I wanted to dismiss Amber Oud outright, and I’m laughing at myself for my snobbish reasoning: it’s just so damned easy to like!
It’s one of those scents that when people smell it on you, they immediately exclaim, “Wow! You smell great! What are you wearing!” It’s also a scent that, when I spritz it on, makes all my cares go away, like hot apple-pie and vanilla ice-cream.
There were some complaints from perfume-enthusiastes that Amber Oud wasn’t really an oud fragrance, and I agree. An expectation is set, and concurrently knocked down. Of By Kilian’s two distinct fragrance lines, L’Oeurve Noire and Arabian Nights, the Arabian Nights collection (each bearing the “Oud” moniker in their title) is a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more challenging, and quite a lot more money. So I get it that some people felt annoyed when the latest addition to the Nights family came out happily smelling like a jumped-up Prada Candy (which, incidentally, is great).
Amber Oud smells fantastic from the first opening blush, all the way through the deep dry-down hours later. It’s a crowd pleaser, and there isn’t the break-in period many of us have come to expect when we see oud listed as a fragrance note. It’s a sweet, warm, gourmand oriental that even steadfast devotee’s to Clinique Happy or Light Blue won’t complain about Amber Oud.
It smells like a commercial hit.
This fragrance reminds me of the Beatles: those guys made songs that pretty much everyone universally agrees are fantastic, but that doesn’t mean that the songs are focused-grouped to death to appeal to everyone and anyone, nope. Those songs are really that good. And so is Amber Oud.
beauty on the outside 
Hey Dee, I was so happy to open my email this morning and see that you had posted! I’m probably the lone perfumista who hasn’t sampled Amber Oud, but it sure does get a lot of love, so I believe your comparison to the Beatles music is probably spot on. (Great ending paragraph to your post … so true!)
Suzanne, thank you so much! It’s good to be finding my groove again after such a long hiatus…
Based on what I remember of your taste preferences, I’m pretty sure that you’re going to really like this one!
(drop me your address, and I’ll pack off a sample!) 🙂
xo
Oud or no Oud, I LOVE this fragrance and it’s my one FB of by Kilian that I own. In fact I wore it yesterday. It is my “I am in control” important meeting fragrance!
I know, right?! I love it too, and did from the first moment it sang to me 😉
I have travel sprays of B2B and Rose Oudh, but I have the GIANT bottle of this one, lol! It’s such good stuff!
“it’s just so damned easy to like!” – agreed! I hoarded my sample of Amber Oud, saving my spritzes for when I needed a no-fuss, no-muss cozy fragrance. Enjoy!
It’s almost absurd how likable this ‘fume is. It never feels wrong 🙂
hi Dee!! good to see you posting again. 🙂 🙂
Thank you Susan!! ❤
Oooh, you make this sound good. Suzanne is not the last person to have tried this, and I bet she cannot top my “Have Yet to Try ANY of the By Kilians” status. Which I really shouldn’t be boasting of (seriously, what kind of a perfumista am I?) but I digress.
And using the Beatles as an example of something being likeable just because it’s so damned good is spot on. The teens and I have been doing a project for the last five years now where we make a CD of stuff that makes us dance in the kitchen, and give it to friends as our “Christmas Card.” (Totally legal in Canada, I kid you not.) We wanted to include a Beatles song one year and had such a hard time narrowing it down we had to ask friends to make the final choice.
Hahaha, seriously? NONE of the Kilian’s? Girl, we have got to change that. I’ll toss a few samples in the mail tomorrow; looking forward to hearing what you think about them…
Aren’t they stellar? I’m always amazed at how much I like each and every song, each and every time I hear one–there’s something to be said, really, about likability. Amber Oud has got to be one of the most affable fragrances I’ve ever met (and I had a hell of a time choosing a Beatles song to go with it, lol).
I love the idea of your Christmas card!! What a fun time for all!
xo
How cool that you have a full bottle of this?!
I think of it as Vanilla Oud and while I’d maybe have liked a bit more amber it’s second only to Rose Oud on my list of favourite By Kilians. It certainly does have broad appeal. My sister loves mainstream vanilla perfumes and she adores her sample of Amber Oud (I got her to sign up to the FB page). It just smells great on her.
I love it so much! It’s nice to have a full bottle in certain situations, and this is definitely one of them 🙂
Vanilla Oud is apt! It’s really such an easy, likable fragrance–I’m glad that your sister found love in it!
xx0
Yes, I’d really love a full bottle of this divine fragrance. Still a couple of spritzes left in my sample. Love the Beatles analogy.
Thank you!
When I drained my first few sample I knew I was in trouble… 😉
Dee!!! It’s so good to see you here!
I like Amber Oud and I’m still testing it to figure out how much of it I want to get – a bottle? a decant? I don’t know yet but I’ll want some – that’s a fact.
Thank you Undina! I’ve been missing you all very much!
Oh man, seriously–I didn’t see myself buying a bottle, but sample after sample drained… I knew I had to take the jump.
It’s an interesting thing, to me: I have this idea in my head (don’t know where it came from) that if I’m going to spend a fortune on something, it needs to be REALLY, REALLY special. Sometimes I also forget that a highly wearable, enjoyable, compliment getter, is really, really special. This is a bottle that I wholeheartedly do not regret buying! 🙂
Amber Oud surprised me with its smoothness and, yes, its affability. It’s all friendly and stuff. Oud! Friendly! Go figure.
I’m probably not going to spend Kilian bucks (I have a travel bottle of Sweet Redemption and about five sample sprays of Rose Oud, which are more my usual style) on Amber Oud because that bottle of Iris Poudre ain’t gonna BUY ITSELF, you know…
… but it’s good. Amber Oud, Norwegian Wood, your blogging again – yep, all good. And I was also surprised at how well-done most of the BKs are; they may not be terribly original and pathbreaking, but the raw materials are clearly excellent, and pretty much they all just smell good. (Well, not Straight to Heaven, not on me. Gah, just Kill.me.now.)
On a side note: my favorite Beatles song is, hands down, Here Comes the Sun. Love that. And now, I think, I may go play some Beatles on my old-skool stereo… (incidentally, 12-year-old Taz adores the Beatles. Huh.)
You know Mals, I wonder if there really is any oud in it? If so, it’s so subtle, I don’t detect it at all–though, in honest disclosure, oud never gives me that weird band-aid thing that so many people experience from it. It’s super friendly in this Kilian conception, that’s for sure!
Ooooh man. Iris Poudre… that’s a full bottle that I want too, and you’re right, it aint gonna buy itself! LOL. I might start with a travel spray on that one though… ease myself into the waters 😉
I agree–the BK’s aren’t in the vanguard by any means, but buy golly, they’re so well done! It’s hard not to love most of them–even things I thought weren’t so much to my taste (Orange Blossom? Wha?) I think that A Taste of Heaven will be my next BK FB.
I cannot choose a favorite Beatles song! It’s the hardest thing ever! But I do love Here Comes the Sun 🙂