Night Aoud

Night Aoud announces itself as a fragrance caught between two worlds—the spiced, honeyed warmth of nocturnal florals and the austere, resinous gravity of oud. Geoffrey Nejman constructs something deliberately unbalanced, almost unsettling in its contradictions. The ylang ylang and peach opening suggest something feminine and approachable, but this is merely theatre before the oud emerges from the wings, dry and leathery, paired with patchouli that smells less green and more burnt, like incense ash clinging to velvet. The sandalwood acts as mediator, creamy enough to prevent the composition from becoming overtly animalic, yet the ambergris and labdanum base layer in a sticky, animalic sweetness that feels vaguely transgressive—amber that's been left to cure in humid darkness rather than polished to radiance.

This is a fragrance for those who wear oud not as a status symbol but as a genuine preference, who find pleasure in dissonance. It's neither sophisticated nor refined in any conventional sense; rather, it's intimate and slightly taboo, the olfactory equivalent of amber jewellery worn with deliberately mismatched everything. The 3.6 rating likely reflects its divisive nature—the woody-amber accord dominates entirely, consuming those early fruited gestures until only smoke, wood, and syrupy amber remain. Wear this in evening contexts where fragrance can linger without apology, where its low sillage becomes an asset rather than limitation, keeping the experience intensely personal.