Black Aoud (2006)
by Montale

Love it. Oud done right. As if there is some sort of "honeyed" note in there like Mugler uses in Pure Havane. Not a honeyed tobacco, it's more like all of the remaining notes of Black Aoud have been honeyed.

In short, this rounds out the oud so it doesn't have its usual sharpness and is less predominant, less pungent.

Subtle rose, nicely done so it doesn't go towards feminine at all. More or less as we know it from 1 Million.

This is what you get when you bury a rose in the "Pet Sematary."

This is a dark rose fragrance, simple as that. I love a well-done rose, and coupled with the medicinal tinge that the agarwood brings (similar to the medicinal note from the agarwood in M7 (2002)), this is a pretty linear trip, but an interesting one at that.

It starts off a bit strong and somewhat off-putting, smelling like a rose-scented medical compound, but as it dries down, the rose becomes more prominent and smooth, and the agarwood fades a little more into the background, balancing this out nicely. It's a very dark scent; one that I think would have been the perfect "official band fragrance" of Type O Negative, for those of you who get that reference. This is something to be worn at night to something intimate or formal, as long as you want to give off a gothic, brooding vibe. Although this is a men's fragrance, I think a woman with a dark, mysterious kind of image (think Eva Green) would be able to pull this off without issue.

This is certainly a try-before-you-buy fragrance, and one that I could see as being in the "love it or hate it" category. It's not something I would buy, but this could certainly be a signature scent for the right person, with my assumption that said person is of the Tim Burton/Rob Zombie variety.

Thumbs up

Not so much red wine, as another reviewer notes, and more like Turkish delight. Sweet and rose-heavy, with a questionable amount of oud (no matter what its provenance) going by the performance... in short, there are plenty of "black ouds" out there, and this one is certainly inferior to its Dumont namesake, which actually smells like something that deserves the name "Black Oud".

I liked this fragrance very much. But unfortunately my girlfriend didn't. She wrinkled her little nose and said "you do NOT want to smell like the inside of an old woman's handbag". I was tempted to dispute her mistaken gendering of the rose. But then I remembered who's boss, and wisely kept my mouth shut.

This smells like red wine to me. I'm not a big drinker, or wine connoisseur, so I don't know what kind. And it was not a fleeting resemblance. When that beginning smashes you it seems like all nuance is lost, and almost all my thoughts inherintaly come back to "Whew, its pungent." Two hours in the fragrance settled down to "normal fragrance initial spray levels." There really is a lot of Black Oud in MFKs Oud Silk Mood, which was my favorite I have tried from the Mood line. Medicinal oud with rose just go really well together, though they would seem to me to be the type of thing I would only ever need one of. I think this could be worn by a man or woman. It is a dark deep seductive red either way. This would go great on a brunette in a little black dress with ruby red lipstick.