Gucci Intense Oud: If Jafar Wore Scent

This was supposed to primarily be a beauty and lifestyle Substack (all the things the model recommends!) but so far, one month in, I haven’t touched upon anything even remotely beauty-related or lifestyle-themed. I’ve covered off massive dogs in cafés, I’ve written about humiliating naked night terrors and I’ve even carried out an inconclusive non-scientific study on the powers of Kombucha.

But no beauty or lifestyle.

I’m going to rectify that, right now, with a post about fragrance. OK, so it’s the beauty-and-lifestyle sector I’m least qualified to write about (I’ve never been able to find sensible ways of describing perfumes) but at least it’s a step in the right direction. I’ll try not to go off on a tangent.

And so, with my beauty hat firmly on: let’s talk about Oud.

I’d gone off Oud in recent years. Despite it being one of the most expensive raw fragrance ingredients in the world - an attribute that would normally draw me helplessly in, like a moth to a flame. (I seem to have a talent for managing to unwittingly choose the dearest version of pretty much anything that life throws at me - sofas, carpets, olives, lamps, lipsticks. If you presented to me a row of items in a line-up, a bit like a Never Mind the Buzzcocks identity parade but with consumer goods, then you could almost guarantee that the thing I’d pick out would be the one with the ridiculous price-tag concealed beneath it. I’d like to say that I’m simply blessed with good taste but we all know that money doesn’t necessarily buy you style. Or quality. And financially it seems to be an affliction rather than a blessing.)

Anyway, I went right off Oud during my pregnancies and have never been able to wholly love it in a fragrance again since. (Other than Jo Malone’s Oud & Bergamot, which in my opinion is a masterpiece of fragrancy that is above critique*.) It is so intensely woody, so rich and so earthy that when I smell it in its strongest form I feel as though I’m being forced to inhale liquid tree bark. It’s so strangely overwhelming to me, so…dry. The olfactory equivalent of eating twelve Jacob’s cream crackers without butter.

Yes, it is also gorgeously mystical and wondrously grounding, and so very exotic-smelling and mind-transporting that you could sell it as a no-flight low-cost travel solution. (Just close your eyes and you’re there!) But there’s something about Oud, when it’s not handled delicately, that makes me feel earth-smothered. Suffocated by nature. Like having freshly turned-over soil ground into my face at the same time as being trapped inside the trunk of a giant tree.

Interesting, then, that an Oud fragrance arrived that tickled my senses enough for me to give it a second (and third, and fourth) spritz: Gucci’s Intense Oud. This is not new, this scent; it came out in 2016 and so I have no idea why it was sent out eight years later. (Perhaps I am way down the send-out lists because I compare expensive fragrance notes to being trapped inside a giant tree!) But I am happy to have had it cross my path.

Because on paper I should hate this unisex scent. It is almost what I’d consider to be a “classic Oud fragrance megamix”: woody, leathery, ambery, the deeply masculine notes offset with a bit of rose and orange flower to provide some light at the end of the dark, dark wood-clad tunnel. It’s not a scent that I would flippantly douse myself in without thinking very hard about the consequences and I’d be hesitant to even let my husband near it, what with his penchant for overdoing it with the aftershave.

They’ll still be able to smell him in the year 2295.

But God is it seductive, this Intense Oud. Spicy and commanding and with the feeling that perhaps the wearer wouldn’t have entirely good intentions. And the bottle! I was captivated before I’d even set the fragrance free, what with the heavy golden stopper and its strange flappy hoop. I sat at my desk playing with it for a full thirty seconds, flipping the ring back and forth like a bored gorilla.

(Gucci will no doubt be overjoyed at this particular luxury goods visual. Me, dead-eyed and hunched at my desk, toying mindlessly with their expensive perfume bottle. And I’m 100% certain that “flappy hoop” is not on their branding language checklist either.)

Now I’m sure that the golden ring on the golden bottle-stopper is a nod to something equestrian, because Gucci hardware usually is; but my overactive imagination didn’t think horse when it saw this unusual lid-fixture. It thought: evil sorcerer. It made me think of the type of bottle you’d find in Aladdin’s cave - a precious vial of ancient life-force, sealed up and hidden away for eternity in the depths of the desert. A majestic bottle. A bottle once wielded by someone with great power.

Now, if I said Jafar from Aladdin at this point, you’d all think that I was mocking this scent and being purposefully idiotic and - above all - that I was trying to make an association in your heads between Gucci and an entirely off-brand character, purely for comedic value.

I can assure you this couldn’t be further from the truth.

I bloody love Jafar.

What an icon. Out of all the Disney baddies (and let’s face it, the baddies are always a hell of a lot more interesting than the goodies when it comes to Disney films) he has to be one of the most perfectly formed; he’s an absolute shoo-in for a celebrity fragrance licensing deal. He is debonair and cuts a fine figure - physically and metaphorically head and shoulders above the rest, especially the bumbling Sultan - and he’s a vain, entitled narcissist. He’d be perfect for the luxury goods world.

Aladdin may have good morals and fast fingers but Jafar, with his precise, laser-cut facial hair and sardonic tone, is the real star of the show. He’s Ming the Merciless crossed with the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman edition) and all three are characters I would happily tag along with for a night or two, just to see where things went.

So excuse you if you think that Jafar is a character to be ridiculed; sure he ended his reign of terror by being sucked down the spout of a genie’s lamp to then endure an eternity of boredom and cramped living conditions but before that? Whatta guy.

Anyway, if Jafar created a fragrance (and that is one Disney licensing deal I could wholeheartedly get behind) then Gucci’s Intense Oud would be it. It’s sleek, clever, perilous. Top notes of Frankincense, Raspberry, Saffron and Pear to lure you in and make you think that you’re in safe hands…but you know very well that they’re only there for positive PR spin. You don’t open the lid on this magic concoction and think ooh, pear! And raspberry, how delightful! You pull off the stopper and feel surprised that there’s not some sort of poisonous smoke curling out: it’s leather and patchouli and ambergris and it’s wood, wood, wood.

Oh: you can pick up on the rose and orange flower at the heart of the scent, can you? Good for you. I can’t. Because Jafar has no heart. If those things are in there then it’s only to lure you in and trick you; this scent is plotting your demise and heading for world domination. Be in no doubt that Gucci’s Intense Oud has absolute, total control.

But don’t let that put you off. What’s life without a little Disney Villain danger? Who doesn’t now and then dream of a power-crazed sorcerer, lurking in the shadows? (Just me? Alrighty then.)

Back in the real world, you don’t have to be a despotic maniac to enjoy this fragrance. It’s for anyone who wants to smell deeply exotic in a rich and earthy sort of way. And listen: I’m not going to be the one to say who can and can’t wear a certain scent, but Intense Oud on a sultry summer’s eve, lingering on the skin of a strong, fine arm beneath a white linen shirt…

Ooph.

I should finish here before this starts to look like a bonus chapter from Riders! But a final, practical note: this fragrance is incredibly far-reaching and long-lasting. One small spritz in my office - OFFICE, calm yourselves - and I could still smell Jafar’s lingering essence of pure despotic evil six days later. Use with caution.

Gucci Intense Oud, £155 for 90ml

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*I’m not going to argue with anyone over my placing of Jo Malone’s Oud & Bergamot at the top Oud spot. To me, it is sexy scent perfection. It is the very definition of alluring. The sharp, fresh Bergamot almost neutralises the suffocating, overly-intense aspect of the Oud (subjective, I know, this is just how I feel about it) so that it becomes this gloriously rounded, clean-yet-earthy, well-mannered masterpiece of perfumery. I love it. In all honesty I should have written about the Jo Malone, not the Gucci, but I got sidetracked thinking about Jafar and then all was lost.

Jo Malone Oud & Bergamot Cologne Intense, £160 for 100ml