How to tell real dehn al oud from cut oil

Dehn al oud is what is left after agarwood is distilled. Nothing is added to it. Cut oil is that same oil thinned with something cheaper — a carrier oil, a lighter wood oil, sometimes a synthetic that imitates the top note and nothing else.

Blending is not dishonest in itself. Plenty of blends are sold openly and priced accordingly. The dishonesty is selling a blend as pure, and it is common enough that you should know how to check.

Watch what it does over an hour

This is the check that matters most and the one a seller cannot fake. Put one drop on the back of your hand and leave it alone. Do not rub it.

Pure oil moves. The first ten minutes are the sharpest and often the least pleasant — green, sour, sometimes a little barnyard. Then it settles. At half an hour it is rounder, at an hour it is warm and close to the skin, and it is still going at the end of the day.

Cut oil smells the same at minute one as it does at minute forty. It arrives finished. If the smell does not change, you are not smelling agarwood on its own.

Judge how little you need

One drop should be too much. If you find yourself reaching for a second before you have left the house, the oil has been thinned. Concentration is the whole point of paying by the tola.

Ignore the colour

Dark does not mean good. Colour comes from the wood, the still and the age of the oil, and it is the easiest thing in the world to darken deliberately. Some of the best oil we have handled was lighter than people expect. Judge it by nose, not by eye.

Expect batches to differ

Two tolas from the same origin, distilled a year apart, will not smell identical. That is normal and it is a good sign. Perfect consistency batch after batch is a manufacturing achievement, not a natural one.

What to ask, in order

• Is this pure or is it blended? A straight answer is the first test.
• Where is the wood from, and roughly how old is the oil?
• May I put a drop on my hand and come back in twenty minutes?
• What else do you have at this price, so I can smell them side by side?

A shop that will not let you wear a drop and walk around the market for twenty minutes is telling you something. Come to either branch in Al Maigliah and take the twenty minutes.