All Posts

Book of Chemistry and Perfumes, Al-Kindi Mentioned across many early perfume treatises, Al-Kindi  devotes five formulas to oud in his Book of Chemistry and Perfumes . Published in the 9th century , this text exerted a considerable and lasting influence on both Eastern and Western perfumery, attesting to the early use of oud as a perfumery ingredient. Strongly associated with the Middle East  in the popular imagination, oud is in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula a precio

Across centuries and cultures, oud has consistently been regarded as a sacred material-a means of communion with divine powers and a precious aid to meditation. A scent of great importance in the Muslim tradition, agarwood is mentioned several times in the hadiths -collections of the deeds, actions, and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad -which, alongside the Qur’an, form the theological foundation of Islam. In one description of paradise, agarwood is said to burn among other pr

Precious piece of Vietnamese agarwood oud chips Agarwood , better known as oud , is a material omnipresent in Western perfumery, with a history as complex as its scent, yet still largely unfamiliar. Although often associated with the Middle East, oud actually has a universal, millennia-old history that makes it one of the most precious and sought-after aromatic materials. While the word now appears on many perfume bottles as a mark of luxury, genuine oud is rarely found in fo

Precious piece of Vietnamese agarwood oud While the strong demand of recent decades has led to overexploitation and the rarity of producing species-driving up the price per kilo of agarwood-oud has always  been a coveted, precious material. Across cultures and centuries, this scent is a mark of wealth , a gift to honor gods and kings . Thus, in the Mahabharata -the great Sanskrit epic of Hindu mythology composed in the final centuries BCE -we find some of the earliest account

While the earliest records of the oud trade mention trees originating in India, from the very first centuries CE agarwood was exported from other parts of its natural range, including Vietnam. From the 4th century onward, China imported Vietnamese oud, and Vietnamese emperors presented agarwood as tribute to Chinese emperors throughout the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE). In accounts written at the end of the 13th century, Marco Polo relates that agarwood was then found in abundan

Illustrated page from the Greek herbal "De Materia Medica" showing ancient botanical drawings and handwritten notes In De materia medica -the Greek pharmacopoeia that spread widely throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, translated into Latin, Arabic, Persian, and European languages-Dioscorides records various virtues of agarwood, which he calls Agallocha. Agarwood is described as having an astringent, bitter taste, useful for refreshing the mouth and breath, either chewed