Abdes Salaam Attar’s Oud Caravan series is the world’s first (and probably only) crowd-sourced oud perfume collection. Commissioned by an Arab customer to compose an oud perfume for the Gulf region, Dominique Dubrana decided to make it an open source project, enlisting the help of a group of oud connoisseurs on Basenotes.com to stress-test his offering. Oud Caravan No. 1 was originally intended to be the sole perfume in the endeavor – what Dubrana termed ‘the Ultimate Oud Fragrance” – but like a really good conversation with a circle of friends, nobody wanted it to end. Riffing off each other in endlessly creative ways, Dubrana harnessed the energy of the group to create the first, then second, and finally third Oud Caravan. Today, all three Oud Caravan perfumes fit together thematically and sequentially as a cohesive statement on the mysterious material that is oud oil.
Oud Caravan No. 2 was born out of the suggestions from Dubrana’s testing group that No. 1 was simply too leathery, dry, and masculine to win over women. Dubrana listened carefully. After all, his avowed mission with Oud Caravan No. 1 had been to make The Ultimate Oud Fragrance that would sweep newcomers to oud oil, including women, off their feet and expose them to the glory of natural oud. Oud Caravan No. 2 handles the animalistic, barnyardy qualities of oud oil in a much lighter fashion, softening its leathery rudeness with an earthy vanilla and a subdued floral note, something creamy and pale like freshly-opened tuberose buds. The topnotes, similar to No. 1, open with a medicinal, stemmy freshness, which this time seems to come from tuberose rather than from Borneo oud. Although still unmistakably oudy, Oud Caravan No. 2 is an ethereal, dewy take on a famously gruff material – something that Arwen from Lord of The Rings might wear.
