Agarwood/Oud is a mysteriously complex, morphing oil that smells simultaneously of precious woods, amber, smoke, and ambergris. For those who love woods and resins, it is a deep, unisex fragrance that slowly develops into an utterly unique wood-incensey richness over 5 to 15 minutes on your skin. Lovely in an oil burner as a smoke-free alternative to incense.
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or forest which unclose
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
Swinging their censers in the element,
With orient incense lit by the new ray
Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent
Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air...
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Art: The Return of the Sheikh by Stefano Ussi, 1886