The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
My Oud landed in 2026 as part of Bond No. 9's ongoing conversation with oud, a material that gets heavy fast in the wrong hands. Pineapple nectar and pink grapefruit open it up, slicing through the air with a tart, almost effervescent brightness that feels closer to a tropical spritz than a traditional Middle Eastern composition. Frankincense and myrrh step in to give it weight, dusting the fruit with a cool, resinous haze that lingers just behind the citrus. The result is a chypre that reads warm and summery rather than smoky and brooding, the kind of composition you can wear to a rooftop without overdressing the moment. There's a softness in the way those top notes fold into the incense, a seamless gradient that keeps the fragrance from tipping into territory.
The interesting move here is the beeswax in the heart, lending the composition a soft, almost candlelit body where most oud fragrances go for resin or leather. Beeswax gives the heart a rounded, golden quality, the kind of texture that feels warmed from within rather than applied on top. It cushions the transition between the bright top and the dense base, so the drydown lands as golden rather than dark. Pair that with immortelle's maple-syrup sweetness, and the whole thing tilts edible without ever losing the incense backbone that holds the structure together.
The evolution
On skin, the first ten minutes are all pineapple and pink grapefruit, almost cocktail-bright, with the frankincense threading through like a thin silver wire. Then the beeswax and immortelle arrive and the whole composition shifts, the fruit recedes, and what replaces it is warm and waxy, almost like honey caught in candle wax. Rose sits low in the heart, more texture than statement. By the two-hour mark, the base takes over: labdanum and myrrh settle into a dense resinous hum, and the oud finally shows itself, wood rather than barnyard. Patchouli grounds everything with a dry, earthy edge that keeps the sweetness honest. The drydown lasts well into the next morning on clothes, soft and incense-warm, closer to a church altar than the rooftop where it started.
Cultural impact
My Oud joins New York Oud in Bond No. 9's catalog of oud compositions, extending the house's work with a material that has moved steadily from niche obsession to mainstream curiosity over the past decade. Wearers tend to gravitate toward it as a summer-weight oud, light enough for daytime, structured enough to carry into evening without feeling out of place. It reads as a New York take on chypre, bright enough to wear in July, dense enough to hold its own at a dinner reservation.
