Arabian Oud Kalemat Black (AKA Sehr) Oriental EDP Spray, 100ml

Product Information

A inexplicably addictive mix of smooth woody notes, vanilla and resins enriched by fruity facets and distant spicy echoes. There is a Fragrantica thread asking for additional feedback after someone fell in love with the fragrance, but the poster doesn’t describe the scent. Bakhoor are fragrant wood chips burned as incense and in this regard Kalemat Black delivers in spades.

As for the details, well, for me, it’s like describing food: texture, feel, little subtleties from spices on top to what the meat may be infused with. The few other retailers that do offer Sehr el Kalemat have substantial differences in the notes that they include, and completely disagree with Arabian Oud about the bottle size . In all cases, however, if deeply dry, woody smokiness is your thing, you may want to give Sehr el Kalemat a try.Everyone I know loves سحر الكلمات (magic words) it's got just the right amount of everything going for it: sweet, smokey, even a little tart. We once discussed the concept of terroir in perfume briefly on Ginza’s blog, and my own take is that there is an element of terroir in where you wear a scent as well as where it was made. The scent starts quite intense, but do not worry about this, after approximate 1 hour it turns to a creamy smoky vanilla amber scent. The opening blast of Frankincense is rendered quite fresh with the addition of Basil but lasts only a few minutes before the Vanilla takes over, creating a gorgeous sweet caramel-ish vibe.

Now the scent I must admit gets a bit too dark and dense for me in the dry down, it's still good though especially the opening which I absolutely love! Some perfumes are an immediate love affair, some are immediate hate, a few can result in total apathy or boredom, but many take a few tries for you to make up your mind. There are plenty of other amber vanilla scents that are blended better and in some cases can be had for a lot cheaper, like Scentstory 24 Gold.

I sprayed a tester strip one morning and left it in my room only to come back 6 hours later and be hit with a dense cloud that filled the whole room. With its peppery notes of fresh basil and balsamic incense, Sehr Kalemat is inspired by exotic spice gardens. Few hours later, another female colleague was talking to another colleagues across my desk opposite to where I was sitting. The dry down is more of a rudimentary, syrupy amber—the kind you find in Interlude—and it stays with your for the long haul. I did find one very succinct, brief review for the scent under the name Arabian Oud Seher Al Kalemat (aka Kalemat Black) on Notable Scents.

The only downsides this fragrance has is that it has high olfactory fatigue and is less than perfect but still not bad in high heat. Not so much an amber fragrance for me, it smells surprisingly gourmand and it's nice, but I don't know that I can wear this confidently all the time, since it seems too bold for everyday wear. This charming fragrance combines patchouli flower, violet, bergamot extract mixed with a layer through a fantastic mix of vanilla and a touch of the oud to calm down in the end in addition to extract of musk and luxury amber, giving you a distinctive charm in all occasions. I think Sehr el Kalemat might be a good choice for someone looking for an inexpensive, dry, woody, slightly masculine Middle Eastern fragrance that bears a microscopic similarity to Amouage’s costly Interlude Man.A smokey ambery-vanilla…I do detect oud but it’s minuscule (it just adds to the smokiness combined with the incense), good for beginners.