How I feel about the cost of Oud oils…

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#1
firdaous said:
Difficult for Ensar or any seller to come even close to Oud Royale I, Oud Sultani, Kyara Koutan, Royal Kinam and Borneo 3000. I am still waiting for their worthy successors without selling a part of my body but maybe have to wait a long long time…

The original batch of Kyara LTD cost $9,000 to produce. That was 2005. It wasn't a huge batch, but as you're aware, enough of the oil went around for it to be talked about to this day.

Fast forward to 2012. The second batch has cost $105,000 to date, and we're still paying……

The original Royal Kinam ran $70,500 in 2007. Even so, we couldn't cover all of the costs involved and had to wholesale more than 80% of the oil to a Buddhist monk. We ended up spending $11,750.

The new batch (2011) cost $190,000.

Nha Trang LTD (sinking grade wood from the most legendary province of agarwood) cost $433,000……

To put some of these figures into perspective:

Just a 'part' of your body wouldn't even begin to cover some of the costs involved. I hope you can appreciate that this is not a mercantile endeavor, as some would have you believe, but a personal mission that has nothing to do with cost or profit. The oils I listed above are not for sale; @Taha can attest to their existence though.

You'd have to calculate the value of the entire human body, coupled with the destruction of health, the destruction of families, the children who grew up without a father because he was out chasing after raw materials and wealthy sponsors…

To put it plainly: stop waiting.
 
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Oudamberlove

Well-Known Member
#2
@Ensar
Based on what you've spent (and I don't mean just the $$ value), you have got to be the No.1 Ouddict of all time :confused::)
But seriously, you clearly see the true worth of exquisite oils.
Gee, I would gladly trade a dozen bottles of good oil for a single bottle of a great oil.
 

Taha

Well-Known Member
#5
Ah, I am now in the middle of some exciting (GOOD for a change!) developments in Borneo, so I don't have much time to post.
But since Ensar quoted me above.... ;)

...yes, I can confirm that there are oils that not only 'exist' with Ensar but in fact some of them are superior IMO to their past Oriscent predecessors (no offence Ensar!). For example, I can confirm that some of them were cooked from genuine kinam because of not only the aroma but also some other factors (i.e. not just a 'kinamic aroma' due to clever techniques, but actual kinam raw material).
As an example: I smear some on my pinkie and then suck my finger. I have a degenerative eye disorder (and the doctor says it ultimately leads to blindness, ack!) that causes eye pain during all my waking hours. There are literally only 3 or 4 things which alleviate the pain, and kinam is one of them (second-most potent actually). So when I consumed some of the oils that Ensar showed me, aside from spiralling up (or drowning into the oil... different oils affect me differently), some of these oils alleviated my eye pain as well. And it goes without saying they smelled like kinam, and tasted like it too. One even numbed my entire sinus tract (and brain) with the very same sensation as kinam :p (different from anesthetics, clove, etc.)

Any how,
I am FINALLY now able to comprehend something that's been perplexing me since your visit.
In my case, as I had told you I piggy-back my website oils on large-scale projects. About 10% (quantity-wise) of about 10% (quality wise) — i.e. only about 1% — will be the stuff that I'll deem fit for the website. The rest is for the wholesale market, which doesn't care about (nor is able to discern) qualitative factors.
So it baffled me how you've been able to produce so many high calibre oils without a piggy-backing mechanism. I simply couldn't comprehend it, considering the hefty debt you're in and the fact that you're no multi-zillionaire. Now that I see you've had to wholesale large portions of batches as well just to be able to run those distillations (sadly, only increasing your debt), it not only solves the mystery in my mind, but its a big relief too! I don't feel as incompetent any more, whew! ;)

I wonder if most consumers (and I'd like to direct this question at consumers) realize the fact that the percentage of quality agarwood in the overall stocks of agarwood is like a drop in the ocean.
For quality oud oil, quantitative (visual) assessment is actually far lower than what most folks would imagine, I think.
In my humble opinion, its the ability to find the quality needles in the haystack that is the primary determinant, before anything else (secondary factors like quantitative grade, techniques, good apparatus, etc.).
To give an example: extremely 'low grade' oil-grade wood from a kinam tree will give a superior oil to even high-incense-grade wood from a young tree with poor genes.

It bewilders me that Ensar found one such needle (the raw material for Borneo Kinam v2) a mere 6 months ago. In this day and age.. in the current messy situation of the supply-side market... mind-blowing, really.
Ensar, I still haven't been able to bring myself to apply it directly to my skin aside from that first time (I am content, for now, with smelling it from the bottle). But I can tell you, with just 6 months under its belt, I find this oil to be far far superior to v1. I cannot thank you enough for the bottle you gifted to me.

The poetic end to this post is that Borneo Kinam v2 is literally the thing that made Jamal (my Borneo chief hunter) not give up. Whereas the Cambodians all gave up and retired out of frustration (yes, the old Agar Aura is no more), BK2 bewitched Jamal SO much that he talked me into giving Borneo one last shot instead of giving up like the rest of my team. So Ensar, if I do end up finding something, I hope you'll be happy to know what the motivation, the driving force, was. :)
 

Taha

Well-Known Member
#6
Oh, one last thing...
Those costs that Ensar mentioned aren't shocking, once you know what it takes to make quality oud vs run-o-the-mill oud.

From my side I'd like to share 2 examples:
1) The (tiny) portion of King Koh Kong that I put up on the website was part of a six-figure project.
2) The raw material for Manaka Jinkoh was practically a 'donation' from one of Ahmad's friends who became a multi-millionaire after finding a single amazing grandma tree in the Royal Belum jungle that contained 100kg of super king grade wood. I still had to pay for the raw material, but I'm just trying to demonstrate how rare quality oud materials are. Considering the rarity of such materials, yes, I DO consider it a donation even if I had to pay for the wood (side note: for my Malaysian oils, I always use my own wood but Manaka Jinkoh was an exception).

Again, what's the point I'm trying to make here? That there's oud. And then there's Oud.

I wanted to get to "Part IV: How All this Relates to Oud Oils" in the Let's Talk Oud thread, but I've been really swamped these past few weeks.
Any way, I hope whenever I do finally get to it, that it'll be very easy for consumers to understand (and appreciate!) the huge difference between oud and Oud. The difference is even huger than, say, a batch of 75-points coffee beans (around $10/kg) vs a 98-points coffee beans (around $2,500/kg).
But most people, like my beloved wife, will say... "whatever dude, they all taste the same!" as they sip their Starbucks beverage of choice. :)

The fact of the matter is, both markets exist. Neither are 'evil', and its unfair to label this one 'uncultured' or the other 'naive'. Its unfair in my opinion for one to pass judgments on the other simply because they are on this side of the dividing line or that.
 

Taha

Well-Known Member
#9
Oud_Learner said:
Ah...one of the only possibly 2 oils that I would gladly trade my entire collection for it!
Let me guess what the second one is! ;)
Nha Trang Ltd... ouff, that oil..
I see you've finally settled on a name. I wonder if there's a synonym for "ULTRA" which is aesthetically acceptable, which could fit in right before the "Ltd", just to really get it across how rare it is to be able to experience this oil's aroma.

I'm not surprised by what Oud_Learner said. When I tried this oil it was sooooooooooooooo shockingly beautiful, all I could think to myself was that its beauty is something you'd never have thought was possible for a a mere human nose to be privileged enough to smell.

Okay, that was not the only thing running through my mind. The other thing was... "is this a kinam extract?". After having smelled it over and over, and especially well into the drydown where there is a shift in the aroma, it was clear that it wasn't kinam. But the way the oil's aroma is orchestrated, and just how minimalistically perfect it is, I hope it won't be held against me for having wondered that.
To me, kinam is not about a rollercoaster ride - its not about stuffing the fattest suitcase of aromatic notes possible.. horizontal and vertical complexity and so on. Rather, its about the fact that there is a note in there that's SO perfect, you don't want it getting crowded out by auxiliary notes. That is what you want shining in the oil. That 'perfect agarwood note'.

There are only 3 oils I've smelled in my entire life that are like this and they all blow my brain fuse. For me, Nha Trang Ltd is at the top of that short list.
@PEARL, you better go to a hospital to make sure both your kidneys are fully functioning, because you may have to donate one. :p
 

PEARL

Well-Known Member
#10
The trusted sellers are just that. They are ones we rely on not to be untrustworthy. Just using the figures provided by @Faizal_p$3000/kg wood at 1-5gm/kg yield, lets go high and say 5gm/kg. Just to break even on the price of the wood alone, the oil would have to sell for $600/gm or $1800/3gm bottle. I see that Ensar has offered some oils for between $1500-2500/3gm bottle, these are likely the oils that are being distilled from those kinds of woods. I've also seen him mention time and time again that he does indeed use woods that others just wouldn't use for distillation. I've also seen that he always offers oils in the $250-$790/3gm range, which is pretty much on par with the other trusted sellers, especially when you look at the catalogs comparatively, period. Oud oil and agarwood, while being historically and culturally a part of many lives, is still a luxury product. Pure oud oil and high grade agarwood moreso a luxury good. $1500/3gm and up pure oud oils distilled from wood that others wouldn't use to distill oil from and ultra high grade woods and the kyaras/kinams even moreso. What it boils down to is you either trust that he's using $3000/kg wood for those $1500/3gm plus, ultra niche oils or you don't, period. If you don't trust it, just say that, period. Anything else is speculation and has the ability to mislead people on what some are calling "over" priced oils and the pricing of oud oils in general, and that's not democratizing oud.





 
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#11
@Ensar SO I have been in this business longer than any of you and I have to call this post exactly what it is and thats BS or you were robbed and have no clue how to buy your products. Im not bashing you, just calling the information Bullshit. Even if you can prove that you spent those claimed amounts, I would then call you an idiot.

"its not how you sell your products that makes you money, its how you buy your products"
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#12
@Ensar SO I have been in this business longer than any of you and I have to call this post exactly what it is and thats BS or you were robbed and have no clue how to buy your products. Im not bashing you, just calling the information Bullshit. Even if you can prove that you spent those claimed amounts, I would then call you an idiot.

"its not how you sell your products that makes you money, its how you buy your products"
First of all, welcome to the forum @MEKWT. And thank you for your business advice, and generous offer. :)

If you ask me, it's not how you buy your products that makes you money – it's what Allah has written for you which will reach you no matter what every plotter were plotting against you, even if each and every one plotting were grouped together and were coming at you with all they had.

الَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمُ النَّاسُ إِنَّ النَّاسَ قَدْ جَمَعُوا لَكُمْ فَاخْشَوْهُمْ فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَانًا وَقَالُوا حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ

The oils I mentioned spending that kind of money on are private collection items which contain real Kyara agarwood that was included into the pots before lighting up. They were not distilled to make money. I have offered small bottles of them to a few close friends, and the better part of most batches will remain in the company archives.

Have you heard of Kyara (or Kinam) my brother?
 
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#13
First of all, welcome to the forum @MEKWT. And thank you for your business advice, and generous offer. :)

If you ask me, it's not how you buy your products that makes you money – it's what Allah has written for you which will reach you no matter what every plotter were plotting against you, even if each and every one plotting were grouped together and were coming at you with all they had.

الَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمُ النَّاسُ إِنَّ النَّاسَ قَدْ جَمَعُوا لَكُمْ فَاخْشَوْهُمْ فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَانًا وَقَالُوا حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ

The oils I mentioned spending that kind of money on are private collection items which contain real Kyara agarwood that was included into the pots before lighting up. They were not distilled to make money. I have offered small bottles of them to a few close friends, and the better part of most batches will remain in the company archives.

Have you heard of Kyara (or Kinam) my brother?
Thank you but the forum is more of a Blog IMO

Enough with the religious talk my friend, I do not need a lesson in Islam. Islam also teaches us that we shouldn't splurge on things we don't need, such as your over priced oil. Do you overlook your religious ideology when it comes to your wallet? "According to the Qur’anic ayas, one who resorts to short weighing and defrauding does not believe in the Day of Judgement and the Hereafter."

I also do not live my life worshiping Kinam as you do and I very much so know what Kinam is. Thank you for trying to insult my intelligence, however you may not know this but I have been in this business longer than you have and having said that I can see right through you as I know the inner workings of this business very well. When I joined this forum I acted as if I were a newbie to see how you guys deceived people with your wild Indiana Jones like adventure stories, and overinflated costs. As a true businessman, your costs are never the business of the consumer nor is it their problem, however Ensar Oud likes to brag about his supposed costs for some crazy reason, which seems like gloating and comes of very pretentious, narcissistic and arrogant.

By the way, the end of Oudh is not near
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#14
Thank you but the forum is more of a Blog IMO
Well, you're posting, aren't you? :confused:

Enough with the religious talk my friend, I do not need a lesson in Islam. Islam also teaches us that we shouldn't splurge on things we don't need, such as your over priced oil. Do you overlook your religious ideology when it comes to your wallet?
Actually, Islam teaches that Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty. And that He loves to see His blessings on His servant. And that the most beloved thing to the Messenger of Allah was beautiful scent. And that you can spend up to one third of your wealth on fragrance without being guilty of wastefulness.

According to the Qur’anic ayas, one who resorts to short weighing and defrauding does not believe in the Day of Judgement and the Hereafter.
Exactly. So don't resort to those things, and you're all set. ;)

When I joined this forum I acted as if I were a newbie to see how you guys deceived people with your wild Indiana Jones like adventure stories, and overinflated costs.
Thank you for admitting to being a troll. Tell your friends to do the same, and we're gold.

As a true businessman, your costs are never the business of the consumer nor is it their problem, however Ensar Oud likes to brag about his supposed costs for some crazy reason, which seems like gloating and comes of very pretentious, narcissistic and arrogant.
Sorry about that. Some people have made my business their business, and won't sleep at night until they figure out my costs. So I thought I'd make it easy for them and lay the cards on the table. I promise, it won't happen again. :oops:

By the way, the end of Oudh is not near
You're so right. The End of Oudh is a far off thing. It's the end of Oud that's near! :D
 
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