Roja Aoud Parfum

Roja Dove gave nearly twenty years to Guerlain, finishing as Global Ambassador, a role nobody from beyond the founding family had held before him, and acquiring the title Professeur de Parfums. The Haute Parfumerie he opened at Harrods followed in 2004, and his own house was established in Mayfair during 2011. Aoud was among the fragrances he launched with, and the house's own account of what happened is worth repeating: it sold out immediately and had to be restocked daily.

Roja's own copy says he spent three years in the Middle East studying agarwood before composing this, and the fragrance shows the homework. It is not an oud bomb. It is a rose-and-oud in the classical Arabian arrangement, built with French materials and French proportions. Lemon, bergamot and verbena open it cleanly, which is more restraint than most oud fragrances allow themselves. The heart is where the money is: Rose de Mai and jasmin de Grasse, both expensive absolutes, with geranium and ylang giving them structure. Then it descends into one of the longest base lists in commercial perfumery, more than a dozen materials deep, in which saffron, leather, cinnamon and nutmeg wrap the agarwood while sandalwood, ambergris, vanilla and musk soften it. There is a rhubarb note in there too, tart and slightly green, which is a Roja signature and keeps the sweetness in check.

It reads rich rather than heavy, which matters. In a Cape winter it is glorious. On a humid summer night on the coast it is a lot, and one dab is genuinely enough.

It is sold as a parfum, the highest concentration Roja offers, in 100ml and 50ml. Performance is what you would expect: ten to twelve hours on skin is ordinary, fabric holds it for days, and the projection in the first three hours is considerable. This is not a subtle fragrance and never tries to be. If you want to understand what the house is actually for, this and Amber Aoud are the two to try.