Royal Oud - An appreciation

[gucciguccigoo]

The first time i sniffed royal oud i was stopped dead in my tracks and it blew me away. I just cant shake that feeling ofmy first sniff. Amazing juice imo.

 

[Diamond Joe]

The first time i sniffed royal oud i was stopped dead in my tracks and it blew me away. I just cant shake that feeling ofmy first sniff. Amazing juice imo.

Agreed. When I first smelled RO it was like an awakening. "Cologne can smell THIS good?!?"

And throughout my fragrance journey, and all the other stuff I own, Royal Oud remains my most worn. Its 5 star juice in every way IMO

 

[deltasun]

I just snagged a 120ml tester of 16L01 as my 50ml bottle is close to gone and I use my 2011 bottle sparingly. It's become my most-worn over the last few months. It's the perfect blend of rich, dry, and masculine to my nose at the moment. As far as older batches go, 16L remains a pretty common batch. I highly recommend the FB groups as the asking price on Ebay is now 300+. Of the newer stuff (2018+), I'm not as big of a fan. It's a lot lighter and has an odd, nutty accord in it - to my nose, anyway.

Any thoughts on the 2014 batches? Or how do they compare to the 2011 and 2016 ones?

 

[jkonick]

The first time i sniffed royal oud i was stopped dead in my tracks and it blew me away. I just cant shake that feeling ofmy first sniff. Amazing juice imo.

Same here. One of the first $200+ niche scents I ever smelled, and it was a whole new world. I actually love the dry down of this one, creamy smooth sandalwood and ambergris to my nose. Very classy woodsy skin scent at that point. I also love the angelica in this, which is an under appreciated aspect of the opening especially, alongside the pepper.

 

[Dandydude]

i’ve been having a bottle for years… I just don’t wear it much. Revisited it today. This comes across as an upscale bay rum to me. Lemon, pepper, cloves and bay leaf. Drys down oily, with a sweet woodiness but the spices continue deep into the dry dow. Does anyone else get clove and Bayleaf? I‘ve never heard it mentioned and it’s not in the notes but figured I’d ask.

 

[StylinLA]

This is a long and older thread so not sure if I weighed in earlier.

I am a big fan of Royal Oud. I eschewed it when it first came out. Something that I partly blame on those tiny 1ml sample vials. Likely seeing a lot of good vibes from people whose opinions I trust here inspired me to make a leap of faith, and went out and did a semi blind buy.

First time I gave it full wearing from new purchase blew me away. I find it rich and luxurious. To me, only great scent they've done in years. I've already backed up BdP for life. This is probably the only other Creed I might ever repurchase.

 

[DoctorM81]

I find it rich and luxurious. To me, only great scent they've done in years.

Good description/summary of this scent, and I'd find it hard to disagree with the second sentence as well.

 

[StylinLA]

i’ve been having a bottle for years… I just don’t wear it much. Revisited it today. This comes across as an upscale bay rum to me. Lemon, pepper, cloves and bay leaf. Drys down oily, with a sweet woodiness but the spices continue deep into the dry dow. Does anyone else get clove and Bayleaf? I‘ve never heard it mentioned and it’s not in the notes but figured I’d ask.

I wouldn't say clove and bayleaf, but I can understand that it sort of has that kind of "vibe."

 

[Brooks Otterlake]

To me, only great scent they've done in years.

This is certainly how I feel.

It also benefits from not having been relentlessly imitated the way some of the scents in the Creed lineup have been. It doesn't have many peers (and the peers it does have aren't as nice).

 

[StylinLA]

It also benefits from not having been relentlessly imitated the way some of the scents in the Creed lineup have been. It doesn't have many peers (and the peers it does have aren't as nice).

Now that you mention it, it is interesting there are not a bunch of smell alikes and clones.

It makes me wonder if this one is kind of a darling of the frag forums but not really selling that well. Though it appears to sell well enough they keep making it.

Had to break some out tonight with all this reading about it.

 

[Brooks Otterlake]

Now that you mention it, it is interesting there are not a bunch of smell alikes and clones.

The closest is Houbigant Bois Mystique, but it's not a smellalike - more like a similar "feeling" - and it's not as nice as Royal Oud.

My guess is that it's not an easy scent to replicate.

 

[Danny Mitchell]

GIT still tops my list of Creed faves but Royal Oud is an easy and obvious second. BDP is no slouch either, confidently claiming third for me.

 

[emtee]

Amazing scent, easily in my top 5, I wear this one as a treat as I only have a 75ml bottle and want to make it last as long as possible, the new stuff is just not the same!

 

[DoctorM81]

Only wore this 3 weeks ago (new year weekend) but feels so long....need to pull it out again.

 

[slpfrsly]

i’ve been having a bottle for years… I just don’t wear it much. Revisited it today. This comes across as an upscale bay rum to me. Lemon, pepper, cloves and bay leaf. Drys down oily, with a sweet woodiness but the spices continue deep into the dry dow. Does anyone else get clove and Bayleaf? I‘ve never heard it mentioned and it’s not in the notes but figured I’d ask.

That's an interesting comparison. Vaguely, yes. I think there is a key difference in that the sweetness is different in both - in RO it comes in the base in the form of amber/vanilla, and in BR it's more of an aromatic and incidental sweetness that isn't as thick/robust, and departs earlier than in RO. But I like the comparison, it's good lateral thinking and an interesting comparison. Creed uses clove quite heavily in Bois du Portugal and I think in the new Viking as well, so it might be something of a house style. For a more literal comparison, I think BR is reliant on lime, a general sweet/stinging boozy smell, and of course the bay/clove aromatic scent that is the only one that really lasts. RO doesn't smell very citric to me and is a dry earthy woody scent that develops sweetness and thickness in the base, so there are too many differences to see RO as an out and out development on a bay rum. But there's something to what you say, I think.

 

[slpfrsly]

Now that you mention it, it is interesting there are not a bunch of smell alikes and clones.

It makes me wonder if this one is kind of a darling of the frag forums but not really selling that well. Though it appears to sell well enough they keep making it.

Had to break some out tonight with all this reading about it.

There are similar fragrances. It's definitely not a fragrance where the main accords/ingredients are hard to imitate/protected, as some scents are practically identical. Two come to mind, although there are others in the ballpark that do a similar job, like Santo Incienso.

Bois Mystique is probably about 90% of Royal Oud, but with a more interesting/aromatic/more note-laden opening. It dries down differently, to a balsamic amber/myrrh, as opposed to the more simple cedar + thick creamy vanilla that Royal Oud does. To my nose, it's richer, more developed, more interesting, but so close that it's very much a matter of preference as to which would be worth a recommendation or whatever. Bois Mystique doesn't have Creed's signature salty musk/ambergris note, which is in Royal Oud, and that's really nice in the mids. But I'd give the opening and the base to Bois Mystique. It's just Royal Oud, but developed/moved on, as you'd expect for a scent coming out a few years later.

Bois Blond by Atelier is the other one, and if I remember, it's even closer. It's thinner, more simplistic/less note-laden, so more in keeping with the Creed. It would make for a really good daily/cheaper alternative to Royal Oud for someone who wants to savour RO. I checked on fragrantica and no-one seems to have made the comparison (not all that surprising tbh), and the suggested list is way off. Unless I've got the wrong name of course. But there were definitely two Atelier clones of Creed scents: one was Aventus, the other was Royal Oud, and I'm pretty sure it's Bois Blond. Very close, it's using the same cedar+ thing, well worth trying. The lack of comparison just reiterates how shit online info can be - I cannot believe I'm the only one to notice the similarities.