Sultani

Leather and oud go together like king and crown, and there’s no sweeter spot between the rustic allure of Ensar’s artisanal—often mad—oud world and popular perfumery than this oudilicious addition to the cuir tradition. A rugged aroma that makes you wonder if Hemingway just lit up a Cuban, or if Churchill’s in town.

After 15 fragrant years, I finally took off my jungle jacket for a tie to dive headfirst into my debut spray parfum and create No 1. Since its first release, each iteration has had a unique flavor—still retaining the No 1 profile but showing off a different dimension—as we literally poured all we had of our precious distillations into the perfume.

I approach perfume the way I do oud distillation. That’s why No 1 is composed of the rarest, most expensive ingredients in all of perfumery, including copious amounts of precious ouds.

Not only is this among the highest quality oud fragrances that have ever been produced in spray-format, the entire composition is infused into a high-concentration, genuine raw ambergris tincture instead of just plain ethanol. Similar tinctures of this kind sell for around £400 for 30ml… here, it’s already included. But not just any ambergris…

I’ve literally been called stupid for insisting to use such olfactory gems in a perfume. In fact, most critics and ‘professionally trained’ perfumers advocate using synthetics exclusively. And I see their point. Why sacrifice rare rose and oud instead of synthetics that are 1000 times cheaper? Not to mention—and this is a staple argument—you never have to worry about reproducing the scent! (i.e. it’s scalable, so you can sell a lot more.)

I insist on these insanities because to me, and people like me, there IS a difference. You smell low-grade or lab-made oud (a.k.a. the ‘oud note’) and all you can do is laugh at how it’s being compared to real high-caliber oud. Most can’t even tell, but to any oud novice the difference is red and blue.

No 1 lets you exude wafts of a tobacco-heavy, old-school leather jacket aroma with an unmistakable Don Corleone kiss-my-hand-compagno esteem. Subtle, but not soft, with a base that’s all oud and vintage horse-saddle leather.

The recent buzz around the OG No 1 is partly because many fragheads missed out on it (sold out in 2018) but also because those who stashed away a bottle and smelled it again recently were so blown away by that first edition.

The OG came in Habib’s handworked full-grain Italian calf leather, topped with a square wooden cap, and boasted a fusion of certain ouds that gave it its unique edge