I nabbed a bottle of AdP Oud while while in Berlin this August and paying homage to the excellent selection of the niche fragrances available at two shops with very helpful staff: Galleries Lafayette and Departmentstore Quartier 206. I was very surprised that Acqua di Parma would introduce a fragrance that is so far out of the profile of their traditional soapy lemony gentleman's fragrances. But, like most everything they have done it is very, very good quality!
AdP Oud is extremely smoothly blended so what you get is a softened slightly smokey, warm leather, light woods for a very non aggressive gentle wooded oud smell. It is dark and masculine, and very easy to wear. In fact I rarely notice the smell of oud in the AdP but I have no objections with the blending. I can be highly critical of oud scents, and am when I find those that don't measure up, but I find this is easily in my top 5 of the couple dozen oud perfume fragrance compositions I've tried.
It opens with a warm leather smell that has a softness to with leather that has a gunpowder, flinty back note. The scent is not sweet but is warm leather that is infused with a light sandalwood type woods (amyris) scent and never becomes too dark at all. This is a very masculine, but very civilized version of oud. No noticeable roses at all and the amber is kept very low key as well. This scent is in the same genre of oud perfumes as Creed, LeLabo, Armani, and By Killian. It smells much more authentically oudish and not as spicy as Creed Royal Oud, while not nearly as dark and raw as LL Oud 27. The closest comparable oud scents to this one is Pure Oud by Killian or Oud Royal by Armani Prive, but AdP Colonia Intensa Oud is smoother than Killian and not quite as dark as Armani. The scent is a very warm and wearable leather and Amyris wood scent. Recommended!
