THE HOUSE OF OUD
Crop Edition 2023

2023

Hemp
Indian Oud

Limited edition with 507 bottles produced.

The House Of Oud’s yearly Crop release, is a limited edition (only 507 bottles were made for 2023). I always heard these were supposed to represent the creme de la creme, the top quality that the brand has to offer, so I was intrigued to get my nose on my first Crop edition.

Unfortunately, Crop 2023’s scent profile is far from ideal for my taste. The only two notes listed are hemp and Indian oud. While hemp is technically different from the cannabis used for smoking, similar qualities apply and I’ve never really enjoyed them in a fragrance.

Now, I definitely did not mind sampling this, even quite appreciated it, but I instantly knew I’d never long to wear it, despite this indeed being a solid quality scent.

Whereas hemp or cannabis usually gets paired up with grapefruit or other citrussy and green notes, here the very dry, dusty, earthy oud makes for a different experience. This does not smell like cannabis in the air, but much more like a tropical forest floor, with slight fruity aspects. Not fruity like the aforementioned grapefruit, but a sweeter, tropical leaning fruitiness, like mango or even banana I could imagine here. All done in a rather mature, subtle way and more feeling like an ozonic scent of the fruits on top of that dry, green and earthy base that has some ambrette-like qualities when I smell it up close.

That nutty sort of harsh wood dominates the entire drydown. I lose the fruitiness and the more green aspects pretty quickly. What’s left reminds me a bit of the bases of Amouage Silver Oud or King Blue.

Crop Edition 2023 is not something I would ever pick from a collection of fragrances, but I liked it better than I expected. This is making me hope for a Crop Edition 2024 more up my alley, as I will definitely keep this line on my radar for future testing.