What is oud?

Oud is resin-rich wood from trees of the genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops, and the fragrant oil obtained from it. To understand oud, keep three things apart: the tree, the fragrant resin in the wood, and the finished composition on the skin.

What the word means

The Arabic word ʿūd (عود) means wood or stick. In fragrance, oud means agarwood, also called aloeswood, and its oil; oudh is another spelling. The Arabic lute is called oud as well. Several terms meet in the trade:

How oud forms in the tree

A healthy Aquilaria tree is not made of dark scented wood. Resin forms in response to injury and stress: wounds, microorganisms and other triggers act together and the tree changes its metabolism. The popular story of a single fungus is too simple. Typical compounds include sesquiterpenes and 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones. Wood and distilled oil are not chemically identical: distillation mainly carries over the volatile components.

Wild or cultivated

It is the trees that are cultivated; the scented wood has to form inside them. A tree’s age says little about its resin or its oil. A fixed rule such as “real oud needs twenty years” cannot be drawn from the research.

Where oud comes from, and Trat

Its botanical home lies in South and Southeast Asia, from northeast India and Bangladesh to the mainland and island regions of Southeast Asia; China is also an important area. For any product three places matter: where the tree grew, where the oil was obtained, where the perfume was made. A shipment from Dubai need not consist of wood grown there.

Trat lies in eastern Thailand, near Cambodia. The name stands for an area where cultivated stands and artisanal distillation come together. How an oud from Trat smells is best answered by a sample: origin and processing shape the scent together.

From wood to oil

Resin-rich pieces are sorted, cut down and often soaked. Water or steam carries the volatile compounds out of the wood; on cooling, the oil separates from the water. Kilograms of wood yield millilitres of oil. A very dark or thick oil is no proof of quality.

Natural oud and accord

Natural oud oil is a complex mixture from a real batch of wood. An accord combines aroma materials into a similar impression. Both can work in a composition; smell alone proves nothing about authenticity. Anyone who wants natural oud therefore needs an honest statement of what is inside.

A long history

Oud has been incense, part of fragrance blends and a traded good for centuries. Arabic perfume recipes from the 9th century, in the work of al-Kindi, already combine agarwood with other aromatics. Heating wood, obtaining an oil and the alcohol-based perfume are different stages of the same culture.

At M’OUD

Beneath all four extraits lies natural oud oil from Thailand, including from Trat. Composition, maturation and filling take place in Switzerland; Oud Amal Intense rests for six months before it is filtered.