Encens d’Angkor

You already know what Cambodian oud smells like. Even if you’ve never smelled it, you’ve probably unknowingly gotten a whiff of it because every designer oud flanker, every mall fragrance with “oud” on the box, every synthetic approximation in every niche house from here to Dubai – they’re all chasing the same thing. Cambodian oud has one job and it does it better than any other origin on earth. It’s not candy-sweet, not synthetic-sweet, but the kind of deep caramelized sweetness that forms when Aquilaria crassna resin spends years saturating heartwood in the humid heat of the world’s most famous oud province. That’s the species – crassna, native to Cambodia, the one responsible for the profile that turned the Arab world onto oud in the first place and that every “oud” note in commercial perfumery is still trying to approximate. Encens d’Angkor opens with warm vanilla and dark caramel, with an incense undertone that’s unique to the distillation method we created to coax this smell out of Cambodia’s crassnas. Some dried fruit, a hint of zesty twang that never tips into the animalic territory of Hindi oils, and a resinous base that reveals a honeyed tenor after hours of wear.  You could shoot for Cambodi Caramel, but at this price you’ve got the chance to easily take a daily swipe or five of this amber-toned Cambodian profile that’s easy to wear, fun to find yourself getting addicted to, and – if you’re new to oud – a great step into the majestic world of oud.