Ensar Oud Fera Eau De Parfum

Fera is the kind of fragrance the mainstream tries to outlaw from its monoculture because it’s not sweet enough, not gentle enough, not ‘compliant’ enough – smells too much like real civet and even more like oud – i.e. proof that this animalic allure is hardwired in our DNA. That you want to smell it. 

But here’s the thing. They make it sound like these scents should be avoided. Yet for all of civilization, these have been the most sought-after, most expensive aromatics. The most prized because of what they could accomplish in perfumery…

What’s happened is what happened to butter when margarine became all the rage. When tofu patties were said to taste just like grass-fed beef, and chrome-tanned pleather snuck in and kicked out full-grain vegetable-tanned calf hide.

And why not? These alternatives were so much cheaper, allowing for ridiculous mark-ups, and more importantly, patentable.

Fera lets the civet do what it does best, lets it hook up with the aromatics it works wonders with, like making the freshest citrus chords smell ripe and zesty in ways they’d never smell otherwise.

The way civet transmutes the indolic sweetness of a fine jasmine (in this case, juhi absolute) and honeysuckle (the Sultan’s own extract, from who knows how long ago), or how it latches to tuberose, cacao, vanilla, and Sri Lankan sandalwood and makes them creamier, smoother.

And then… When it comes to which oud to couple civet with, there’s one clear winner.

There’s no better oud to inject civet’s inherent sweetness into than Hindi oud. Chinese oud is a close second, but nothing beats what happens to the tangy, zesty, wildflower spices of a good Hindi once civet is done with it.

When you think of Indian oud and animalics and dense, rich flowers like tuberose, you’d expect a certain kind of perfume. But Fera isn’t a heavy fragrance. Full-bodied, exuberant, complex, yes. But it was designed not to be dark or heavy.

I wanted the civet-enhanced spices and mandarin and neroli to dart around the florals and punctuate the core notes of quality agallocha most never talk about – it’s always barnyard, barnyard, barnyard, isn’t it?

But this isn’t just any agallocha distillation, but wild Tripura oud infused with Tonkin musk. Tripura Musk makes up an insane ~25% of the compound, as its sweet leather-suade aroma morphed by the finest musk the world has ever know makes the perfect anchor for the sweetness of civet and its enhancing proprties.

Then, to intensify the perfume’s feral pull, there’s a rare combo of wild Nepalese spikenard and costus root (two of the closest plant alternatives to musk, and both regulated), tempered with juniper berries.

In Fera, the more familiar EO DNA got mutated by an unusual cast of aromatics, all entangled in a civet cocktail bubbling with wild Indian oud.

All of that said, let not the name mislead you. Fera is anything but harsh, blunt, or overly animalic. It showcases what civet does to the aromatics you pair it with and while giving the animalic elements space to work their magic, I’d rank it as the most wearable EO parfum to date next to Musc Gardenia and Borneo Zen. It is the sunnier, lighter, more summery interpretation of this genre, perfectly suited for women and men.