT unisex if you have a traditional sense of what leans feminine or masculine. But who am I to deny a lady this jewel...wear on

Wear in the cooler to cold months and wear dressed up, doesn't come across as a casual frag. This right here is grown man ish.

Longevity ans sillage is beastly.
Cost is high like Snoop Dog

If you like the heavy woodsy genre, this kind sir, is for you!
Enjoy!

I simply love Oud For Greatness, and though it may not be a popular opinion, I believe the hype, and even the price are worth it. This is definitely a western oud fragrance and will be more appealing to those who haven’t dabbled too much in Oud, but every time I wear it, I discover new facets of its complex and inspiring personality. It’s sophisticated, elegant, and fits a variety of circumstances, working especially well in cold weather.

The opening hits with saffron and patchouli, and projects with power. Every time I put this in I can really smell it for the first hour, but it continues to give great projection for as much as 12 hours, way outperforming Tom Ford’s Oud Wood (another western oud favorite).

As it dries down, it maintains a linearity, but I find that the oud really comes through much later in its lifespan. Often I don’t even smell it until the day after, when I get a whiff on a sweater or jacket, and I think, “Ah, THERE’S the oud.”

Longevity and performance are just as good as the smell itself.

I haven’t tried some of the better clones like Oud for Glory, so it’s hard for me to compare, but I think Initio knocked it out of the park here. Definitely worth a blind buy of a sample if you’re interested in oud, or generally in spice and woody notes. Oud for Greatness has truly become one of my favorite fragrances in my collection, and outside of the fragrance community, is a scent that will set you apart.

I like complex fragrances that surprise when I wear them but I don't like to purchase a fragrance based on listed notes, only to search long & hard for those notes.

Oud For Greatness is straight-up "as stated." Not much complexity, no real surprises. On my skin it's the opening, initial, middle and landing notes, all as listed.

OFG opens with a brief but definite spice blast, which I suppose is saffron & nutmeg. And yes, there is lavender in the opening...lots and lots of lavender, which I have grown to detest in fragrances. Within minutes, a definite oud, or very sour woody note appears and seems to briefly overtake the opening notes. And I very briefly detect ultra-faint patchouli, which almost immediately disperses. But for quite sometime, I detect sour oud, wet wood and lavender.

Within 20-30 minutes on my skin, leather and rubber notes emerge that remind me of so many other similar fragrances I simply do not enjoy. Leather, rubber, oily resins. Some mention ambroxan, others mention ambergris...for me it's just a no.

An exceptionally masculine fragrance, I cannot imagine why a woman would want to walk around smelling like this. OFG is a powerful fragrance with forever staying power and extreme silage.

I may give MFK Baccarat Rouge 540 a try, as others have compared that fragrance to a kinder, gentler, more feminine Initio OFG.

One last thought...at OFG's asking price, I would strongly recommend a sample try. IMHO, this is definitely not a blind buy.

Hyped and overpriced, for no reason whatsoever. Saffron bomb type BR540 but here on a woody, sweet and spicy base. Pleasant and easy to approach but nothing special. Important trail and big duration, maybe this is the reason for so much hype, bah ... the fact is that with the money it costs, you buy real oud perfumes in which the raw material is there and it is natural and feels good without interference from synthetic aromas and musks. For me it tends to be feminine and certainly suitable for cold weather. EDIT after several hours I can confirm, very rejected, boring, cloying and, at least for me, annoying.

I really didn't love this at first. The lavender and saffron opening is strong and medicinal and came off on my skin as straight-up perfumer's alcohol. As it dried down, it kept that medicine, even while fresh woods began to emerge, which made it really hard for me to enjoy. But throughout the course of the day, it settles into a really nice, non-animalic agarwood/fresh wood combination that ultimately becomes a very pleasant, very masculine woody/spicy skin scent.

I kept giving it a shot, and over the course of a month, I came to really appreciate it, even like it, maybe verging on love. Perhaps that is the power of oud, as this was my first experience with that note (although some will say this lacks actual oud and is more about the saffron and lavender).

It is overpriced but what you're paying for is the longevity and sillage. If you love this smell, it might be worth the big bucks, especially if you're made of big bucks.

But copy houses have replicated this scent at a fraction of the cost (Oud for Glory is a good one), and I cannot in good conscience suggest someone pay over $300 USD for something that can essentially be had for 1/10th of the cost. This is the first time I have ever thought it truly advisable to go with a clone, but that's where I've landed.

Oud for Greatness is often dismissed as a Baccarat Rouge smellalike. As the latter seems to have been created with the express intention of taking out any stray elephants one may encounter during one’s urban peregrinations, the prospects aren’t bright. However, despite sharing the stuck-to-the-pan sugary density of BR and some of its suffocating power, there are points of difference. Oud for Greatness is lighter up top with some foamy lavender and zingy fake saffron, and deeper at the bottom end with peppery charred woods providing much needed contrast to the cotton candy main theme. Thus, its wearability is enhanced somewhat, despite its essentially synthetic scent profile – but nowhere near enough for me to even want to consider its ‘robbed blind’ asking price.