Oud Yusuf 1g
Natural perfumers have despaired of creating the scent of lilies. Lilacs are an even harder note to capture. Perhaps a hint of vanilla with a touch of rose, some orris butter and violet leaf in a sandalwood base is as close as we get. Oud Yusuf smells so much like these sumptuous florals you’d think it was distilled from lilacs and lilies rather than oud wood.
The seductive effect of the florals is punctuated by subtle honeydew and an ever-present apricot that follows the scent all the way down to its immaculate powdered woody finish.
Perhaps the prettiest oud you can wear, Oud Yusuf also ranks as the most flawless orchestration of scent notes I have encountered in single-origin oud oil. Subtler than the finest Borneo’s berried craze, it combines all the succulent fruit notes you crave in a Borneo in its unique Cambodian style, which makes it for me absolutely irresistible.
What makes Oud Yusuf even more special is that it was distilled from 100% organic agarwood trees that are harvested and maintained in the most ethical way possible.
Our artisan owns a small patch of forest aquilaria crassna trees which he never cuts down. Each morning, you see him walking down the forest path with his dog behind him, chisel in hand, looking for the most infected trunks.
With a big smile on his face, you see him patiently picking at each trunk, chiseling out only brown shavings of resinated heartwood, mindful as he spares the uninfected portions so the tree can continue to grow and yield more agarwood.
The maximum amount of raw oud wood he could harvest in one day was ten kilograms, so the amount of oil they could produce in one month was very limited. But his few tolas are dearer to me than twenty kilograms of thoughtlessly harvested oud.
Because of the care he puts in every step of the distillation process, from the precise selection of the most infected heartwood, to the grinding, soaking and cooking of his oud, he is able to achieve a level of quality, beauty and sheer perfection in his oil no other distiller can match. And the lilacs and the lilies, the honeydew, and the apricot notes in his oud all attest to his mastery and love of this craft.
After at least three years-careful aging, the care and precision that was employed to produce this outstanding aromatic is evident in the resulting oil: An organic oud that stands proudly right alongside the likes of Borneo 3000 and many of our legendary wild distillations from previous years.
