What is Oud? And why is this ingredient so expensive?
3 minute read
This video does the topic a great justice! Why is Our or ‘Agarwood’ so expensive?! In case you don’t know what it is, Oud is a fragrance note that adds a sharp, sweet, almost ‘medicinal’ like aroma to give any scent profile a rich complexity that is difficult to replicate by any other ingredient.
Popular Oud fragrances include Tom Ford’s Oud Wood, Initio Parfum’s Oud for Greatness YSL’s M7 Oud Absolu (also designed by Tom Ford). These fragrances are legendary. Of course, there is a question of how much real oud actually goes in to these fragrances, but today we are simply discussing the natural material itself as we might agree its a fascinating topic! Why can Oud cost up to $100,000 per kg?
What even is Oud?
Oud chips being burned as an incense.
Oud comes when a tree basically rots in exactly the right way to produce one of the finest aromas used since ancient times. To be exact, Aqualaria trees that are generally found in South-East Asia need to be infected by a fungi called Phialaphora Parasitica. This fungi rots the core of the tree trunk in order to form Agarwood, which is the part of the tree that can be transformed in to Oud (which is Agarwood being broken down in to small ‘chips’).
The expense comes due to the fact that every species of this tree is now considered Critically endangered! It takes years for the infection process to infect enough of the tree, but also, in nature, apparently only 2% of these trees get infected in this way…
How is Oud used?
Oud is used in jewellery?!
Oud is generally used as Incense and to create scented wearable items, such as bracelets! However, for us fragrance aficionados, the most important application is Oud being converted in to fragrance oil, which can be 10s of thousands of dollars.
Because of the scarcity and cost of the material however, people question how much real Oud is in fragrances, including expensive ‘niche’ ones, as perfumers can also use Oud ‘accords’, which are a lab-derived synthetic replacement designed to replicate the scent of Oud.
What will be the future of Oud?
Tobacco Oud is becoming discontinued?
Natural Agarwood is becoming increasingly rare, yet the demand for it is increasing as western markets have increased its use in products.
With certain types of Ouds not being sustainable for fragrance manufacturers to use, I predict the market will see a lot of oud scents becoming discontinued as has already been happening as well as more of a shift to synthetic replacements instead…
Finishing Thoughts
However, not all is doomed. As the video above portrays, there are methods to artificially infect the Aqualaria tree to induce it to produce Agarwood. Hopefully, this will increase revenue of these source countries in the long run. Additionally, chemists have always been able to improve synthetic materials used in perfumery, don’t always presume Oud fragrances are the real deal, but they will likely get closer to it in the near future…
Until next time,
Omar
Sources:
https://www.alphaaromatics.com/blog/what-is-oud-fragrance/
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-agarwood-is-so-expensive-oud-vietnam-2020-8?r=US&IR=T
