Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 Oumma: Smoky Woods

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Source: wall321.com

Sacred woods, sweet smokiness, and a damask rose turned dark and dry. It’s the tale of Oumma, but only a small part of it. Saffron, leathered Burmese oud, singed mesquite, and dancing wisps of sweet jasmine are also involved in a shape-shifting story that twists and turns. It twists so much, in fact, that I experienced two fundamentally different versions of Oumma, depending on where I applied it. It can be either the saga of darkened, mystical woods, or the story of a rose dying on the vine from smoky dryness. You will hear both tales.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas, via the SHL Facebook page and used with permission.

Oumma is a 2013 fragrance from Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 (hereinafter just referred to as “SHL 777” or “777“). All the fragrances are created by Monsieur Lucas, who used to be the in-house perfumer for SoOud and Nez à Nez. Up to now, the 777 line was exclusive to Europe, Russia, and Middle Eastern, but there is excellent news. The complete SHL 777 line will be coming to America in a few weeks, including the stunning amber, O Hira, that was previously contractually limited to Harrods and Printemps, and such new releases as Qom Chilom and the mandarin-ginger-immortelle-tobacco scent, Une Nuit à Doha. They will be carried at Luckyscent and Osswald NYC. I have samples of the complete line, thanks to the generosity and kindness of Monsieur Lucas, and I will be going through them, one by one (though with some breaks and not all in a row) so that you will be well prepared when 777 hits the stores.

Oumma. Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas.

Oumma is listed on some places as being an eau de parfum, but it is really an Extrait like the other fragrances in the 777 line, all of which have a concentration around 24%. According to the press release documents that I was sent, Oumma is described as follows:

A mastery of contrasts at the service of agarwood

Perfume of Communion, deep.

Egyptian Jasmine, Moroccan Rose,
Peruvian Balsam, balsam tolu,
Ashes of cade, burmese oud, nagarmotha [Cypriol].

There is more to Oumma than that. Elsewhere, I’ve read that the base also includes 3 different types of roses, while I myself smelled saffron in the fragrance, along with some sort of ambered type of resin. In his correspondence with me, Monsieur Lucas confirmed the saffron, and said that there was also a cistus/labdanum derivative called “dynamone.”

Source: stockarch.com

He wrote that, for him, Oumma is almost a religious fragrance in its aromatic wooded essence:

Pour moi, Oumma est assez “religieux”. C’est une vapeur “médicinale” chic à la précision “horlogère”. Une suie de bois de ouf fine comme de l’albâtre moulu, une mécanique des fluides ajustée et persistante. Les mélodies magiciennes de la clarinette et du hautbois.

[For me, Oumma is rather “religious.” This is a chic “medicinal” scent done with the precision of a watch. Soot from wood, as fine as grounded alabaster, with fluid mechanics, adjusted and persistent. Magicians of clarinet and oboe melodies.]

He also talked about how Oumma is meant to represent “heaven and earth” with the dark, balsamic resins intended to act as a concrete foundation for the more mystical, spiritual and abstract elements, like the cade which he used in order to add a “baroque” touch. In short, for Monsieur Lucas, Oumma is not meant to be stereotypical “oud” fragrance, so much as the evocation of something more abstractly spiritual by means of finely tuned, multi-faceted woody smoke.

Monsieur Lucas never talked about roses in his discussions with me about Oumma. He focused only on the woods and the cade. I think that’s significant, because he clearly doesn’t mean for Oumma to be yet another interpretation of a floral oriental, a rose fragrance, or a rose-oud-saffron combination. It’s also important because a simple rose-oud-saffron fragrance is not what I experienced on a number of occasions. In fact, what emanated from one arm was substantially different than what wafted off the other. Such discrepancies occasionally happen to me, though infrequently. (I’m starting to wonder if it is an issue of pH balance, perhaps?) Rare as such differences are, I now try to test fragrances on both arms whenever possible, as I did here with Oumma. The result was a fragrance that was totally different in its focus for first 5 hours or so, even though a portion of the middle phase and all of the final drydown were the same in both instances. So, I’m going to have to give you two different breakdowns for Oumma.

VERSION ONE:

Source: mesolithic.org.uk

Oumma opens on my skin with smoky, sweet, singed woods that are musky with almost a suggestion of horsey leather and a strong whiff of mesquite. The oud is not medicinal like band-aids, not fecal, or even very heavily smoked at first. Rather, it’s smooth, devoid of any funk that usually comes with oud, and smells exactly like mesquite woods that have been lightly singed. Within seconds, a tiny dusting of saffron appears, and the hint of a dry, red rose nestled deep within the woods. The whole thing lies on a dark base that feels almost balsamic and resinous.

Riding through bonfire smoke in celebration of Saint Anthony in San Bartolomo de Pinares, Spain. Source: clikhear.palmbeachpost.com

Neither the spice nor the rose is as noticeable as Oumma’s increasingly leathered streak. It utterly captivates me with its mix of sweetness, muskiness, and subtle animalic touches. Slightly honeyed in feel, the leather is a little raw and really evokes for me a horse’s saddle. To be clear, I’m not saying that Oumma smells of sweaty horses. It does not. But there is a leatheriness to the fragrance that is lightly animalic with its slightly sweet muskiness, and it somehow translates as vaguely “horsey” in the most subtle way imaginable.

Mesquite wood chips on coal. Source: My Story in Recipes blogspot. http://mystoryinrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/08/grill-smoked-chicken.html

Oumma slowly shifts as time passes. The rose seems subtler than ever, more like a suggestion and a wisp fading in the wind. The cedar comes out in its own right after 10 minutes, but the main woody element to my nose is the oud with its mysterious, strange similarity to mesquite. Oumma is turning drier with every passing minute, taking on more and more of a smoky, singed aroma. In one test, it also wafted a parched dryness in the base that felt almost like an aromachemical. It was slightly sharp, almost desiccated in feel, though it was a subtle touch. It lurks in the base next to an equally muted hint of something almost tobacco’d, though I suspect that it is merely another facet of the leathery oud.

Up top, the suggestion of saffron grows stronger, taking on a spicy bite that is almost like that of a mild chili or pimento pepper. And, call me crazy, but on two occasions, there was almost a chocolate-y cardamom-like touch to Oumma’s bouquet as well. The first time I detected it, it was fleeting enough for me to think it was all my imagination, but the wisp appeared a second time as well. It adds one more lovely layer to that opening bouquet of multi-faceted, wooded richness.

25 minutes into the perfume’s development, the cade bursts out with great strength. To my nose, cade and birch tar are extremely alike, but cade has a slightly more turpentine, phenolic, oily undertone. Monsieur Lucas finds cade to be more “masculine,” while he sees birch tar as more “feminine.” I don’t know about that. All I can say is that Oumma begins to take on a very heavy oiliness, as if a thick layer of an actual attar oil were lying on my skin. Its smokiness has a subtle tarriness that definitely resembles that in birch, but there is also a quiet suggestion of turpentine lurking deep down below. Meanwhile, the oud’s singed tonalities are turning into woods on fire, emitting a thicker blanket of black smokiness. The rose is now completely dead on my skin.

Burnt Wood, via Docmattk on Flickr. (Website link embedded within photo.)

As a whole, Oumma in its opening hour is a dry, leathered oud with increasingly hefty, billowing cade smoke, subtle touches of different spices, a sweet muskiness, and a touch of tarriness, all upon a dark, vaguely resinous base. It is simultaneously sharp, dry, and musky with a very thick, heavy, oily feel that resembles that of an attar. Like an attar, Oumma’s concentrated nature does not come with enormous sillage. I generally had 3-4 inches of projection, at most, in the opening 30 minutes, regardless of whether I applied 2, 3, or more sprays from my atomizer. That sillage soon softens, and, at the start of the second hour, Oumma generally hovers about 1-2 inches above my skin which is where it stays for hours on end.

Oumma’s development varied on my skin after this point. At some point, usually around the start of the 3rd hour, tiny flickers of jasmine emerge, but they are muted at first and they weren’t consistently a strong feature on my skin each and every time I test the fragrance. In contrast, Oumma’s rose note always pops back up, though it is usually in the background. Once, for a brief moment, Oumma smelled rather like a turpentine, woody rose with intense smokiness. Around the same time, the aromachemical-like dryness disappears quite quickly, there are fluctuating degrees of cedar, and the spices soften over time before fading away around the end of the 3rd hour.

Source: rgbstock.com

Each time, and in every test, Oumma turns smoother, with much better calibrated, balanced levels of smokiness and dryness. The tarry undertone vanishes at the start of the 4th hour, the leather feels less raw and musky, and Oumma loses its occasionally sharp touches. The fragrance still smells of singed woods, but the fire is no longer roaring away

For the most part, Oumma’s second phase consists of a multi-faceted, smooth, deep wave of relatively dry woodiness dominated by singed woods, followed by very subtle flickers of either jasmine or rose that are fully mixed into the cade smoke and a light touch of sweetness. The whole thing lies atop a smear of golden, almost ambered resins in the base. On one occasion, the jasmine grew quite noticeable, and its sweetness thoroughly tamed the smoky toughness of the cade. On another occasion, the counterbalance seemed to come more from the tolu and peru balsams in the base.

Photo: Jo Van Damme on Flickr. (Website link embedded within photo..)

Throughout it all, however, the oud never smells like the agarwood to which I am accustomed in other fragrances. This is not the oud of a Montale, Amouage, or Xerjoff fragrance. There is no funk at all, no “noble rot.” To that extent, it is practically a “clean” oud — one that smells merely like expensive woods that are slightly leathery and musky at first, before turning primarily singed in nature. What was interesting about it was the subtle meatiness lurking underneath at times. In one test, the oud’s aroma in the first hour reminded me of an actual “steak au poivre,” only this one was cooked on a mesquite barbecue grill. On another occasion, however, the oud’s main focus was centered on leather, and nothing else. In all cases, however, it is fully infused with the cade’s birch-like smokiness and smells dry.

Oumma has a third and fourth phase as well. The third stage is where my two versions come much closer to meeting up and merging. The fourth and final one is where they are identical. In the former, the rose comes out to a significant degree. At first, it is a full, deep, multi-faceted damask rose with great smoothness and depth. Like the oud, it is thoroughly infused with the cade’s smokiness. On occasion, the rose feels as though it has been lightly sprinkled with saffron, but the general impression is of a very meaty, rich rose that is fully subsumed within the dry, singed, still slightly leathery woods and the cade. In all instances, however, this version of Oumma is never driven by or centered on the rose. It’s all about the woods.

Source: rgbstock.com

Oumma’s final phase usually begins somewhere around the start of the 9th hour. On my skin, it is consistently a simple bouquet of dry woodiness with a touch of powder and some vaguely ambered sweetness. The powder is really almost like a granular texture, more than actual powderiness or a perfumed note, but it’s a little hard to explain. Regardless, Oumma’s drydown on my skin is primarily abstract woodiness with powdered dryness. Nothing more. Oumma remains that way until it finally fades away, usually some time well after the 14th hour, depending on how much of the fragrance I applied.

VERSION TWO:

Source: publicdomainpictures.net

My second version of Oumma begins with the same meaty, mesquite, leathery woodiness, infused with musky sweetness and cade smokiness. The ambered, resinous, cistus labdanum base is much more noticeable, as is the saffron up top. Oumma is significantly less dry, parched, and smoky this time around. The cade is dialed down about 5 notches in this version, if not more. Oumma feels smoother, deeper, warmer, and more finely calibrated or balanced in terms of its various parts.

In this version, Oumma is significantly more floral on my skin for a good chunk of its first stage. The jasmine is the first to come out this time, adding its sweetness and floral touch 75 minutes into the perfume’s development. Shortly thereafter, the rose appears. It is even richer than in the other version, more velvety and sweet. For a brief instance, it carried a little bit of a sour nuance, but generally, it is a blood-red, deep rose. Its prominence fundamentally impacts Oumma’s character on my skin, skewing the perfume’s focus away from the woody, leathered, or smoky elements.

Source: wallpho.com/

The metamorphosis of the rose is at the heart of this version of Oumma. The flower begins with full-bodied sweetness and stands alone, but soon turns into a leathered, velvety rose with musky, smoked wood, followed by cade smoke and a subtle sprinkling of spices, all above a resinous base. Oumma loses its subtle jasmine touches by the end of the second hour, leaving the rose as the perfume’s only floral star.

Spirit of a Dying Rose by Vincent Knaus via RealityDefined.com.

Over time, Oumma begins to turn drier and drier, slowly seeping the moisture and juices out of the rose. About 3.5 hours in, Oumma is mostly a soft, deep rose that feels dark brown and almost withered. The cade smoke and leather are much weaker now, but Oumma continues to reflect a dry, mesquite-like woodiness. Slowly, the ambered base starts to emerge, while the jasmine occasionally pops back up for a brief moment to wave hello before disappearing again.

At the start of the 5th hour, Oumma is a dry, withered, decaying, brown rose with amber and woody dryness. There is the first hint of something powdered and grainy that emerges, and this time, it feels almost (but not quite) vanillic in nature. By the time the 8th hour rolls around, Oumma’s rose is powdery, dry, ravaged, and woody in a way that reminds me of the drydown to Guerlain‘s Middle Eastern rose fragrances, namely Encens Mythique d’Orient from the Déserts d’Orient collection.

Source: wallsave.com

Oumma’s final stage and drydown are a return back to woodiness. Slowly, very slowly, the rose gives up the fight and dies, leaving only the same powdered, abstract, blurry woods I experienced in my other version. Again, Oumma had enormous longevity. Here, to be precise, it lasted 16.25 hours, though the sillage felt much more intimate in this version when taken as a whole. This time, Oumma hovered just above the skin after 2.75 hours, and I used 3 very large sprays. I think the fact that the cade’s smokiness was so much weaker in this version is one reason why the fragrance feels much softer and tamer. That said, the longevity is really excellent.

ALL IN ALL:

Oumma. Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas.

I found one detailed review for Oumma. It is from Persolaise, who spends a good deal of time initially questioning the sincerity or genuineness of Monsieur Lucas’ fascination with the Middle East, his motivations, his personal feelings, and whether he has sold out to claim “his share of petrodollars.” Once he gets to Oumma’s actual aroma, he finds it “gorgeous,” but far from unique. He thinks it is saved from being like every other oriental rose fragrance only by the quality and richness of its ingredients:

Oumma is nothing we haven’t smelt before. So at first sniff, it would seem to suggest that SHL has, in fact, sold out and wants nothing more than to claim his share of petrodollars. The scent is a balsamic, leathery, woody rose, of the sort which can often be detected within a 3-mile radius of Harrods. But as if determined to silence any detractors, Humbert-Lucas has employed two strategies to make the perfume considerably more attention-worthy than most of the other Dubai-centric wannabees.

A damask rose.

Firstly, he’s imbued the composition with tremendous richness. His publicity machine would no doubt have us believe that he’s achieved this by using a high proportion of naturals. And perhaps he has. But I’m sure he hasn’t stayed away from the synthetics in his palette either. This doesn’t really matter, because Oumma creates the all-important illusion that it is luxurious and opulent. Maybe it’s the presence of a dry saffron note, maybe it’s the deft handling of the musks in the base, or maybe it’s because SHL really has poured a barrel-ful of rose oil into the stuff. Whatever the reason, the juice rises to the status implied by its gasp-inducing price tag.

Secondly, he’s paid attention to the scent’s structure. Most of these Arabian roses wallow in their base notes, letting any charm they might have had drown within a quicksand of synthetic sandalwoods and bellowing musks. Oumma stands up tall, allowing the different facets of its personality to come to the fore at various stages of its development. My guess is that SHL has given the scent its legs by paying attention to the citruses at the top. Not unlike the function of the bergamot in Shalimar, these pull and stretch the other, heavier elements of the construction, paradoxically causing them to appear weightier than they would have if they’d been left undiluted. In other words, the citruses add contrast.

So yes, […] it would be churlish of me to deny that Oumma is a highly accomplished piece of work, full of the warm-blooded tempestuousness which we’ve come to associate with the ‘exotic’ East.

Obviously, both of the versions of Oumma that I experienced differ widely from what appeared on his skin. I certainly had no citruses at all, let alone a Shalimar-like structure or resemblance. On my skin, Oumma was primarily the dry woody fragrance that Monsieur Lucas intended, though the rose was a partner in one of the instances to some variegated degree. Skin chemistry is clearly going to impact what sort of fragrance you may experience in turn.

There are no other detailed reviews for me to provide you with a more consistent sense of Oumma’s character. The perfume has an entry on Fragrantica, but there are no comments listed as of yet. On Basenotes, one thread contains a brief, passing description of Oumma as dry and woody, but not much more.

I don’t have the official American pricing information for Oumma but, in Europe, the perfume retails for €395 for a 50 ml bottle of pure parfum, just like Oud 777. While that figure comes to $545 at today’s rate of conversion, my experience in the past with European exclusives is that they are always priced lower than the exchange amount. My guess is that Oumma will probably retail for around $495 or $500 in the U.S., but that is only a guess.

Source: Wallsave.com

At the end of the day, I find Oumma to be interesting, but it doesn’t move me emotionally. My favorite part was the sweet, musky leatheriness of the opening. I loved it, especially because of its animalic, vaguely horsey feel which I found to be evocative and very sexy. (If Burmese oud always smells like that, I have to get my hands on some!) After that, though, my feelings turn to ambivalence. Rose fragrances do nothing for me in general, so that part left me cold, while the heart of singed woodiness didn’t really stand out for me. It’s all very well-done, but I suppose purely smoky, wood-centric fragrances require a little more for me personally. Some touch of sexiness, perhaps, or something a little warmer and ambered. On my skin, Oumma’s primary characteristic was woody, smoked dryness — and that’s not enough for me, especially for €395. In this, as in everything to do with perfume, it’s going to come down to personal tastes and skin chemistry.

All I can say is that you should definitely sample or sniff Oumma if you like very dry, woody fragrances with a cade (or birch-like) darkness, or if you adore smoky Orientals with deep, withered roses like Guerlain’s Encens Mythique. If either of those things sound appealing, Oumma should be available and in more stores quite soon.

Disclosure: Perfume sample courtesy of Stéphane Humbert Lucas. That did not influence this review. I do not do paid reviews, and my opinions are my own.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Oumma is an Extrait or pure parfum that is only available in a 50 ml bottle and costs €395. The 777 line will be at Luckyscent soon, but has arrived at Osswald NYC on 5/2/14. Osswald sells Oumma for $515. Outside the U.S.: Currently, the Stéphane Humbert Lucas’ website is under construction, and doesn’t have an e-store. The best online resource is First in Fragrance which currently has about half of the SHL 777 line, and will soon be receiving the newer releases as well. Oumma is actually listed on their website, since it is one of the 2013 releases, but FiF is out of stock. FiF informed me that they should be getting more of the SHL 777 line soon. In London, you can find the entire collection at Harrod’s Black Room, while in Paris, they are exclusive to Printemps under the name 777. In France, the SHL 777 line is also said to be available at Taizo in Cannes, but they didn’t list the line on their website the last time I checked and they have no e-store. Zurich’s Osswald also carries the line, but I don’t think they have an e-store any more. The Swiss perfumery, Theodora, also has SHL 777, but, again, no e-store. In Cannes, France, the boutique, Taizo, is said to carry the line, but I don’t see SHL 777 on their website. In the Middle East, Souq.com has about 6 of the earlier perfumes which it sells for AED 1,500. In the UAE, the SHL 777 line is available at Harvey Nichols and at Bloomingdales in the Dubai Mall. In Russia, SHL 777 is sold at Lenoma. Ukraine’s Sana Hunt Luxury store also carries the line, but they don’t have an e-store. Samples: None of the U.S. sample sites currently carry this fragrance. Luckyscent and Osswald NY will be your best option once the SHL 777 perfumes are released in America. However, Osswald has changed its sample program to take away the great “10 for $20” deal that it had previously, due to abuse by some customers. The Sample section on the website now shows pricing that is per vial and dependant on the cost of the particular perfume in question. They range from $3 a vial up to $9 a vial for fragrances that cost over $300. You can call Osswald at (212) 625-3111 to order by phone as well.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 Une Nuit à Doha

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Kafkaesque

An innocent candied confection, a warm gourmand inspired by thoughts of night falling on caramelized sticky oranges, lying next to a turquoise pool. That was the inspiration behind Une Nuit à Doha, a gourmand fragrance centered on immortelle and created by Stéphane Humbert Lucas.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas, via SHL FB, used with permission.

Une Nuit à Doha is a brand new, 2014 parfum extrait from Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 (hereinafter just referred to as “SHL 777” or “777“). All the perfumes are created by Monsieur Lucas, who used to be the in-house nose for SoOud and Nez à Nez. Up to now, the 777 line was exclusive to Europe, Russia, and Middle Eastern, but there is excellent news. The complete SHL 777 line should be coming to America in a few weeks, including the stunning amber, O Hira, that was previously contractually limited to Harrods and to Printemps, along with such new releases as Qom Chilom and the Cambodian oud, smoke and leather, Oud 777. They will be carried at Luckyscent and Osswald NYC. I have samples of the complete line, thanks to the generosity and kindness of Monsieur Lucas, and I will be going through them, one by one (though perhaps with some breaks and perhaps not all in a row) so that you will be well prepared when 777 hits the stores.

Une Nuit à Doha. Source: SHL 777 Facebook page.

Une Nuit à Doha is a pure parfum that Monsieur Lucas initially described to me as follows:

“A Mandarin against the light”

Fennel – crystallized Mandarin – Ginger

Immortelle flower from Corsica – Vetiver from Haïti

Brown Tobacco – Absolute of Vanilla.

After wearing the fragrance a few times, I knew that there was much more to Une Nuit à Doha (which I’ll just write from henceforth without the accent as “Une Nuit a Doha” for reasons of speed and typing convenience). I could detect copious amounts of neroli, as well as petitgrain, and perhaps a small dash of geranium in the sense of their fuzzy, piquant leaves. I also suspected some sort of benzoin enhancement underlying the immortelle, so I wrote back to Monsieur Lucas. He confirmed that, yes, Une Nuit a Doha contained more, particularly bitter orange petitgrain.

Candied orange. Source: trialx.com

The complete note list therefore looks a little closer to this:

Fennel, Crystallized Mandarin, Petitgrain Bigarade, Neroli, Ginger, Immortelle from Corsica, Haitian Vetiver, Brown Tobacco, Coumarin, Opoponax [Sweet Myrrh], and Vanilla Absolute.

In talking to me about the scent, Monsieur Lucas wrote that he had been inspired by a specific mood and image:

Source: Pinterest, apparently via ugallery.com

j’avais envie d’un parfum chaud mais innocent, comme une bouffée d’oranges confites sur un banquet déserté au bord d’une piscine, vous savez ces odeurs crépusculaires le soir, la nuit tombant.

[I wanted a scent that was warm but innocent, like a big spread of caramelized oranges on a deserted banquet table by the side of a pool. You know, the aromas and sense of twilight, of night that falls.]

I think Monsieur Lucas has fully succeeded in his goal of creating a gourmand fragrance centered around “Hespéridé” fruits that have been turned into “confiture” or jam. Une Nuit à Doha certainly opens that way on my skin. It is a concentrated explosion of gingered, sticky, caramelized, and bitter citruses, ranging from juicy, sun-sweetened, bright oranges, to bitter, pungent neroli and the equally bitter petitgrain wood from the tree. The jammy, gingered fruits are thoroughly immersed in immortelle syrup, then dusted by immortelle the flower and by the most minuscule, microscopic hint of a woody-tobacco element. The whole thing is very dense in feel, but surprisingly airy and light in weight.

Source: superbwallpapers.com

It all reminds me enormously of an immortelle cousin of Majda Bekkali‘s Fusion Sacrée, only less sweet, less thick, and less painfully cloying. As some regular readers may remember, the Bertrand Duchaufour creation sent me into a foetal position of misery from its sheer excess, its sweetness taken to such sacharine extremes and in such concentrated levels that it felt like orange goo designed to send one into a diabetic coma. Fusion Sacrée also had about 18,000 things going on simultaneously, bombarding you with a barrage of notes that I found utterly unbearable at the end of the day.

Fusion Sacrée via Luckyscent.

Yet, it is primarily the extreme sweetness — which begins as boozy orange caramel — that sticks in my mind when I think back upon the fragrance. I generally struggle with (and don’t particularly like) gourmands, but Fusion Sacrée blows the scale apart in that regard. On a sweetness scale of 1 to 10, I would place many gourmands at around a 6 or 7, and the Profumum Roma versions at about an 8 or 9. But I would assess Fusion Sacrée on my skin at about an 11. (Or a 12. Yes, I was and still am that traumatized by it.)

Source: Epicurious.com

Une Nuit à Doha is not Fusion Sacrée in that sense — a fact for which I am eternally grateful — but it is still very sweet. Too sweet for my personal tastes, I must admit. Part of the problem is that I remain rather dubious about immortelle in its maple syrup form which is a definite part of Une Nuit a Doha’s opening and end phases. Fusion Sacrée may be all about the caramel, but Une Nuit a Doha on my skin is all about the immortelle syrup.

In fact, on me, Une Nuit a Doha is far more about immortelle than any orange fruits if you take it as a whole. The perfume is rather uncomplicated in its development, so this won’t be one of my traditional reviews that dissects the notes from hour to hour. One reason why is that Une Nuit a Doha is superbly well-blended, so some of the smaller nuances change from one day to the next, and it is hard to establish any one, set, definitive progression of notes. Yet, the perfume’s core essence is always the same and generally follows the same path:

Source: showziji.com

I – Opening Phase: Extremely sunny, almost happy brightness with initially crisp, zesty, juicy, and bitter citruses, that very quickly turn into candied, gingered, bitter marmalade jam with immortelle flower in a tidal wave of rich, very sweet, immortelle maple syrup. It is all very airy and rather sheer, though also concentrated.

II – Middle Phase: the orange visuals all turn to brown, the ginger sticky neroli orange fades away, and Une Nuit a Doha is now primarily butterscotch with a touch of immortelle floralacy and an occasionally hefty streak of black licorice. To my surprise, the maple syrup aspect seems subsumed under actual butterscotch, perhaps because of the tobacco which is always an indirect presence during this phase. In fact, I have to say that the tobacco never appears as a powerfully distinct, individual note at any point on my skin. As a whole, Une Nuit a Doha feels like the middle or end parts of Dior‘s Eau Noire which is another immortelle licorice scent, along with a lingering dash of Fusion Sacrée. Yet, Une Nuit a Doha is also a drier scent than those comparisons may lead you think, at least in comparison to its opening burst of Seville bigarade marmalade. It’s a bit of a relative matter in this regard.

Source: wallpapervortex.com

III – Final Phase: pure immortelle maple syrup, with the tiniest undertone of something vaguely and amorphously woody, dry, tobacco’d, and lightly spiced. The latter nuances are all extremely muted, minor and muffled. As a whole, and with one very noticeable exception, Une Nuit à Doha ends up as slightly dry maple syrup on my skin.

Immortelle. Source: The Perfume Shrine.

I found a few things about Monsieur Lucas’ handling of the immortelle to be interesting. I frequently find fragrances with the note to smell either of the flower or the maple syrup — but rarely both at the exact same time. For me, the floral part is the most appealing, as it has a strange, vaguely herbal, dusty, almost Marigold-like resemblance that feels very green and yellow at the same time. It often reminds me of the smell of a dried wild flowers, particularly the stem part, only much sweeter and almost spicy. As a side note, immortelle comes from the same family as marigolds, so there is some explanation for my mental association.

Immortelle, or Helichrysum in Corsica. Source: Wikicommons.

Most fragrances that I’ve tried reflect the immortelle’s floral side only briefly and/or in very muted form, but not Une Nuit à Doha. It is a powerful part of the fragrance’s opening, just as much as its caramelized, brown sugar, maple syrup aspects. In one test, the flower was present on my skin from start to finish.

Oddly enough, however, on another occasion, Une Nuit à Doha actually began with the maple syrup dominating the flower, before the fragrance eventually ended up in its drydown as the much drier flower with only a light touch of the syrup. It was as if the usual progression and pyramid had been up-ended, with the syrup that almost always appears at the very end somehow blooming heavily right at the start, while the flower appearing in a more prominent way at the finish. The majority of the time, though, both aspects appeared side-by-side on my skin which I found to be a little uncommon, and a sign of some technical skill on the part of Monsieur Lucas.

Source: hdw.eweb4.com

The part of Une Nuit à Doha that I liked the most was the middle phase. It is drier, though still sweet, and the perfume smells like butterscotch instead of the more usual, semi-burnt, brown sugar, maple syrup. The neroli disappears, though an occasional bitter woodiness from the petitgrain lingers noticeably at the edges. I tried desperately hard to detect tobacco in the mix, but I couldn’t. At no point does my skin emanate a distinct, separate tobacco tonality, whether pipe, dried, or anything else. However, I think the note is definitely responsible for Une Nuit à Doha consistently turning so brown in visuals.

Butterscotch cheesecake with licorice or chocolate sauce. Source: thecurvycarrot.com

The other reason is the licorice. On occasion, it is a muted and muffled note, but generally, its black chewiness always appears strongly in the middle phase, right next to the butterscotch immortelle. I know the notes mention fennel, but I think of that as having quite a different aroma that is fresher, brighter, more herbal, and definitely green. Une Nuit à Doha, however, reflects the candied version, much as it does for the other notes. As for the vetiver, I never once detected it, but then my skin amplifies sweetness to a huge degree and probably blocked it out.

In a nutshell, therefore, Nuit à Doha starts on my skin as an immortelle version of Fusion Sacrée — only lighter, fractionally less sweet, and much less ridiculously excessive or complicated — with notes centered on neroli and orange maple syrup. Then, it turns primarily into butterscotch syrup with licorice, abstract woodiness, some dryness, and an indirect layer of tobacco. In its final moments, it ends up as a sheer layer of maple syrup.

A lot of people adore immortelle’s sweetness, and those people should definitely look into Une Nuit à Doha. I’m simply the wrong person to rave about any gourmand fragrance, particularly one with maple syrup. I’m one of those odd loons who isn’t particularly moved by Etat Libre d’Orange‘s huge cult hit and immortelle-centric fragrance, Tilda Swinton Like This. I think I may like Dior’s Eau Noire, but the operative and key word is “think” — the uncertainty all stems from my ambivalence towards the maple syrup. And, I don’t think I need to discuss further my utterly horrified reaction at Bertrand Duchaufour’s Fusion Sacrée.

In short, you need to place my feelings here into context. If you like any of the fragrances that I’ve mentioned, you should try Une Nuit à Doha. If you adore gourmands above all else, especially orange gourmands offset by some bitter petitgrain and neroli, you should probably do a mad dash to try Une Nuit à Doha. It will be completely up your alley.

Source: hdwalls.info

Plus, this gourmand entry into the SHL 777 line-up has some other positive attributes. First, it has moderately good sillage and excellent longevity. 3 small sprays from my decant, amounting to one spray from a bottle, generally gave me 2-3 inches in projection at first, which dropped down to an inch above the skin at the end of the 90 minutes. Une Nuit à Doha hovered there for hours, and never became a skin scent on me until the end of the 7th hour, though it was still easy to detect up close for a while longer. With a larger quantity, amounting to 2 sprays from an actual bottle, the initial sillage was 3-4 inches, then dropped down again in the same manner, but only at the start of the 3rd hour. As a whole, Une Nuit à Doha consistently lasts over 12 hours on my perfume-consuming skin, with a larger quantity giving me just over 14.75 hours.

Une Nuit à Doha. Source: fragrancerussia.ru distributors.

The other good thing to Une Nuit à Doha is that it is one of the “cheap” fragrances from the line, relatively speaking. On the absurd, highly skewed pricing spectrum for niche fragrances, Une Nuit à Doha comes in at around $200 for a 50 ml bottle of pure parfum extrait. Well, to be clear, I don’t have the official American pricing rate, but, in Europe, Une Nuit a Doha’s retail price is €148 for a 50 ml bottle of pure parfum. At today’s rate of exchange, that comes to about $204. However, I know from prior experiences with European exclusives that the eventual U.S. price is always much less than the currency conversion amount.

So, I estimate the perfume will probably be around $195, though that is purely a personal guess. Roughly $200 for pure parfum isn’t too terrible in this highly skewed, crazy niche world, particularly given that the same sized bottle of Tom Ford’s Private Blend costs $210 — and that is only an eau de parfum, not an extrait.

Une Nuit a Doha is too new for me to provide you with comparative reviews, and it has no entry on Fragrantica at this time. In fact, at the time of this post, it’s not widely available outside of Harrods and Paris’ Printemps. That should change in a few days time when, I’ve been told, Germany’s First in Fragrance is expected to receive several of the new SHL 777 fragrances, including the older 2013 release, O Hira. I suspect it will be closer to next week in actuality. As for the U.S., as noted at the start of this post, I’ve been told that the complete SHL 777 line will be released here in roughly 2 weeks time. So, you may want to look for it at Luckyscent and Osswald NY at the end of April.

If you love gourmands, give Une Nuit à Doha a try. It’s a very smooth, soft, refined and supremely well-blended take on immortelle with caramelized orange marmalade that lovers of very sweet fragrances will probably find to be quite delicious.

Disclosure: Perfume sample courtesy of Stéphane Humbert Lucas. That did not influence this review. I do not do paid reviews, and my opinions are my own.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Une Nuit à Doha is an Extrait or pure parfum that is only available in a 50 ml bottle and costs €148. The 777 line should be at Luckyscent and Osswald NYC by the end of April 2014. [Update 5/2/14 — Osswald has now received the 777 line. It sells Une Nuit à Doha for $195.] Outside the U.S.: Currently, the Stéphane Humbert Lucas’ website is under construction, and doesn’t have an e-store. The best online resource is First in Fragrance which currently has about half of the SHL 777 line, and will soon be receiving the newer releases as well. Some of the fragrances like Une Nuit à Doha are not yet in stock, but should be in a few days. In London, you can find the entire collection at Harrod’s Black Room, while in Paris, they are exclusive to Printemps under the name 777. Zurich’s Osswald also carries the line, but I don’t think they have an e-store any more. The Swiss perfumery, Theodora, also has SHL 777, but no e-store. In Cannes, France, the store Taizo is said to carry the 777 line, but I didn’t see the perfumes on their website the last time I checked. In the Middle East, Souq.com has about 6 of the earlier fragrances which it sells for AED 1,500. In the UAE, the SHL 777 line is available at Harvey Nichols and at Bloomingdales in the Dubai Mall. In Russia, SHL 777 is sold at Lenoma. Ukraine’s Sana Hunt Luxury store also carries the line, but they don’t have an e-store. Samples: None of the U.S. sample sites currently carry this fragrance, but Luckyscent and Osswald NYC will be your best option once the SHL 777 perfumes are released in America. Osswald used to have a great sample program where you could try any 10 fragrances in relatively large vials for a mere $20, with free shipping. However, that program is only available to U.S. customers, and, more importantly, it may have recently changed. Looking at the Sample section on the website now, there is no set deal, and pricing depends on the cost of the particular perfume in question. They range from $3 a vial up to $9 a vial for fragrances that cost over $300. You can call Osswald at (212) 625-3111 to enquire further as to the situation.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 Oud 777

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Smoke #6 by Stefan Bonazzi. (Website link embedded within photo,.)

Oud 777 takes you on a journey through the darkness of leather, smoke, and oud, before you emerge on the other side in the soft light of silky creaminess. Along the way, you stop to picnic on labdanum amber, licorice, black truffle and anise, but the main leg of the trip is primarily about sharp smoke, tobacco, leather, and singed woods. It’s not The Heart of Darkness, but it sometimes feels like “The Smoke Monster” from Lost put on a leather jacket, dabbed on a little Amouage Tribute, then went to chew some tobacco on a stroll through burning woods in Cambodia. In fact, I suspect there are some leather-clad biker gangs who would very much enjoy Oud 777.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas, via the SHL Facebook page and used with permission.

Oud 777 is a brand new, 2014 parfum extrait from Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 (hereinafter just referred to as “SHL 777” or “777“). All the perfumes are created by Monsieur Lucas himself, a man who used to be the nose for SoOud and Nez à Nez. Up to now, the 777 line was exclusive to Europe, Russia, and Middle Eastern, but there is excellent news. The complete SHL 777 line will be coming to America in a few weeks, including the stunning amber, O Hira, that was previously contractually limited to Harrods and Printemps, and such new releases as Qom Chilom and the mandarin-ginger-immortelle-tobacco scent, Une Nuit à Doha. They will all be carried at Luckyscent and Osswald NYC. I have samples of the complete line, thanks to the generosity and kindness of Monsieur Lucas, and I will be going through them, one by one (though perhaps with some breaks and perhaps not all in a row) so that you will be well prepared when 777 hits the stores.

Oud 777. Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas.

Oud 777 is a pure parfum that Monsieur Lucas described to me as follows:

Grand OUD
Brown Oud from Burma
White Oud from Laos
Leathers selection
Tonka

Based upon what I smelt, there is absolute no way that list is complete. None. In fact, I have the sense that Monsieur Lucas is one of those perfumers who, like Profumum Roma, prefers to give merely a nutshell synopsis. Perhaps it’s because he believes that one should experience a scent and let it transport you where it will, instead of focusing on the tiny specifics. (He has been very amused by my OCD obsession with facts and details, though he’s patiently taken the time to answer my numerous laundry-list of questions, and always with graciousness.) I suppose we should be grateful that he’s not Serge Lutens who doesn’t offer any notes at all, but that doesn’t change the fact that Oud 777’s official list doesn’t really give you a full sense of the actual fragrance.

Photo by Daniel Fox. Source: petapixel.com. (Website link embedded within.)

Oud 777 opens on my skin with such a rich blast of heavy labdanum that I instinctively reached for my decant to make sure I hadn’t accidentally re-applied O Hira. There are differences, to be sure, but for an instant, Oud 777 is all about dark, toffee’d, resinous, stick labdanum amber just like O Hira. Oud 777 had a definite whiff of tobacco lurking deep down in the base, but this labdanum was also animalic and redolent of chocolate. Then, the oud arrived — and all thoughts of O Hira vanished. My first thought and the exact comment in my notes upon smelling the agarwood was, “Uh oh.” It had the same blue cheese tonality that some really aged, very expensive Laotian woods possess, and I gulped in dread. Thankfully, it barely lasts. In fact, it lasted less than 4 minutes, and, yes, I timed it to be sure. (I know some of you all too well….)

Even though the blue cheese note in Oud 777 briefly brought back memories of Xerjoff‘s infamous Zafar, the two scents are nothing alike and there are strong differences. The oud here is not pure Gorgonzola for one thing. It’s also sweet, honeyed, and creamy. For another, it’s also much more animalic than Zafar was on me. Unlike some, I personally didn’t experience a heavy barnyard scent with Zafar, and had no feces. With Oud 777, however, I’m afraid the blue cheese segues into a few minutes of something that is both lightly fecal and strongly like a barnyard.

Source: artclon.com

I’d like to clarify that, in my mind and to my nose, there is a definite difference between, “animalic,” “horsey,” “urinous,” “barnyard,” and “fecal” — with the progression moving from left to right in terms of intensity, rawness and brutality. Let’s just say that Oud 777 covers all of those bases for a few minutes, with the exception of “horsey” and “urinous.” I can see a few of you shuddering right now, so let me repeat that all of this lasts another 5-8 minutes. So, in total, there was a 15-minute period of difficulty, at most.

There are other things happening on the periphery of that multi-faceted, complicated Cambodian wood. Oud 777 is also musky and earthy. In fact, I would swear that I detected both a truffle-like aroma and the sweetness of loamy, black soil. The whole thing sits upon a river of labdanum that feels very leathered, slightly honeyed, and subtly smoky. It’s now very different to the labdanum in O Hira, as it has a significantly stronger leather component, less honey, less sweetness, and much more of a styrax-like smokiness.

Source: sggwaser.ch

More importantly, however, there is an odd herbal note flittering about that feels like a dot of green in the vast vista of brown-black. It drove me quite crazy at first, because it was so muted and minor that I felt I was imagining it. Was it really there, and was it really some mix of tarragon with fennel/anise??! Slowly, slowly, the note grew stronger and, yes, 10 minutes in, Oud 77 has a definite touch of fresh fennel, though with a slight tarragon whiff as well.

By an incredibly strange, unplanned twist of fate, I went to my parents’ for a very late dinner last night with my notepad, computer, and 2 hours worth of Oud 777 on my arm. Guess what was on the menu? Caramelized, grilled fennel! The funny thing is that, sometimes, I can almost “taste” some perfume notes on my tongue (it’s a really odd feeling), but last night, I was quite literally eating the same notes that were wafting from my arm. When caramelized and grilled, fennel heart has a strong black licorice taste. Previously, my notes for Oud 777 stated that, 20 minutes in, the “mystifying” herbal note transformed into “bright green anise fennel with a hefty side plate of chewy, black licorice.” Having that precise combination subsequently confirmed in person, on the tongue, was quite disorienting, I can assure you.

Source: science.nationalgeographic.com

At the bottom of all these layers is the leather. Initially, and for the first hour, I really don’t smell leather, per se, but rather the mere impression of “leather.” It feels more like a subset of the labdanum, than leather in its own individual right. That subsequently changes, and in a big way, but at no point does the leather feel like black birch leather. Instead, it’s almost like a textural feel at times, a raw roughness, if you will.

Licorice. Source: Dylanscandybar.com

30 minutes in, Oud 777 is a blend of leathered labdanum with animalic, musky woodiness, anise, chewy black licorice, strong smokiness, a slightly muted earthy black truffle, styrax, and tiny suggestions of chocolate. With every passing minute, the black licorice grows stronger and nestles itself right next to the leathered labdanum. As for the oud, I have to say that I really don’t detect the note as actual agarwood any longer. The blue cheese left the building long ago, followed shortly thereafter by the barnyard and fecal tinges. What there is now is merely an abstract woodiness that is taking on an increasingly singed aroma.

I have a distinct disadvantage in all this because I have never smelled Cambodian oud (to my knowledge), let alone a “white oud.” I’ve heard plenty about how Cambodian agarwood is supposed to be the most expensive or sought after variety, and the blogger, The Smelly Vagabond, once told me on Twitter that either a single or a few chips of it sold for about $600 a few years back. So I looked up descriptions of Cambodian oud to learn how it may differ from the Laotian or Indian types that I’m more familiar with. I came across one Basenotes thread where a chap described his Cambodian oud as follows:

I get the barnyard smell that everyone is talking about…it’s a very dark and a raw animalic scent…very smokey, leathery and woody…

If that is the case, then it is very close to what I detect in Oud 777. The agarwood doesn’t smell like any thing I’ve encountered previously, but initially consists just of smoky woods that verge on the burnt. At the start of Oud 777, I had ascribed some of what I detected to labdanum’s undertones and to styrax, but as time passes, it’s become abundantly clear that something else is going. I have no idea where the labdanum starts and the Cambodian oud ends, what is the precise source of the leathery undertones, or even if there is styrax in Oud 777 any more. All I know is that the perfume starts to become darker and darker, smokier and smokier.

Nicolas Obery Gicle Digital Print. Source: googleplussuomi.com

At the end of the first hour, Oud 777 has become something that is completely different from its opening bouquet. There is a distinct and very prominent tobacco tonality, almost as if Tobacco Absolute has been used. It accompanies an intense, rather arid smokiness, so it must stem from the Cambodian oud. Whatever the source, man, is it smoky! It doesn’t smell like frankincense smoke, but like a super potent, concentrated, and very fierce mix of Serge Lutens‘ Fumerie Turque with Amouage‘s Tribute attar. I love Tribute, but the reformulated Fumerie Turque was too sharp for me, and something about the note in Oud 777 feels the same way.

Part of my difficulty is that the smokiness becomes so desiccated and intense that it eventually began to hurt my nose when I smelt Oud 777 up close and for too long. By the middle of the 5th hour, I actually wondered if an aromachemical had been used. Probably not, judging the Basenotes description of Cambodian oud. There is probably just a hell of lot of the Cambodian wood in Oud 777, but I’m afraid I’m too much of a wimp for it.

Source: rgbstock.com

From the start of the second hour until the 5th hour, Oud 777 blasts away razor-sharp smokiness and burnt woods, mixed with strong tobacco-like aromas, a very dark leatheriness, hints of black licorice, and an increasingly subdued labdanum amber. There is a slightly vanillic creaminess that appears at the start of the 4th hour which makes things better, though it’s not powerful or significant enough at first to counter that powerful tobacco-woody smokiness. To be fair, Oud 777 definitely feels softer and slightly smoother, and the creaminess makes the smoke less parched in feel, but the singed, burnt tonality continues to have a certain sharpness that is too much for me.

Painting by Moon Beom via lostateminor.com

I have to say, I rather feel like a wuss. I’ve concluded that Tribute is about as far as I can go with this sort of intense smokiness. On my skin, Oud 777 makes Tribute feel like a walk in the park. I’m quite serious. The Amouage attar had some hidden roses, a much richer, deeper softness, a velvety smoothness, and neither a burnt aroma nor any tobacco ashiness. Oud 777 doesn’t feel thick, dense, and as smooth as Tribute, and obviously the notes are completely different as well. For me, Oud 777’s smoke feels piercing, but the tobacco tonality is also substantially and significantly stronger than anything I detected in Tribute, and the leatheriness feels different as well. Rougher, rawer, and more intense. To be fair, my skin tends to amplify base notes, so maybe it’s just me.

Painting by Moon Beom via Lostateminor.com

Still, I am hugely relieved when the creaminess rises fully to the surface about 4.75 hours into Oud 777’s evolution. The perfume now smells of cream, sharp smoke, and singed woods, all flecked with tobacco, leather and vague whiffs of toffee’d labdanum. The cream note is odd because it smells quite separate and distinct, almost as if it were an actual element. The official note list for Oud 777 that I got from Monsieur Lucas includes tonka, but this doesn’t smell like the sort of tonka that I’ve encountered before. It’s neither vanillic nor powdered, and it’s not really sweet, either. It feels more like beige woods or some sort of really high-end Australian sandalwood in its smooth, creamy, wooded softness. Whatever the actual source of the note, the creaminess blessedly ends the reign of The Smoke Monster. Later on, it becomes responsible for Oud 777’s absolutely lovely drydown phase.

Painting by Moon Beom via lostateminor.com

Oud 777 continues on this same path for several more hours, turning more abstract and creamy with time, and changing only a little around the 10th hour. (Yes, I said, 10th hour!). Oud 777 is now a blur of creamy woodiness with an almost soapy cleanness to it. (The mysterious “white oud” perhaps?) The woodiness also has a faint whiff of the sort of oud note that I’m much more used to, but it’s subtle.

The soapy quality vanishes after an hour, and Oud 777 chugs along in its increasingly lovely drydown. The vanilla-ish tonka weaves its way through the notes, but it’s the return of the labdanum which is more significant. It is golden soft and warm, and melts into the butter-smooth creaminess which now feels like silk. I love the drydown, especially as the dry woodiness is increasingly subdued and subtle. In its final moments, Oud 777 is a mere blur of silky, smooth creaminess with a vestige of dry woods and subtle hints of ambered warmth.

Source: wallpaperscraft.com

All in all, Oud 777 lasted at least 18.75 hours on my perfume consuming skin. I say “at least,” because it is actually still churning along as I write this review. I’m dumbfounded, especially given how voracious my skin can be. I almost feel as though I’m imagining it, but no, at this very minute, I can still easily detect creamy woodiness with labdanum amber and a slightly clean vibe at times. For all I know, this thing could go on for another 6 hours, so I’m just going to get on with the review for the sake of my writing schedule.

By the way, Oud 777 wasn’t really a skin scent for all that time, either. In fact, it had quite a strong sillage at the start. Then, for a good portion of its life, Oud 777 hovered about 2 inches above the skin. Unfortunately, my usual numeric breakdown is going to be a little fuzzy this time when it comes to the quantity that I used. The decant I was sent had an even worse spraying mechanism than my O Hira atomizer, giving out little drops and dribbles, rather than an actual spray. However, I always judge things by surface area saturation on a particular stretch of skin on my forearm, so I can approximate the amount. I applied roughly the equivalent of 2 big sprays from an actual bottle, 3 good atomizer spritzes, or about 1/3 of a 1 ml vial. That quantity gave me over 18 hours in longevity!

In terms of sillage, Oud 777 initially projected out about 3 inches at first, before it dropped down to 2 inches after 30 minutes. There, it stayed for hours, turning into a skin scent near the end of the 5th hour, though it was still easy to detect without any effort at all. Actually, I’m not sure if “skin scent” accurately conveys the situation in this case. You do have to put your nose on your skin to smell it, but Oud 777 essentially just lies right on the skin as a silken smear. O Hira really did the same thing as well for about 7 hours, so maybe I need to find more precise terminology. Whatever the linguistic phrasing, Oud 777 never really turned into a skin scent in the way that I’m used to, perhaps because the perfume still hasn’t ended. Honestly, I’m completely stunned by Oud 777’s longevity.

Source: featurepics.com

As a whole, Oud 777 is quite light in feel. Potent and definitely sharp at times, but quite airy and sheer in weight. Oud 777 feels very dark for the first 5 hours, with a very leathered texture that continuously evoked images of a rhinoceros’ rough hide in my mind, more than any smooth or even black, rubbered leather. Actually Oud 777 has been created in a way where texture feels like a distinct, individual characteristic, almost like one of the notes itself. That was noticeable in the middle section as well when the creaminess appeared to act as a bridge between the opening stage’s blackness and the drydown’s ivory visuals.

Oud 777 is too new for me to provide you with a comparative assessment, and the fragrance doesn’t even have an entry on Fragrantica at this time. In fact, at the time of this post, it’s not widely available outside of Harrods and Paris’ Printemps. That will change in a few days time when, I’ve been told, Germany’s First in Fragrance should receive more of the SHL 777 line. And, according to Monsieur Lucas, the collection will be released in the U.S. in roughly 2 weeks time.

I don’t have the official American pricing information for Oud 777 but, in Europe, the perfume retails for €395 for a 50 ml bottle of pure parfum. While that comes to $546 at today’s rate of conversion, my experience in the past with European exclusives is that they are always priced lower than the exchange amount. My guess is that Oud 777 will probably retail for around $495 in the U.S., but that is only a guess.

I’m not sure what I can say about the pricing at this point, as I’m starting to sound a little bit like a broken record with regard to what I’ve termed the “Roja Dove Rule.” For people new to the blog, what I mean by that is: it’s going to be a personal calculation that comes down to each individual’s subjective valuation and tastes — and the extent to which the fragrance in question brings them to their knees such that the price becomes worth it to them.

Photo: Federico Bebber. Source: MyModernMet.com

For me, personally, Oud 777’s price is too high for the scent in question, especially as it lacks the enormous opulence of O Hira. Then again, O Hira is meant to be the crown jewel in the line and is in a whole other category, so that’s not really a fair comparison. My difficulty in all this is that judging a high-quality fragrance that is well done ends up implicitly being an assertion of (my) personal economic feelings. It’s not like we’re talking about some toxic aromachemical bomb that’s been badly put together from a 3rd rate company, or a flimsy, generic fragrance that lasts a mere 2 hours. This is a different matter, and I’ve given up trying to do the math. (It doesn’t help that Cambodian oud is said to be extremely expensive.) Bottom line, Oud 777 would be too expensive for me even if I hadn’t found the smokiness of the middle phase to be such a challenge and even if I had loved the whole thing. You have to make your own determinations.

Is Oud 777 the most approachable scent? I don’t know. I doubt you could wear it to work. I also think that Oud 777 skews quite masculine in feel. Then again, I know quite a few women who absolutely adore very smoky, dry, woody scents with tobacco and leather, so it is going to come down to personal tastes. (Yet, again.)

At the end of the day, all I can say is that you should definitely sample or sniff Oud 777 if you like really dark, extremely smoky, woody scents that eventually transition into a beautifully silken creaminess.

Disclosure: Perfume sample courtesy of Stéphane Humbert Lucas. That did not influence this review. I do not do paid reviews, and my opinions are my own.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Oud 777 is an Extrait or pure parfum that is only available in a 50 ml bottle and costs €395. The 777 line should be at Luckyscent and Osswald NYC by the end of April. [Update 5/2/14 — Osswald has now received the 777 line. It sells Oud 777 for $515.] Outside the U.S.: Currently, the Stéphane Humbert Lucas’ website is under construction, and doesn’t have an e-store. The best online resource is First in Fragrance which currently has about half of the SHL 777 line, and will soon be receiving the newer releases as well. As of this morning, Oud 777 was not yet in stock, but I’ve been told by SHL 777 that it should be in a few days. In London, you can find the entire collection at Harrod’s Black Room, while in Paris, they are exclusive to Printemps under the name 777. In France, the SHL 777 line is also said to be available at Taizo in Cannes, but they didn’t list the line on their website the last time I checked and they have no e-store. Zurich’s Osswald also carries the line, but I don’t think they have an e-store any more. The Swiss perfumery, Theodora, also has SHL 777, but, again, no e-store. In the Middle East, Souq.com has about 6 of the earlier perfumes which it sells for AED 1,500. In the UAE, the SHL 777 line is available at Harvey Nichols and at Bloomingdales in the Dubai Mall. In Russia, SHL 777 is sold at Lenoma. Ukraine’s Sana Hunt Luxury store also carries the line, but they don’t have an e-store. Samples: None of the U.S. sample sites currently carry this fragrance, but Luckyscent and Osswald NYC will be your best option once the SHL 777 perfumes are released in America. Osswald used to have a great sample program where you could try any 10 fragrances in relatively large vials for a mere $20, with free shipping. However, that program is only available to U.S. customers, and, more importantly, it may have recently changed. Looking at the Sample section on the website now, there is no set deal, and pricing depends on the cost of the particular perfume in question. They range from $3 a vial up to $9 a vial for fragrances that cost over $300. You can call Osswald at (212) 625-3111 to enquire further as to the situation.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 O Hira: The Incredible Hulk of Ambers

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Amber on steroids, if not the Incredible Hulk of ambers. That is O Hira, a stunning, super-powered, monster labdanum that would be worthy of its own character in the Marvel universe. O Hira is a simply spectacular extrait from Stéphane Humbert Lucas, and a scent which made me do an instant double-take the first time I smelt it. I actually said “ooohh!” and closed my eyes to better take in the tidal wave of richness. The molten, dripping, resinous juices were so beautifully honeyed, dark, leathery, and toffee’d, I was amazed. And, at a higher dosage, O Hira showed a naughty side that drove me quite wild. All I can say is, if I came across a man wearing O Hira, I’d want to rip his clothes off pretty quickly. I’m quite serious about that. I think O Hira on the right man or woman could be quite devastating.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas. Source: SHL 777 Facebook page.

O Hira is a 2013 parfum extrait released by the Paris niche house, Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 (hereinafter just referred to as “SHL 777” or “777“). Monsieur Lucas used to be the in-house perfumer for SoOud and Nez à Nez, but he launched his new house in 2013. All the 777 fragrances are created by Monsieur Lucas himself. Up until now, the line was exclusive to Europe, Russia, and Middle Eastern, but there is excellent news. The complete SHL 777 line will be coming to America in a few weeks, including new releases like Qom Chilom which I covered yesterday, the smoke monster, Oud 777 (which includes tobacco and leather touches), the mandarin-ginger-immortelle-tobacco scent, Une Nuit à Doha, and the stunning Black Gemstone which is one of the best fragrances that I’ve tried this year. They will all be carried at Luckyscent and Osswald NYC. I have samples of the complete line, thanks to the graciousness and kindness of Monsieur Lucas, and I will be going through them, one by one (though perhaps with some breaks and perhaps not all in a row) so that you will be well prepared when 777 hits the stores.

The 777 line. Source: Stephane Humbert Lucas.

O Hira is an ode to amber. SHL 777 has no official notes for the fragrance, and the press release photos or website descriptions only say:

No Pyramid.
Remake of fossilized Amber
Primitive Scent – Pure – Rare – Intense – Dedicated to the amber lovers.

Source: Stéphane Humbert Lucas

I’ve had some correspondence with Monsieur Lucas, and he elaborated a little further. He spent more than two years working just on O Hira, using complicated, classical techniques of “distillerie, effeuillage, glacis” on the most expensive raw materials. The fragrance is an extrait with 24% concentration, and is intended to be the richest soliflore around. No, there is no actual fossilized amber, so if you’re imagining something dug up from the bowels of the earth and dating from prehistoric times, you’d be mistaken. However, it’s clear to me from the scent that Monsieur Lucas has worked very hard with not only labdanum but some other materials, including a few really dark resins, to create a scent that is as dark and as heavy as if it really had been dug up from the earth.

Labdanum compiled into a chunk. Source: Fragrantica

This review won’t be a traditional review in the way that they are usually structured because O Hira is ultimately a soliflore devoted to labdanum and, thus, its core aroma is quite simple in some ways. So, I want to start by taking a few minutes to talk specifically about labdanum. It has a very dark, toffee’d, nutty, resinous, balsamic aroma that can often feel very honeyed. It can also sometimes have a masculine, leathery undertone, which is why some amber lovers I know aren’t particularly enthused by its distinctive, almost “dirty” aroma. For me, the visuals with true labdanum are dark brown, verging almost on black, and far from ambered gold. That brings to me a very important point.

Some of my regular readers may have noted that, in my reviews, I often write “labdanum amber” or “labdanum,” instead of simply saying “amber.” It’s not because I am OCD, but because I think the difference is enormous. A perfumer once told me, “only labdanum is real amber.” Someone else said words to the effect of, “a lot of fragrances listed as ‘amber’ today aren’t actually amber, because they’re not centered on labdanum. The note is either synthetic, or an approximation of amber through other means, like an accord using labdanum highly diluted with vanilla and benzoins to really become something else.”

Lava. Source: HuffingtonPost.com

Labdanum amber has a dark, dirty scent that is quite unique from many of the “ambers” listed even in the niche world, and it’s also completely different from ambergris. If you’re familiar with Dior‘s Mitzah, the opening of Serge Lutens‘ Ambre Sultan (minus the herbal nuances), parts of Tom Ford‘s Amber Absolute or Sahara Noir, and the more goaty, masculine, almost dirty parts of Amouage‘s Opus VI (separate from the Ambranum and Z11), then you’ve encountered labdanum. However, if you’ve tried Dior‘s Ambre Nuit or Profumum Roma‘s Ambra Aurea, then you’ve really experienced ambergris for the most part. And if you’re thinking about softer, gentler, or powdered ambers like Histoires de Parfums‘ Ambre 114, then you’re talking about the quasi-amber made up primarily of benzoins for an approximation of a golden amber. But it’s most definitely not labdanum amber, in my opinion.

Source: Huffington Post.

O Hira opens on my skin with a tsunami of true, undiluted, super concentrated labdanum in all of its manifestations. It is heavily honeyed, almost boozy at times, completely brown and dirty, with a hefty, walloping amount of cinnamon mixed in. Within seconds, it turns smoky with what is clearly styrax, the darkest and most leathered of all resins (and a big base note in such fragrances like Guerlain’s Habit Rouge). I suspect there is also a massive dose of Tolu balsam (as there is in Shalimar and Opium’s base) mixed in as well. What I’m less certain about are the tobacco tonalities that grow increasingly noticeable as the minutes pass. Is there actual tobacco absolute in O Hira, or is it a subset of the very dirty labdanum amber? How much of the leathery undertones come from the styrax, as opposed to something else?

It’s really hard to know the extent to which some of the nuances in O Hira stem from labdanum’s natural characteristics — only amplified and teased out to show their individual character — or whether they are from other supplemental sources as well. Monsieur Lucas told me that there is styrax in O Hira, and he mentioned cinnamon aromas from benzoins as well, so it’s very clear that O Hira is not just labdanum. But where the labdanum ends and the other notes begin is hard to say, because this is one superbly blended fragrance.

Source: .wholesalefabricsstore.com

Within minutes, new layers emerge. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some castoreum in O Hira because there is an absolute beautiful, velvety, very musky richness which appears. It is leathered, sharp, almost skanky, but also plush like velvet. The tobacco-like dirtiness also grows stronger, while the cinnamon fades. There is almost an incense-like whiff at the edges, though it probably stems from the styrax. Lurking deep, deep in the case, there is a subtle gingerbread note that smells like Siam benzoin as well.

Source: FilterForge.com

For the most part, however, I would say that O Hira is a bouquet centered around MASSIVE amounts of labdanum, along with some styrax, tolu balsam, and a tiny touch of castoreum. I cannot begin to tell you the richness of the scent. When I applied several good, hefty sprays from my decant, I was overcome by memories of my beloved (vintage) Opium‘s base. At high doses, O Hira has the same walloping, sticky, dense, dripping viscosity as 1980s-version Opium (especially in the parfum concentration). It feels like the thickest sludge of darkened, smoky, treacly amber — and I use the word “sludge” as the highest compliment in this case.

A goat whose chest and beard are covered with labdanum. Source: labdanum-creta.blogspot. com

At the same time, though, O Hira takes labdanum’s masculine, sometimes dirty underpinnings and heightens them to an extreme degree. For the first time since I reviewed Amouage’s Opus VI, I was transported back thousands of years to ancient times when shepherds would scrape the resin off the chests and beards of goats who had clambered on or around the rock rose. There is almost a sweaty, goaty quality to the labdanum, and it has a muskiness that feels almost animalic in the first hour. Interestingly, though, I didn’t detect anything similar when I applied only a small amount of O Hira. As I’m going to explain later in more detail, this is a fragrance that I think best shows off its nuances when you apply a lot of it. A few small sprays result in a scent that is much softer, less dense, less leathered, less dirty, and more cinnamon-like in aroma.

Henry VIII by Hans Holbein. Source: luminarium.org

For me, O Hira is unlike the other rich ambers on the market. It’s extremely different from Ambra Aurea which is a primarily an ambergris soliflore, though O Hira does have the same very opaque, dense, concentrated richness. O Hira isn’t like Tom Ford’s Amber Absolute or Sahara Noir, either, because both of those scents are heavily infused with incense. If you took Amber Absolute’s core (without the frankincense), combined it with a stripped down version of Dior’s Mitzah (without that fragrance’s supporting players), injected the two with vintage Opium’s resinous base, boiled the whole thing down to its most reduced, sticky, balsamic form, and then injected it with steroids, you would get O Hira. It is such a fatty, over-the-top, super-saturated, dark, monster amber that it feels indulgent enough for someone like Henry VIII.

And it’s so damn sexy. When I applied a lot of it, the castoreum in the base exuded a muskiness that was not only very leathered, but also rather brazen and verging on the skanky. There was a seductiveness that once again called to mind vintage Opium’s base with its lusty, bold, take-no-prisoners, raw sensuality. I just wanted to slather O Hira on someone’s neck, lick it off, and then rip off their clothes. I mean it, O Hira got me quite hot and bothered at times.

The scent only becomes better as the minutes pass. The tobacco and leather tonalities are joined by something almost verging on dark chocolate, followed by a definite flicker of salty, black licorice after about 20 minutes. The whole thing feels so dark, it verges on the brown-black in hue, and is incredibly far removed from the golden palette of many “ambers” that I’ve tried. It also feels very masculine, though women who love dark, dirty, smoky, heavy, balsamic orientals should adore it as well.

As a soliflore, O Hira doesn’t change in its core bouquet or essence — but then it’s not meant to. O Hira seeks to focus on one central note, shown in all its facets; one very simple thing heightened to its most luxurious depths. However, it’s clear to me that a lot of different parts were melded and fused together to create this seemingly monolithic, dense, heavy, “amber” aria. This is the sort of fragrance that sings at operatic levels, like a Middle Eastern Valkyrie belting out her final passion on a funeral pyre. You know how I’m always going on about wanting my fragrances to be Wagnerian in nature? Well, this is it. O Hira is definitely The Ride of the Valkyries.

Artist: Helen Abbas, Mosaic Collection, Summer 2013, “(Erdowaz) Slate.” Source: IslamicArtMagazine.com. (Website link embedded within photo.)

Even if O Hira’s main note is unwavering labdanum, its nuances and layers most certainly change. After 30 minutes, the sometimes intense smokiness from the styrax pipes down a few notches. Or, perhaps, it merely infused every one of the other notes in such a way that it seems softer. At the same time, the honey and cinnamon tonalities take a step back, while the musky, toffee’d leather and tobacco undertones take a few giant leaps forward. O Hira also turns fractionally softer and airier in feel. On occasion, the perfume feels smoother, as if some of the edges had been buffed out. At other times, however, O Hira continues to feel like an intentionally raw, almost brute-strength amber. It’s merely dialed down from a 10 on the Richter scale to a 9. The drop is slightly bigger for O Hira’s density, however, moving from a solid 10 in the opening minutes to about a 7 after 40 minutes.

O Hira is massively potent at the start with very big sillage. I will try to give you a sense of things, but it will be hard to use my usual numbers for application or quantity. The decant I was sent had a slightly wonky spraying mechanism which wasn’t very smooth when pressed down and only gave out half-squirts, rather than a more usual, fluid spritz. Using 5 half-spritzes or roughly the equivalent of 2 big sprays from an actual bottle, O Hira projected out a good 5 inches at first, before it softened at the end of an hour to about 2 inches above the skin.

When I used a lesser amount — similar to one and a half very large sprays from a proper bottle or 3 wonky spritzes from my atomizer — things were slightly different. The projection dropped a little, and O Hira wafted out only about 2-3 inches at the start, though that is still quite good. The more noticeable difference, however, pertained to the notes. At the lower dose, O Hira became a much softer, less sticky scent with a slightly different set of nuances. It was slightly cleaner, less dirty in feel, with little of the castoreum muskiness, and none of the more brute, goaty undertones to the labdanum. The cinnamon was stronger; the styrax’s smokiness was much softer; there was much less tobacco in the undertones; no licorice nuance; and the more viscous, sticky, dense resemblances to Opium’s base largely vanished. To try to explain it in terms of visuals, O Hira felt less solidly brown-black, and more bronze-gold.

part of “The Blooming Tree,” Painting by Osnat Tzadok, via osnatfineart.com
http://www.osnatfineart.com/art/landscape-paintings/6088-The-Blooming-Tree.jsp

O Hira shifts over time in terms of its nuances and the prominence of its individual layers. However, it’s hard to give a clear description of what happens because each time I’ve worn the perfume, the layers are different at different times. The notes also feel a bit circular, in that they come back around just when you think they had died or retreated to the sidelines. For example, in one test, the tobacco seemed to fade away about 2.5 hours into O Hira’s development, though the leather remained, and the cinnamon from one of the benzoins grew much stronger. O Hira was softer, smoother, and had almost a creamy feel to it which was unexpected. O Hira lost a lot of its stickiness and opaque density, became airier, felt sheerer, and hugged the skin much more. However, it was still extremely potent when smelled up close.

That was one occasion, but, on another, the tobacco and leathered smokiness were still subtly blasting away well into the start of the 7th hour. In fact, much of O Hira’s progression of notes was different, starting with labdanum that felt practically boozy at the start, and which then transitioned into heavy cinnamon-labdanum, before ending up as darkly leathered, tobacco’d, toffee labdanum. In short, the order of the perfume pyramid was up-ended.

“Black Widow v1”
by *smokin-nucleus. Source: DeviantArt. (Website link embedded within photo.)

There are only two consistent aspects to O Hira. First, its primary bouquet from start to finish is some manifestation of dark labdanum — in all its various, complex nuances — with resins. Second, O Hira consistently lasts over 11 hours. With a lesser quantity, O Hira’s longevity clocks in at about 11.5 hours. With a higher dosage (the equivalent of 2 sprays from an actual bottle, or much more), O Hira has lasted up to 14.5 hours on my perfume consuming skin. The sillage is always monstrous at first, but it generally drops to about 1-2 inches above the skin which is where it stays for hours and hours. On average, O Hira turned into a complete, true skin scent on me about 7 hours in with a large quantity, and 5.75 hours into its development with a small amount.

In a way, the best way to sum up O Hira is in terms of the images or moods that it evokes. Depending on which one of the notes dominates on your skin, O Hira can either be lavishly rich and indulgent, in an opulent manner worthy of Henry VIII, or positively sensual, brazenly seductive, darkly raw, brutal, and oozing pure, animal sex appeal. It’s a surfeit of riches, either way, and honestly feels like amber on steroids. I think it’s the Incredible Hulk of ambers, but I’ve been mulling over the possibility that it may be Iron Man instead.

Antoni Gaudi chairs at Casa Mila, La Pedrera, Barcelona. Source: gaudi-barselona.ru

The reason is that there is a definite refined intelligence to how O Hira’s notes have been put together, an attempt to have some sense of luxurious refinement that goes beyond mere brute strength or primal rawness. Speaking purely for myself, I think Tom Ford’s ambers verge more into the brute force category, and have some synthetics that prevent the scents from feeling quite as pure. To me, his ambers are potent and rich, but they don’t evoke luxurious opulence and refinement in quite the same way. They also don’t smell as if the most expensive raw ingredients have been used in almost undiluted form, which is the sense I get with O Hira. In short, O Hira feels much more sophisticated, expensive and nuanced. To me, it has class. It feels like a European’s baroque, almost Gaudi-esque interpretation of “death by amber.”

O Hira may have been released in 2013, but I couldn’t find any reviews of the scent to provide you with a comparative assessment. O Hira doesn’t even have an entry on Fragrantica at this time. In fact, at the time of this post, it’s not widely available outside of Harrods and Paris’ Printemps. That will change in 2-3 days time when, I’ve been told, Germany’s First in Fragrance should receive O Hira, along with several of the new 2014 fragrances. As noted at the start of this post, the complete SHL 777 line will be released in the U.S. in roughly 2 weeks time.

The bad news in all this is that O Hira is very expensive. I mean, seriously expensive. I don’t have the official American pricing information but, in Europe, O Hira’s retail price is a hefty €580 for a 50 ml bottle of pure parfum. I have heard rumours and talk that O Hira will cost $795 in the U.S., but none of that has been confirmed. The bottom line is that O Hira is going to cost you a lot, regardless of the currency that you use. It is certainly too rich for my blood. As a general rule, and regardless of the brand, I have difficulty with nosebleed prices like these — but I find it even harder when it comes to something that is a soliflore.

O Hira’s quality and luxuriousness, though, make the math much more difficult and complicated. There is absolutely no question in my mind that the most expensive ingredients have been used in O Hira, that great care was taken with complicated techniques, and that none of it came cheaply. I can fully understand why it took more than 2 years to finesse raw materials used in such intense quantities, so that the end result would be something nuanced and so spectacularly rich. I can see it, I can smell it, and I have no doubts at all. But it’s still too expensive, in my opinion.

At the end of the day, however, it all comes down to what I’ve now decided to call the “Roja Dove Rule“: it’s going to be a personal calculation that comes down to each individual’s subjective valuation and tastes — and the extent to which the fragrance in question brings them to their knees such that the price becomes worth it to them.

All I can say is that O Hira is absolutely worth sampling and, if possible, getting in a decant. It’s the bloody Incredible Hulk of Ambers. I think that it’s in a class all of its own.

Disclosure: Perfume sample courtesy of Stéphane Humbert Lucas. That did not influence this review. I do not do paid reviews, and my opinions are my own.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: O Hira is an Extrait or pure parfum that is only available in a 50 ml bottle and costs €580. The 777 line should be at Luckyscent and Osswald NYC by the end of April 2014. [Update 5/2/14 — Osswald has now received the 777 line. At this time, O Hira will be available by request only.] Outside the U.S.: Currently, the Stéphane Humbert Lucas’ website is under construction, and doesn’t have an e-store. The best online resource is First in Fragrance which currently has about half of the SHL 777 line, and will soon be receiving the newer releases as well. O Hira is not yet in stock at the time of this review, but should be in a few days. In London, you can find the entire collection at Harrod’s Black Room, while in Paris, they are exclusive to Printemps under the name 777. Zurich’s Osswald also carries the line, but I don’t think they have an e-store any more. The Swiss perfumery, Theodora, also has SHL 777, but no e-store. In the Middle East, Souq.com has about 6 of the earlier fragrances which it sells for AED 1,500. In the UAE, the SHL 777 line is available at Harvey Nichols and at Bloomingdales in the Dubai Mall. In Russia, SHL 777 is sold at Lenoma. Ukraine’s Sana Hunt Luxury store also carries the line, but they don’t have an e-store. Samples: None of the U.S. sample sites currently carry this fragrance, but Luckyscent and Osswald NYC will be your best option once the SHL 777 perfumes are released in America. Osswald used to have a great sample program where you could try any 10 fragrances in relatively large vials for a mere $20, with free shipping. However, that program is only available to U.S. customers, and, more importantly, it may have recently changed. Looking at the Sample section on the website now, there is no set deal, and pricing depends on the cost of the particular perfume in question. They range from $3 a vial up to $9 a vial for fragrances that cost over $300. You can call Osswald at (212) 625-3111 to enquire further as to the situation.