scent of the day: Oud SQ Terengganu, by Ensar

Only my second wear, so take with grain of salt. A tobacco-oud scent for lovers of bitter-tannic medicinal fragrances, which I am. The tobacco and the oud support a tannic aura, not too far from what we get in Bortnikoff’s Sans Fluer—an aura somewhere in the overlap between antique wood, old leather, and bitter grape skin. No patchouli is listed but the patchouli vibes, three parts mothball and one part chocolate, are definitely here. The strong patchouli impressions might just be a phantom effect, due mainly to the woody medicinal trifecta: cubeb, tobacco, terengannu oud. But I think there has to be patchouli here.

The patchouli dose seems large enough to remind me of the ultimate patchouli oud: Aguru, with which it share a common core of saffron, myrrh, tobacco—albeit the Ensar comes off much more classy, much less in the mulch. Indeed, there is enough of a patchouli impression here to bring me back to Red Tobacco and the innocent days of the frag journey. And it is not a reach to say that there is, like with the Mancera, a sort of cola-fied treacle of purple Robitussin: icy-lozenge Terrenganu oud, eucalyptus-pepper cubeb, anbesol-numb clove, dusty-bark cinnamon, nutty-earthy nutmeg, stewed-compote plum, vinous-jam rose, smoky-salve castoreum, bitter-fungal myrrh, and even perhaps—although this could just be the cool-terpenic rosewood working with the myrrh—unstated pine-resin olibanum).

This reminds me most, at least from recollection, of Tigerwood 91. Both have a minty-chocolate patchouli vibe and impressions of a leather pouch with peppery and black tea inside. Tigerwood 91 ramps up—especially with the added iodine-bandaid oakmoss—the medicinality and this medicninality coupled with the amount of tigerwood oud pushes the composition into tiger-balm proportions, numbing proportions of a dentist visit. As such it outshines Oud SQ, which is why I never secured a bottle. I will say that this seems more accessible than Tigerwood 91. Tigerwood 91, after all, brings—and maybe it is because of the added animalics (musk, ambergris)—this aggressive dentate-animalic element and it just keeps pummeling you with it: a dental carry tooth rot element to it like when you pick it with a mint toothpick and then smell that you are meat despite all your lies to self.

*Let’s workshop this poem about a teen girl who, bringing the maxim "It's all fun and games" to renewed life, misreads as rescue what ends in collective violation worthy of the dissociation it provokes

Hog

Hitched to the bearded biker whose cranked throttle teens mistake for rescue, she felt

torn from the helm of herself— battered pink balloon, spit-knot loophole to gang heat

otherwise gay, tugging and heaving every which way at the mute end of a fraying string.