Roja Musk Aoud Parfum

Musk Aoud is one of the harder Roja compositions to track down. It does not appear as a standalone perfume in the house's current online range, where a Harrods-exclusive candle of the same name is what remains, and independent databases list it as discontinued, dating it to around 2013 at parfum concentration. Bottles still circulate through specialist stockists and the fragrance has a devoted following, but this is not something to expect the house to keep in production.

What makes it worth the search is that it takes a deliberately different route through oud. On his Aoud Parfum, Roja Dove describes styling oud wood with rose and saffron as the classic practice, the triad that underpins most of the genre. Musk Aoud sidesteps it. Here the agarwood is set against musks instead: white musk, ambrette from musk mallow seeds, and a leather-and-birch accord that brings tar and smoke without the medicinal barnyard edge that puts people off rawer Middle Eastern ouds.

It opens quietly, with bergamot and lemon that pass in minutes. The heart is a classical trio of rose, ylang-ylang and jasmine, but they function as texture rather than as the subject, soft and slightly soapy, keeping the wood from arriving too abruptly. Then the base moves in and holds for the remainder of the day: oud, musk, leather, sandalwood and precious woods, with birch giving a smoky bite and tonka bean, vanilla and nutmeg rounding the edges. Oakmoss underneath adds an old-school chypre dryness. The overall impression is animalic but clean, warm rather than sharp, and closer to skin than to smoke.

It is an evening and cold-weather fragrance. A Cape winter night is its element; in coastal humidity the musks turn heavy. The house lists it as unisex and it wears that way, though the leather gives it a masculine lean.

At parfum strength performance is considerable, with ten hours or more and a close, persistent trail rather than a loud one. Every Roja Parfums composition is credited to Roja Dove himself, who put in the best part of twenty years at Guerlain from 1981 before setting up in Mayfair, London, during 2011. If you are buying, buy from a seller who can account for where the bottle came from.