Oud from $45 to $7500: three ways houses price the same note

Oud appears on 124 of the fragrances added to this library in the past 45 days, which makes it the second most frequent note among new arrivals. Set the three houses behind most of them side by side and the same wood turns out to be sold on three different logics, with listed prices running from $45 to $7500 and no one obliged to explain the distance between them.

A catalogue priced by the distillation

Ensar Oud holds 566 fragrances in the library, more than four times what the other two houses here hold between them. Where prices are given they are given in full: $599–$1999 for Drunken Peach, $3500 for Nioh, $3950 for Gardens of Firdaus, $4195 for Elixir of Life, and $7500 for the Boxing Day size of Purple Haze. Where they are not given, supply is usually the reason: Homeros Ambre and Terengganu Rex are both out of stock with no price shown, and the archive listing of Purple Haze shows none either. Four of the five Ensar entries discussed here are out of stock; Elixir of Life is the exception.

The note lists explain the numbers better than the prices do. The base of Purple Haze names Maroke Oud, Oud Qaboos, Malaysian Oud, a Tonkin musk-infused Vietnam oud, Pailin and two entries of Purple Kinam, with iris butter and vanilla arriving late to hold them together. The product is a set of individual distillations, named one by one, and the house's own account of its work turns on kinam, which it calls "a grade of agarwood so rare it has its own name".

Concentration comes second to material here. Purple Haze is labelled Parfum, Nioh and Elixir of Life carry no concentration at all, and Homeros is listed as an attar with a top size at $595. A buyer reading these pages is choosing a distillation, not a style.

A flat fee for the composition

Jinkoh Store holds 18 fragrances between $185 and $850, and six of the ten listed on its house page sit at exactly $350. More interesting is what does not happen to that figure when oud walks in. Patchouli Noir, an extrait de parfum, puts oud in its base beside rose, Madagascar vanilla, African patchouli and Venezuelan tonka, with saffron up top, and costs the same $350 as Tobacco Noir, which contains no oud whatsoever. Oud Rose Noir, the one entry with the wood in its name, is $400. In this scheme oud is a note, not a grade.

What the shop supplies instead of provenance is detail inside the note list. Tobacco Noir names deer musk, Sri Lankan vanilla, Siamese benzoin, Venezuelan tonka and British oakwood; Ambre Noir names Omani myrrh, Spanish labdanum, Peru balsam and a Somali benzoin under its amber base. About itself the shop supplies nothing: the site does not state where it is based, who makes the perfumes or what format they take, and its story page, titled "The Story of Me", carries no further text. At $350 the composition is the only thing on the page there is to trust.

Sold by the gram, and by the vessel

Rising Phoenix Perfumery in Atlanta, Georgia, founded by J.K. DeLapp, prices the third way: by weight, across a house range of $27.50 to $5250. Kama is $45 for 0.3g, $125 for 1g, $349 for 3g and $899 for 12g, which works out at roughly $150 a gram at the bottom and about $75 a gram at the top. Its notes include Cambodi Pursat oud and Malaysian oud alongside Kashmiri saffron, Mysore sandalwood, civet and hyraceum. The question the page asks is not whether to buy but how much.

2023 Anahata Ateek adds a second variable. Its six options include 0.3g in a standard vial at $135 and the same weight in a V-vial at $140; 1g in a V-vial and 1g on a glass dipstick, both $400; and 3g on a dipstick at $1050. The container is priced as well as the oil. Its note list is also written unlike the other two houses': oud, rose, smoke, varnished wood floors, antique woods, flowers and red berries, a description of a smell rather than an inventory of materials. White Lotus climbs the same ladder, $125 for 1g and $350 for a 3g quarter tola with a glass applicator, with a set of all four attars at $1250.

The format has a cheap door and a high ceiling. Shocking Attar 1937 opens at $52.50 for a 0.3g vial and contains no oud at all, while Thai Thaqueel Ateek runs $225–$5250, which reaches up into Ensar's parfum prices.

What each page asks a buyer to trust

1. Ensar Oud: the name of the material. Pay for a distillation, accept that the good ones go out of stock, and read the base of the note list as a bill of goods.
2. Jinkoh Store: the composition. A flat fee, a long note list with origins attached, and no premium for agarwood.
3. Rising Phoenix Perfumery: the quantity. A per-gram ladder that lets a 0.3g vial settle the question before a tola is committed to.

One detail holds across the three. Saffron turns up in Nioh, in Patchouli Noir and in Kama, which matches what the library shows more broadly: oud's commonest companions are musk, sandalwood, rose, amber, patchouli and saffron. The accent is shared even when the pricing is not, and it is worth seeing what oud under $150 looks like before committing further up any of these three ladders.

Where to start

• Kama, $45 for 0.3g. The cheapest honest look at a real oud attar, floral and animalic, for a reader who wants to find out whether the material suits them at all.
• Patchouli Noir, $350. An extrait that uses oud as seasoning under patchouli, truffle and vanilla, for someone who wants a finished composition rather than a distillation.
• Elixir of Life, $4195. In stock, lavender and juhi and hyacinth over oud, rose, iris butter and ambergris, for the collector who has already decided what agarwood is worth.