The House of Oud
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The nutmeg-cinnamon duet arrives hot and slightly medicinal, more apothecary than patisserie, with an almost camphoraceous edge. Within minutes, cedar's dry woodiness starts to temper the spice, creating a dusty, aromatic frame that hints at the amber richness waiting beneath.
Sandalwood blooms into full creaminess, its lactonic softness now wrestling with gaiac's smoky, slightly rubbery darkness. The oud emerges subtly—not a barnyard shriek but a leathery, resinous presence that anchors the increasingly complex wood accord, whilst labdanum begins its slow amber glow.
Skin-close now, the composition settles into a vanillic, coumarinic haze where tobacco flower's powdery-sweet character finally takes centre stage. The woods remain as shadows, and the musk adds just enough clean lift to keep this from becoming too heavy, though it still wears like cashmere lined with leather.
Golden Powder is the olfactive equivalent of a mahogany smoking room lined with silk brocade—opulent yet intimate, darkly sweet without tipping into gourmand territory. The opening salvo of nutmeg and cinnamon isn't your Christmas biscuit situation; it's drier, more medicinal, with that peculiar bitterness nutmeg develops when it meets skin warmth. This spice work creates an immediate tension with the triumvirate of woods in the heart—gaiac's smoky, almost phenolic character butting up against sandalwood's creamy persistence and Virginia cedar's dry, pencil-shaving sharpness.
What makes Golden Powder compelling is how Andrea Thero Casotti has orchestrated the base: the Burmese oud here reads less animalic and more resinous-leathery, whilst the tobacco flower (often powdery to the point of abstraction in perfumery) gains substance from French labdanum's amber-resin grip. Coumarin and vanilla provide the "golden" aspect, that honeyed, hay-like warmth, but they're kept in check by the woods and oud, never allowed to dominate. This is powder reimagined through an oud lens—not the talc-soft powder of vintage cosmetics, but something more ancient and precious, like sandalwood paste dried on temple walls.
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3.9/5 (508)