Montale Black Aoud Review

 Montale's Black Aoud is a really simple and linear fragrance. Upon initial spray, you get Montale's and Mancera's signature oud note. It doesn't smell like the Western oud notes which you'd smell in offerings from Tom Ford, Dior, Versace, and so on. Rather, it's a bitter, musky, and petrol tinged note which is dark and pungent. It's paired with a dark, opulent, and almost boozy rose note, which is what actually dominates the fragrance. As it dries down, patchouli gives it some earthiness. I feel like I get incense out of it, though that could be because it reminds me of bakhoor.

Performance is insane. The fragrance projects for 8 or 9 hours. I can't even clock the longevity since I've never waited for it to just disappear before taking a shower. If you get this on your clothes, it will last for months, and persist over a few laundry cycles. In one instance, one of my shirts actually made all my other laundry in the same machine faintly smell of Black Aoud. None of this is an exaggeration either.

Black Aoud is not necessarily unique; although it was somewhat forward for a Western marketed fragrance. It was released a few years after M7, but a few years before the oud craze really hit the Western luxury markets. It's very synthetic, and some might find it obnoxious (I think that's one of its charms). It also doesn't smell like it's better composed, more natural, or made of better materials, than cheaper fragrances from houses like Nabeel, Al Rehab, Swiss Arabian, Rasasi, Lattafa, and the like.

Yet despite its simplicity and fairly generic scent profile, Black Aoud still stands out from all the others, and it has an addictive quality to it. This is one of my all time favorite fragrances, and about as close as I get to having a signature scent.