Beauty and the Beast
Areej le Doré (2022)

Well the description kind of sums it up. Whereas, Taif Al Malik was a brilliant rose with dark woody Oud, the Oud in BatB is all animalic, typical of Indian Oud. The rose here is really nice. It has lemony facets. This is the most expensive in this collection and rightly so, but I wasn’t blown away. I love the concept of this collection, but was hoping for something a little new from this particular one. Still, if you can get this, then you’ll love it. It’s solid and quality materials, as you can expect from Russian Adam. I’ll savior my sample.

I wrote about the new generation of Amouage attars (2021) a while back, but in trying to couch my disappointment in terms of market realities, I skipped over the sense of loss – emotional and patrilineal – of never seeing the likes of Badr al Badour, Al Shomukh, and Al Molook again. These were mukhallats that successfully positioned feral ouds against the softening backdrops of rose, ambergris, and musk, stoking a love for oud among the heretofore uninitiated. The first sniff of Beauty and the Beast makes me realize, with great joy, that cultural ‘scent’ patrimony is never lost entirely, but rather, constantly over-written by new entrants like this.

Based on the age-old Middle Eastern custom of pairing the sometimes challengingly sour, regal animalism of Hindi oud (the Beast) with the soft, winey sweetness of rose (the Beauty), Beauty and the Beast doesn’t deviate too dramatically from the basic rose-oud template. When the starring raw materials are this good, you don’t need to. The Hindi oud and the rose oils used here are so complex in and of themselves that an experienced perfumer chooses wisely when they leave them alone to work their synergistic magic on each other.

Interestingly, the ouds in Beauty and the Beast have been distilled using rose hydrosols, meaning that the water normally loaded into the still with the oud chips has been replaced with rosewater, the natural by-product of distilling roses. I am not sure that this makes a difference to the resulting oud oil, but the environmentalist in me likes the thinking around circular economy it implies.

The balancing act the materials perform is nothing short of magisterial. When the Hindi oud at first challenges the senses with its pungent, feral qualities – think beasts of burden steaming together in a barn, old saddles piled on old wooden barrels in the corner, piss-soaked straw matted into the dirt floor – the rose (not Taifi, for sure, but more likely something like Rosa bourboniana, used to distill attar of roses, or Rosa damascena, used to distill ruh gulab, or a mix) is there merely to soften and sweeten things. Later, however, when there is more room to breathe, the rose offers up a kaleidoscope of different ‘flavors’, cycling through wine and chocolate to raspberry liquor, Turkish delight, truffles, and finally, that traditional rose-sandalwood ‘attar’ scent.

But it is crucial to note that these nuances all unfold in sequence, matching step for step the series of nuances emerging from the Hindi oud. So, when the oud reveals that regal, spicy leather underpinning so typical of high-quality Hindi ouds, the rose offers up its truffles and wine. The two materials continue to evolve and in doing so, change the character of the rose-oud pairing we are smelling. First, the character is pungent and sweet, then it is leathery and winey, then it is dry, woody-spicy and jellied-loukhoum-like. This evolution, this symbiotic dance, lasts for a whole 24 hours, so you have ample time to luxuriate in its every transition.

There is nothing really new or innovative about the rose-oud pairing, but Beauty and the Beast is worth your time and money if you are looking for an exemplar of the heights it can scale when only truly excellent materials are used. It is strong, rich, long-lasting, but most of all, interesting and beautiful from every angle, from top to toe. In terms of what is still available in this style today, I would rank Beauty and the Beast alongside The Night (Frederic Malle), Mukhallat Dahn al Oudh Moattaq (Ajmal), Al Hareem (Sultan Pasha Attars), and Al Noukhba Elite Blend (Abdul Samad al Qurashi). In other words, the fragrances that best capture the feral but regal nature of Hindi oud, balancing it perfectly against dark, sweet roses. For what it’s worth, my husband, who is a hardcore oud enthusiast, kept muttering stuff, “Good Lord, that is good,” and “Oh, that smells insanely good” all day long every time I wore it.

It may not be the most original interpretation of the theme, but I do find it very grounding and incredibly soothing. I thoroughly enjoy it, and find myself reaching for it quite often. On different wears, different notes become more prominent on the skin. It very much depends on the application, and I would say less is more with this one. The rose and the cocoa are definitely there, dancing their way with the Oud in the background. Yes, the Oud, is cheese-and barnyard-y, particularly in the first few moments, but then is shifts slightly so... There is a sort of an added dimension from the rose water distillation. I'm fairly new to the perfume world, so I suppose that I don't know much. You would really have to appreciate a deep, 'dirty' & unapologetic rose. You can really feel the quality of the materials used. (For what it's worth, I didn't enjoy the rest of the History of attars perfume collection)