The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
The perfumer worked with a piece of Vietnamese kinam. Kinam is the rarest expression of oud, achieved when agarwood becomes so saturated with its own resin that the wood transforms entirely. Most ouds tell you what they are in the first minute. This one didn't. David Seth Moltz has described it as having an otherworldly presence, something that reinvents itself each moment. Red spice. Fruit. Balsamic sweetness. Deep wood. Jungle vine. The brief was simple: build a profile from this one piece that could hold all of that without collapsing under its own weight. Seven bottles were made.
The pyramid is almost entirely oud, Vietnamese kinam in the top, heart, and base, layered like sediment. That's unusual. Royal Kinam uses the same material three times, letting it reveal different faces as it settles: the bright camphor of the opening, the dense resinous heart, the animalic warmth of the drydown. Sichuan pepper and oak wood hold the structure. Labdanum adds a faintly animalic warmth. Styrax, licorice, and amber complete the base, giving the oud somewhere to rest that isn't skin.
The evolution
The opening hits cool and camphorous. Vietnamese oud at its sharpest, the vapor of ancient resin, not sweet or medicinal, but mineral and alive. Sichuan pepper prickles, then retreats. What replaces it is oak, old, dry, the wood of a temple beam rather than a forest floor. The oud deepens as labdanum arrives, and something almost animalic surfaces. Not aggressive. Just present. The drydown takes its time. Styrax and amber emerge, sweetening the resin without softening it. Licorice lingers longest, a quiet anise note that stays close to skin. On fabric the next morning: warm wood, faint sweetness, nothing loud.
Cultural impact
Royal Kinam Oud is an uncompromising fragrance. Seven bottles were made. The composition offers a straight shot through Vietnamese kinam, no softening agents, no compromise. It doesn't beg to be liked. For those who encounter it, the scarcity is part of the appeal.
The House
DS&DurgaD.S. & Durga is a Brooklyn-based fragrance house founded in 2007 by husband-and-wife team David Seth Moltz and Kavi Ahuja Moltz. David Seth Moltz, a self-taught perfumer and former indie musician, composes all the house scents while Kavi handles visual design. The brand creates immersive fragrances inspired by specific feelings, places, and cultural moments, ranging from the American West (J. Crew Homesteader's Cologne, 2013) to historical periods (Beverly Hills 1985, 2010) and abstract emotional states (You Kill Me With Silence, 2018). D.S. & Durga is notably a perfumer-owned house, giving the founder creative control across the entire brand. Their catalog spans chypres, colognes, and aromatic compositions, with later releases including Royal Purpure and King Majesty Bergamot Chypre (2024). The brand operates from Brooklyn, New York, and has developed a following among fragrance enthusiasts drawn to its narrative-driven approach.
The Creator
David Seth MoltzSelf-taught and deliberately unconstrained by classical training, Moltz favors an unconventional palette that includes unconventional materials alongside traditional ones. His fragrances tend toward the narrative and atmospheric, often featuring sharp contrasts: sweet against…
