Pure Oud By Kilian for women and men

By Kilian's Pure Oud is packaged in a gold emblazoned bottle, but its true color is black. If humans could smell in the salty depths of the ocean, Pure Oud would be the odor of the blue-black ink ejected from the central gland of a languorous giant squid.

But we cannot breathe underwater, much less with our heads pressed close to the mother squid by her grasping tentacles. Pure Oud is a scent that you smell with your mouth and tongue instead of breathing it in through your nose. It tastes of skin and rubber and the proximity of hair.

This is a loveless, beautiful, sexual ink for a woman to stain her body with. Trace it behind your ear and along the line of your neck. Spill it under your arms and down your legs. Then you can smother us men in your tentacles. Please.

"Blending oud oil with other essential oils such as papyrus oil, gaiac wood oil and saffron oil, Pure Oud is composed as a contemporary interpretation of oud."

This one starts oud as a smoky, burnt woody aroma, much like if I was working in a woodsmith factory and after the day of work this was the smell that would be attached to me adding some saffron. The Oud note here is so pleasent and easy to wear compared to Montale Black Oud, YSL M7 (original formula) with their medicinal vibe!

Pure Oud is a very nice fragrance, slightly more intense than the many Montale oud. Having tried various types of pure agarwood oil Indian, Thai and cambodian, I can recognize the note of oud wood. I believe that in Kilian and Montale the lion's share is assigned to synthetic Oud, and that the real oud is present in small quantities for commercial reasons. The behavior on skin and on paper of almost all perfumes based oud convinces me that only Amouage use a lot of genuine agarwood oil. Kilian or Montale? Montale, for the price ...

I'm getting to the conclusion that comparing western ouds to the real thing is turning a bit pointless. Anyone interested in real oud should probably stop looking for it in western compositions and order a small vial from any oud farmer selling his products on the internet.

That being said, there are western ouds that still smell terrific and Pure Oud is, in my opinion, surely among them. The fragrance is like a dark and monolitic sphere that hits your nostrils with a pungent leathery/spicy aroma. The woods and balms break in right away and start to interact with other elements creating a sort of kaleidoscopic effect that is based on countless micro-nouances ranging from black to yellow via brown. Oily, viscous and appearantly minimalistic yet incredibly complex. In this context Pure Oud may somehow resemble the real thing as the scent is so unlike anything we are familiar with in our daily lives, that our brain fail to classify it through the usual associative parameters.

Pure Oud is surely dark, gothic and somehow dreadful but never claustrophobic or overpowering. Its monolitic but not heavy. Extremely addictive and so pleasant to wear.

Downside: average lasting power.

Rating: 8/10

Original Aouds/Bois de Aoud by Montale is similar enough that unless you really crave the luxe packaging that By Kilian provides, there's no reason that the Montale wouldn't be a more than acceptable and affordable substitute. They both use a good quality Cambodian oud bolstered by Firmenich's "Oud Blend" - but the Montale has a much better longevity.

Just my opinion of course.

Pleasantly sweet, dry pungent wood. Montale Black Oud is far far more Rosey than this.
This is very similar to Yves Saint Laurent's M7, which has this as it's main theme, but with Added orange. They're somewhat Analogous.
This is very unique and interesting to me. An Artistic fragrance i'd say. Perhaps eccentric. Perhaps too eccentric for every day wear.
There's often comparisons to a Medicine-Bandaid smell, well yeah... that's the Saffron. it's not unpleasant to me, in fact Saffron adds this.. delicious, curious sweetness that i'm fond of.
I wish i could afford more. Test it first, i'm very glad i did.

Hmmm ... I REALLY love Oud and Oud based fragrances, especially when combined with rose. I also adore a number of Killian fragrances, Incense Oud and Beyond Love to name two. How on earth, then, could this house get this one SO wrong? I'm afraid it reminds me of stables that haven't been mucked out :(. I have a sample of this one (thank heavens!!!) and I would say one is much better off going for Ajmal's 1001 Nights or something in that vein. Unfortunately Pure Oud by Killian just doesn't cut the mustard for me.

REAL OUD OIL vs. OUD 27 vs. KILIAN

If you've NEVER smelled real oud, or only know Montale's ouds or Oud 27, let me chime in here.

VS. OUD 27

First of all, I can't imagine why anyone would compare this to Oud 27, as this is a completely different animal. Would you say Pinot Grigio is a terrible wine because Pinot Noir is so great? The comparison makes no sense. Oud 27 is sharp, primal, spicy, and to me vinegary and slightly rancid. It's a cool smell.

Kilian's Pure Oud is impossibly deep, woody, soothing, with only pleasant band-aidy smell that, to me, reminds me of actual oud.

VS. MONTALE

Montale's "Original Aouds" comes closest to Pure Oud, btw, but with less depth. I love Black Aoud, but that has little in common with Pure Oud, obviously, because of the rose.

VS. REAL OUD OIL

As I type this I have Oud 27 on 1 wrist and Ensar Oud / Oriscent's "Cambodi Caramel" on the other wrist, which is $110 / ml, and I only happen to have because I am writing a story for Model News dot com, and a number of companies were kind enough to send me a bunch of samples I could normally in NO WAY afford.

Although Cambodi Caramel is only one type of oud, it has quite a lot in common with the Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, Indonesian and Burmese ouds the companies sent me to review. Let's just say ALL of those oud oils have more in common with EACH OTHER than with Oud 27 OR Pure Oud.

What does REAL oud smell like, to me? Take mud, mix it with coffee and a little peanut butter, add a pinch of menthol, raspberry and strain it though a band aid. That's real oud, to me, with variations.

KILIAN'S PURE OUD

When all is said and done, Kilian's Pure Oud is my favorite. It's ungodly expensive, has crappy sillage and doesn't last all that long. I spray it on my shirt now, so I can smell it longer. I also bought the travel spray (vs. the bottle), so I can spritz it on when I need it. (Say, a date.)

But I love it. Yes yes yes.

Just writing this review because this is the kind of information I was I'd had before I smelled real oud and all the oud perfumes, and I hope it helps someone.

I don't know many oud fragrances, but I have tried a bunch of them, I don't care if it's the "real" deal or not, I just love the way it smells in many of the creations, but this gem which is how I learned worth 400$ is simply disgusting, for first 3 minutes I felt that I'm enjoying it, it felt incensy, but then oud completely dissapeared and I was left with the smell of warm rubber.

Why do you call a perfume "Pure oud" if the oud is completely gone after 3 minutes? And where are the other notes?

Not worth the money. I'll be harsh here and I will even say - not worht the try - I wasted my wrist for this sample, I'd better tested something else.

After one has been collecting fragrances for a while, hearing a lot of different takes, opinions or even insight from those working in the industry regarding the actual cost of the raw materials to make a fragrance...One can only begin to ask Philosophical questions of why am I paying this much for a composition of much cheaper raw materials? Well, surely fragrance making is an art, and you're paying for the idea, No? But you also got to keep in mind that a huge portion goes to the brand name, "exclusivity", advertisement, testers/samples (many times you don't get any of), the useless sales assistants and so on...

But sometimes...you're just paying for straight-up bullcrap. This is the case of By Kilian Pure Oud. I've seen people criticize M7 for not being an Oud fragrance...even some criticized Montale, and surely those are at the low-end compared to middle eastern creations. But What is exactly going on with Pure Oud? I smell Rubbery, dusty, musky wood with a touch of Saffron, to give a delusion of a synthetic oud? Even disregarding the oud reference I don't see how one might find this pleasant. It makes me think of a cheap version of Serge Noir, for 4 times the price mind you.

And to add more insult to injury, this perfume has pathetic longevity and projection. I don't mean to insult the other reviewers, maybe I've got a bad sample after all. But honestly, how many ouds have you tried? Do you know the difference between synthetic and natural oud? What about non-existent oud? Do yourself a favor and get a montale, YSL M7, or perhaps some middle eastern ouds.

This perfume is exactly why I sometimes feel like an idiot for dishing out money in the Niche Perfume Market and supporting the occasional bullcrap that goes around. By Kilian is a decent house, but their Oud line is a huge insult to anyone with the slightest experience in ouds and middle eastern blends.

---//

Presentation: 9/10
Uniqueness: 3/10
Value: 1/10
Longevity: 3/10
Projection: 2/10
Smell: 1/10

Overall: 2/10

Straight out of the sample vial this smells just like - drum roll - oud! It’s resinous and musty and mushroomy and woody, and it smells very much like the oud absolute that I have. At first there was also a little bit of a pine note.

If this is synthetic oud it’s more realistic than the Firmenich version or the Givaudan black agar. Soon the saffron appears and the fragrance warms up to be more resinous, but the oud doesn’t disappear. The resinous phase lasts for 4-5 hours before fading away.

This is a lovely version of oud, but I have to say that if I were paying the big bucks that Kilian asks for it, I would just go with a few ml of straight oud oil. However, if the magic genie popped out of my lamp and offered me a big bottle of the Kilian stuff, I’d make room for it in my collection and happily wear it often.

In my opinion it is much more masculine than feminine. Warm, pretty and very long lasting on me - more than 12 hours! It is boring for me - i am tired of that monotony of the long and only warm fragrance.
And also very-very expensive...

the guest below does not know at all what oud is lol pure oud, doesnt not evenm deserve to be called like that, it is so much an arnak, it is a very good blend but there is so little oud in it in quantity that it becomes an abuse to buy this 300 dollars, with this price i can afford very good average oil of oudh 12 ml / 1 tola from Al Qurashi ( famous house of saoudian oud and plus perfumes )that is more powerfull and true than the killian mascarade, i love killian other perfumes but they are fool to buy this this price, maybe it deserves 100/150 dollars and i am really generous with them, but never 300 !!

well, yvashche if you believe that no other perfume could compare to Montale "ouds'" then you certainly never smelled genuine quality oud oil before except the synthetic "oud" made in Firmenich factories and used in most Montales. Kilian's Pure Oud is def.
not a typical pretty fragrance with lots of delicious notes but still a very high quality blend with a pretty decent quality oud being one of its ingredients. Whether the scent is worth the price is a matter of personal taste and willingness to spend that much $$$ on a perfume but in terms of quality I def. find Pure Oud way above any of the Montales I have tried or owned. Besides, it lasts good 10 hours on my skin. Also, pure quality oud oil can cost thousands of dollars for a few mls so if you'd like to have something like Thaqeel in Pure Oud be prepared to pay at least $1000 if not more for such blend.

I finally got my sample and what a punch in the nose! The first whiff is of pure chemicals, the kind in the dentist's office, and with time, it did not develop into anything else. I sampled a small amount first and then a larger amount and both times were just dreadful.I hated the way I smelled for about half an hour and was about to wash it off, but thankfully, this perfume does not last more than half an hour. Probably the worst niche perfume I have ever come across, and I am the biggest lover of oud. It's a shame to even use the word oud to describe this perfume. Stick to Montales.

I too know about pure oud that is used in Middle Eastern perfumes and I get the oil oud all the time for a good price. I know the real stuff SHOULD be expensive otherwise you don't get a good product. I have been a fan of Montale ouds for a long time and still believe that no other perfume oud could compare but I was curious about the Kilian oud. I ordered a sample and am still waiting for it, but I checked the website and was shocked at the price! I mean, if I spend $140 for a good Serge Lutens or Montale, I am not going to spend $300 on anything else! It is ridiculous and even if this perfume turns out to be the best smell in the whole world I will not buy a whole bottle. Well, maybe if I suddenly become rich, and even then: it is too much to justify for a smell. There are many wonderful perfumes out there that can be sampled for that price.

I just got this in the mail today; a very generous get well gift from a relative who knows that I love By Kilian. Honest to God, I was scared to open the bottle, because Oud scares me-it is so medicinal smelling-why bother put it in perfumes I've always thought. What I discovered was a smell from the past. This is what my father wore in the winter when we lived in the middle east. It has a very powerful opening, but when that is over it becomes very cozy.
The message on the card that came with the fragrance said, "you don't have to keep it if you don't like it." There is no way that I will part with it.j This fragrance is a keeper-big time.
Please order a sample folks; you're in for a unique experience.

yes i agree with kankuro, i am moroccan and in my country we use to burn oudh and to use it to perfume bodies, i have to say im very glad not to have bought pure oud by kilian cause i tested it, and despite the good oudh they used to put in , i have to add that they did not put a lot, and it is an euphemism !!
its very poor concentrated so it is not surprising at all that it hasnot sillage at all !! good oudh but not a lot, very bit used ! what glad i am not to have spent 300 euros !! ouf

Well, Pure Oud is VERY expensive. To pay 295€ for 50 ml Eau de Parfum is hard. So I tested Pure Oud by Kilian and was blown away...

The fragrance starts really harsh. I was confused and shocked at the same time. I waited a few minutes and then I smelled it again. The harsh top was gone and an earthy and woody fragrance has developed. Then a balmy note appears, along with something inky and oily in the background. The fragrance is very nostalgic, I like that. Pure Oud reminds me of a big, plughed field (because of the earthy notes). And then there is the oud: Pure and not a bit sharp or medicinal. I heard Calice Becker changed the real Oud and used the so-called "Oud OrPur". Pure Oud by Kilian is different from any other oud fragrance I have ever smelled. Pure Oud is majestic, luxurious and unique... woody, balmy, earthy, oily! An arabic masterpiece at the highest stage. No synthetics at all!

Pure Oud surprised me, I didn't expect something like this. It is very masculine, but it would be interesting to see (or smell) a woman who wears it. The only two complains I have are the mediocre lasting power and the poor sillage.