Day 29 ~ One Year, One Nose

Aloeswood vs. Valerian



I started playing with aloeswood/oud and comparing some of its parts with valerian tincture back in '08 because I was intrigued by how similar PARTS of these two scents were. Oudh can be very -- how can I say this? Visceral. It reaches into you and stirs your insides about -- even though your nose often says, lord have mercy, this stuff stinks! Except it doesn't for long, not after it's been applied -- it goes sweet and dirty, that's when it grabs your guts. Here's where oudh and valerian are similar -- in their opening they both have a rotted quality, like something's gone fungal and sour, however while the oudh turns sweet and dirty and more like warm skin, valerian trips off into bucolic-land. It's all about sun ripened alfalfa gone all dry and brittle. Oh, and valerian at the first sniff is so off putting that one may not want to put it on.