Enigma Aoud

Geranium’s chilly, green demeanor lends itself perfectly to perfume. Geranium has a soft, almost mentholated feel, like a sudden, refreshing gust of clean forest air. Its natural coolness makes it a wonderful contrast in bright, zesty citrus perfumes, as well as in aromatic men’s fragrances containing buttoned-up lavender notes or corianders’ fiery heat. Geranium can help take the humid edge off warmer weather, but can also be wonderful for fall’s windy climate and winter’s bright, snowy nights.

Velvety and soft, the peach note adds a juicy, soft note to both fine and functional compositions. Its scent is pervasive but mellow: adding a comfortable, peachy-smooth duality to floral bouquets and fruity compositions. Peach is the ultimate in flirty fruit notes. It’s texture is both youthful and deeply sensual, and it’s sweet, sun-drenched juiciness is ideal for summer scents and bold, sexy fragrances. It’s richness is best in a blend rather than as a major note, and its tempting, sugary confidence goes with pears, oranges, pineapple, mint, leather, tobacco, incense, patchouli, and vanilla. Peach is also ideal for light florals, giving their softness a come-hither allure. Peach goes with fall and summer best, as its juicy sweetness elevates sugary summer scents as well as spicy fall selections.

A must-have in any perfumer’s arsenal, sandalwood forms the base note of countless fragrance compositions. Its milky, suave facets make for a deliciously blendable fixative that has inspired perfumers for millennia. It’s a woody and ambery note with a pervasive warmth that is both velvety-smooth and decadently creamy. Sandalwood’s mystical scent is found everywhere in perfumery. It’s luxurious, milky, tangy, and caramel-sweet aroma infuses a fragrance with deep, exotic accents. Sandalwood can also appear bright and bone-dry, and display its arid, woody side in a gorgeous and austere perfume. Sandalwood’s depth of tone and smooth, polished texture adds elegance, refinement, and mystery to any perfume - it can mimic vanilla’s deliciously sweet, butter-fat heaviness, or fade into cedar’s sharp and bitter feel. It’s also a fantastic and evocative scent on it’s own as well as in a blended fragrance. Sandalwood’s tastefully exotic lusciousness is wearable year-round by either sex, and you could spend a lifetime sampling all the different ways it can be used in perfumery.

Oud is a very popular essence among the Persian Gulf countries. Across Arabia, men and women are known to dote over the raw material—admiring the lavish fragrance for all its warmth and complexity. In fact, oud is so popular in Arabian fragrances that there exists several subfamilies of oud (such as fruit oud, leather oud, rose oud—and the list goes on!). Agarwood, or oud, is the most expensive note in a perfumer’s palette. It has been valued for thousands of years and is considered one of the most luxurious ingredients in the world of perfumery. Oud is derived from the dark resin of the Agar tree, which grows in very rare conditions. Although its popularity skyrocketed in the past decade, oud has been known and used by various ancient civilizations in esoteric ceremonies and meditation practices for hundreds of years. Perfect for cold weather, oud has a distinctively woody, slightly animalic, and rich scent. Oud’s warmth adds whole new brevity and depth when combined with floral or spicy notes.