Preface:
While talking about the best perfumes we often think about how expensive a fragrance may be. What are the top-tier scents which have taken over the world? Among perfumers, the holy perfume, oud is the first thing that springs to mind when asked these questions. Oud has no doubt influenced perfume designers and lovers of scents, but oud cost has kept this fragrance to limited users. The reason for its high price is the rarity it holds in natural occurrence. It’s very hard to find natural Oud in the world. This Arabic scent is an essential element of the life of people that look at scents from a traditional and cultural point of view. Dubai and France are best-known regions as a lover of Scents that feeds their taste of expensive scents with the charisma of Oud.
Why are frauds done?
Oud is not readily available everywhere, this is due to its rarity it has in terms of occurrence and production. The production is only limited to the South-East Asian region but the selling is worldwide. Oud business is worth billions in the international market and has attracted many fraudsters that are present in every step of Oud production to its selling. Scams are mainly done to people looking for cheap Oud wood but even after paying the actual Oud cost, there is no surety of the product being real or fake. The important thing to keep in mind is that there is nothing cheap in the Oud market. This article shortlists the main scams that are done in the Oud Market and provides a guide on how to avoid them and recognize the natural Oud wood.
MAJOR FRAUDS AND HOW TO RECOGNIZE THEM:
1. LOW-QUALITY OUD:
Selling low-quality wood with a label of natural Oud wood is the most common type of black hat activity done by the sellers. Aromatic Oud is extremely rare to exist in the forest and the alternative for this problem is synthetic Oud which is cultivated in a controlled environment. Tylosis (artificial infection to form Oud inside the agarwood tree) is done to them which produces an artificially forced Oud. The smell is almost the same but it does not match the quality of the real Oud wood. Original Oud wood is dark and the brown pattern is evident throughout the entire piece of wood chip. This is because natural Oud takes time to be formed. But the artificial inoculation of this holy scent is a rapid process and hence is not considered up to the mark. The black hat business of selling artificial Oud wood in the name of natural Oud wood and charging high prices is the most common sort of negative activity done in this business.
Preventive measures:
It is not a bad action to sell artificial Oud wood, the real issue is to sell it at the price of natural Oud wood. To keep yourself safe from this, always look at the pattern of Oud resin, if they are dark and continuous, the Oud wood is natural. In a natural Oud wood, the resin is dark and is penetrated deep into the wood.
2. INCREASING WEIGHT:
This is another highly used trick to fool customers. This swindle involves the use of materials that increases the weight of the agarwood piece. This may include the use of adhesives or mud that effectively increases the weight and when burnt, it emits an unlikeable aroma that is not liked by anyone. Mud is filled in the wood holes and while buying, customers remain unaware of the weight imbalance and pay a high price for such a product which would release a bad fragrance.
Preventive measures: The best measure is to use a scalper and scalp the wood in the case of mud the scalper will remove the mud and it will be noticeable moreover with the help of a torch one can easily recognize the difference between wood and the mud added to it.
3. INCREASING SIZE:
The price of the Oud wood piece also depends on the size of the Oud. Small pieces represent that the Oud formation process was not old and it just started which hardly even affected the surrounding region. Big chunks of Oud, however, represent that the process of Oud formation (tylosis) carried on for years and it affected the bigger region. Some dishonest merchants have developed new techniques of gluing the parts of Oud to make a bigger chunk. The chunk formed contains a visible glue fragrance when burnt in an Oud burner and is extremely harmful.
Preventive measures:
A torch is extremely helpful in recognizing such fouls, use a flashlight and the glued area will start shining. This is extremely helpful when buying bigger but few chunks of Oud wood. The cracks are clearly visible, so don’t rush to buy this product; make yourself satisfied before buying.
4. EXTENSIVELY DARK WOOD:
The major difference between natural and artificial Oud wood is the color of its resin. The wild Oudwood piece is extremely dark with patches continuing throughout the piece. The color is dark as compared to man-made Oud wood. For some greedy merchants, this is not a big deal to fight against this color problem. By inserting some iron nails in the wood, the dark color resin can be made easily. But the piece smells awful compared to the real piece of natural Oud.
Preventive measures:
- For dealing with such a problem observe the presence of deep holes inside the wood. The deep holes inside the oud wood represent the place where the Iron nails were added and started damaging the tree.
- Such type of wood is rusty and the rust can be easily felt by holding or rubbing the Oud wood piece by hand or finger. The presence of rust is a clear sign of impurity as a natural oud wood piece can never be rusty.
5. GAHARU BUAYA:
Gaharu buraya also known as Aetoxylon sympetalum belongs to the same family as Aqualaria but it is not aqualaria. The smell is awful compared to the real Oud wood, but they are structurally similar. This Gaharu is also known as crocodile wood and smells very bad when burnt however at room temperature it may smell good. This is the biggest sting given to the people in the Oud business. Oud wood is not used only for burning purposes but is also used to make a bead counter. It is where fake products like this come into practice and this crocodile wood has resinous extract and is wet but it is not Oudwood in general. Gaharu
Preventive measure:
While buying bakhoor the use of crocodile wood may get accepted but while dealing with the Oud business a person has to remain careful about the recognition of real Oud wood. Real Oud wood is not available everywhere so it is necessary to have past experience with Oud wood and with its smell and grading. If possible taking an experienced person along with you can save you from scams, but you can also manage these by paying attention to instructions and the list of scams mentioned.
Conclusion:
These frauds are really common and a thing to keep in mind don’t expect these things to exist in cheap markets. Most of these scams are easily recognizable and they can be solved just by following a simple rule of buying from trustworthy sellers. In Dubai and the rest of the gulf states, trustworthy brands like OudDubai are available which never compromises on the quality of their product and keeps their customers satisfied.
