Oud Loukoum by Bortnikoff

Wow, Bortnikoff is really going downhill… I’m a huge fan of the brand and their early collections have fragrances that are simply fantastic, with a quality that’s hard to beat, although Ensar Oud does manage to match it, even if its prices are prohibitive, costing 5, 6, or even 7 times more than a Bortnikoff. I bought this perfume because I’m obsessed with typical Turkish sweets (a beautiful country I’d love to return to) called ‘loukoum,’ which are gelatinous, coated in powdered sugar, and filled with nuts. Oud Loukoum opens with an intensely smoky scent due to the oud (organic and wild) that dominates the fragrance at 70-80%, with just a barely perceptible sweet base of ylang-ylang and a slightly powdery texture. The dry-down is ambiguous; you don’t exactly know what you’re smelling, it lacks a defined aroma, and you have no idea where the composition is going or what the perfumer’s intention was unless you already know the name of the perfume to have some clue, but even then (and knowing the brand’s DNA), I had no idea what to expect. Is it a chypre? An oriental? Will it turn into a gourmand? You have no idea. They should have called it ‘Enigma’ instead of Oud Loukoum. After about 10 minutes, the intensity of the oud drops a bit and you can smell a little more Peruvian balsam with nuts; the perfume tries to remind you of Turkish sweets, but you have to do a very powerful mental exercise to imagine it. The dry-down still has an undefined scent. Performance is very modest, unisex-masculine. Versatile. Does the perfume remind me of the Turkish sweets I’ve eaten boxes of? No. Is the perfume worth the ridiculous $350? Not even joking. Would I recommend it? No. I expected a gourmand perfume with a resemblance to Turkish sweets and a good dose of woody oud with tobacco nuances and other notes, but that’s not what I got. The problem I see is that Dimitry Bortnikoff is a master distiller of exotic and expensive raw materials, not a perfumer, and here he can use oud (both organic and wild), which I appreciate and thank him for, but the perfume doesn’t reach gourmand status, lacks character, and has no defined aroma. It’s not that it smells bad (it’s pleasant), but it’s a VERY weak offering. My consolation is that I paid 35-40% less than the list price. Discontinued.