Air Brakes (ROUND 4)
scent of the day: EO No. 1 Assam (Parfum), by Ensar Oud
EO 1 Assam is a base-heavy fragrance that highlights the fruity-tobacco and medicinal-leather facets of Assam oud (rather than the chocolaty cowpat facets). Despite what we might normally expect from an assam-rose fragrance (here the roses are Indian, Turkish, and Austrian), this tilts closer than one might think toward the amber fougere category. The greenery (lavender, oakmoss, cypress) and resins (Tolu balsam, Ethiopian frankinsence, labdanum) are responsible for that—both given a dusty texture by the vanilla and the Timor sandalwood.
When many of us hear the word “assam oud” we think of cowpats and the like. But if you know Ensar, even his Hindi ouds will be clean. What we have here, then, is essentially the refined cuir take on Assamese oud: tobacco plus ambergris plus sandalwood plus oakmoss, with floral elements acting as polish rather than as the main event of salted—even somewhat smoked—leather.
There is a sourness here in the beginning—a sour must similar to what I get from my vintage Salvador Dali. I suspect it comes from the lavender in both cases. Old lavender has that smell. You can think of the base as a fruity and ambergris-thrown twist on Varuek’s castoreum-style leather. Yes, we get here a full grain apothecary leather, the medicinal-straw assam plus the dusty-pepper of the timor sandalwood makes it apothecary like—drawing connections, with its overlap of spices and tea Jasmine and civet, to Prin’s Dunhuang.
This is not the best performer. It is long-lived but a skin scent. It feels a bit dead—very base heaby. It might be that it did not age well or was badly kept. Or it might be that I’m used to the synthetic reinforced Ensars of the present. It is pleasant though but very basic.
There have been various editions. I have only keep up with the ones prior to 2023. I own only the Assam version to which I will compare them.
EO1 Assam—just like the Siem Reap 2021 edition—is characterized by a bright marine top (SQ Ambergris), which uses the sparkling oceanic facets of ambergris to create an airy opening. The other versions make different moves. EO1 OG 2018 and EO1 Manipur 2020 completely strip away that marine freshness, replacing it with castoreum to deliver a warm and leathery animalic musk right out of the bottle. The OG drives this into a sharper and camphorous evergreen direction by using Fujian cypress, while Manipur softens it using the sweet, creamier woody facets of Siam Wood. EO1 Sultani 2023 creates a dense conflicting opening by pairing the clean and sparkling marine SQ Ambergris directly with the heavy leathery musk of castoreum, while completely removing Rosewood that give the top notes their usual sweet lift.
EO1 Assam’s heart—green-honeyed Juhi Jasmine paired with a spicy and slightly green Indian-Turkish-Austrian rose trifecta—is constructed as a floral veil of tea-time sophistication over the otherwise dark Assamese core. The others make different moves. EO 1 Siem Reap 2021 keeps its heart oud-free but narrows the floral focus into a sweet velvety profile by stripping the rose blend down exclusively to honey-like Bulgarian Rose Otto. EO1 OG 2018 and EO1 Manipur 2020 disrupt the floral purity by injecting Thai oud—a humid and fungal nuttiness—straight into the middle. EO1 Sultani 2023 turns the heart into an ultra-luxury layer by introducing Sultan Qaboos Myitkyina oud. This imparts a round and ancient depth of woodiness without any harsh dampness (think: burnt-caramel-meets-hung-tobacco)—vintage taif rose adding enough citrus brightness to make the wood seem aglow.
EO1 Assam has a heavy vintage Indian oud/Timor sandalwood base with oakmoss, creating a dry and bittersweet leather drydown anchored by the inkier green facets of oakmoss. The others make some different moves. EO1 OG 2018 and EO1 Manipur 2020 lean into a much damper, forest-floor profile by using treemoss (which smells more decayed and damp than oakmoss). These two also add ambergris to glue a sweet oceanic musk to the bottom. The OG relies on unaged Assam Oud and standard Papuan Sandalwood, which gives us a barnyard-straw leathery bite plus pale-but-living woodiness less dry than what we get from Austrailian sandalwood and yet less powdered and airy than Timor. Manipur swaps these for Wild Aged Assamese Oud and Vintage Papuan Sandalwood—the years of oxidation producing an effect of pale driftwood rubbed with molasses. EO1 Siem Reap 2021 abandons the Indian earthiness for something brighter and more ethereal: wild Cambodian oud ramping up the tobacco of EO 1 Assam in a cherry direction and hojari olibanum adding a crystalline pine sap aura. EO1 Sultani 2023 trades the baseline for a smooth woody sweetness rooted in Sri Lankan sandalwood, which—not as milky as Mysore—givers a creamy ivory wood and soft resinous sweetness (as though freshly carved sandalwood had been polished until it became smooth as porcelain).
*Let's workshop this poem about a father's moment of reflection--worried and yet hopeful--on the complexities of parenthood and the passage of time while watching his child board a school bus.
*An old poem, published years ago in a fledgling form, that I worked on this morning—I think both to its benefit and mine.
Air Brakes
Soon he will trudge up the steps of the school bus thinking nothing of me: that runaway asymmetry. Still so tender, still so tethered to my side, as he is now though, even on the moodiest mornings (rare, I tell myself) my son is sure to take a window seat—
as in the days of our high-pitch waves, my singsong range—where I can see him in profile from the stoop. And from under that hiding hoodie still those eyes, through tinted glass no more perceptible than a wish, will cut to mine at the lunging hiss of the air brakes.
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
