Badee Al Oud Amethyst
Lattafa (2021)

The neighborhood where I live is roughly 50% Muslim, 50% Christian, so I see my fair share of ladies wearing everything from the hijab and a relaxed niqab to the full-on burqa. They all seem to be wearing either Yara or Amethyst, billowing regally from beneath their voluminous folds. I was at a drag race rally (not sure if this is the right name for it) around Eid-al-Fitr in April, which I enjoyed intensely not because of the car racing but more for the deeply exotic scents mingling in the warm air – the hot rubber and asphalt from the screeching tires, the spicy, cuminy sweat of unwashed men’s shirts, and the intensely jammy rose and jasmine loudness of the combined perfumes steaming in thick roils off my niqabi ladies.

Amethyst captures everything of this event – the smoky, rubbery petrol fumes, the rich roses, the Turkish delight rosewater flavour, the Arabian jasmine – and even if it does immediately smell a little synthetic, it smells so fabulously out there and regal that you can’t help you be wowed. The thing that makes me pause – and the reason I haven’t bought a bottle yet – is that the drydown is a little sour and ashy, like me after a night in the pub. Still thinking about it, though.

Rose and rosehip oud. Heavy on the tart roses and rose hips.
I'm personally not crazy about the tartness in this particular rose oud variant.
As with other middle eastern rose oud scents - beast mode and lasts forever.
The packaging is gorgeous - if a little too close to Initio's branding.

The emphasis on roses and the addition of a sweet-leaning amber makes Badee Al Oud Amethyst a solid, and relatively inexpensive, bridge between the beginner rose oud of Kayali Sweet Diamond Pink Pepper and practically everything else in the rose oud category.