The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Nawaf Saad built Old Woods for the moments that ask for weight. Launched in 2026, the composition skips the polite opening most orientals offer and goes straight for the throat: cardamom and pink pepper crack the air, myrrh and frankincense build the room's architecture, and the base settles into a dense thicket of Indian oud, sandalwood, tobacco, and cedarwood. Nawaf Saad, the artist-founder behind the Saudi house, treats fragrance as personal expression, and Old Woods reads like a statement of intent. This is not a scent designed to charm a room. It assumes the room is already listening.
What sets this composition apart is the layering in the base. Indian oud carries a sharper, more animalic character than its Cambodian cousin, and paired with castoreum, it pushes the drydown toward leather and skin rather than the honeyed sweetness many Arabian-market orientals chase. The frankincense and myrrh heart is a deliberate move toward liturgical weight, the kind of resinous gravity that has perfumed the region for centuries. Sandalwood and tobacco soften the edges just enough to keep the composition wearable, while the cardamom-pink pepper opening keeps it from sliding into pure incense territory.
The evolution
The first fifteen minutes are a polite negotiation. Cardamom and pink pepper do their work, bright and warm, almost conversational. Then the myrrh arrives, and the conversation changes. Frankincense follows close behind, and the whole composition thickens, like incense smoke pooling in a high-ceilinged room. By the two-hour mark the oud has taken over. Indian oud, which carries more bite than its smoother relatives, grounds the scent with a leathery, almost smoky darkness. Castoreum adds a salted edge, the kind of detail that reads as skin rather than as a note. Sandalwood rounds the sharpest corners without softening the composition's intent. Tobacco arrives late, dry and almost sweet, the last surprise before the drydown. Six hours in, what's left on skin is a warm blend of cedarwood, musk, and the ghost of the oud. It clings to fabric even longer. This is a fragrance that rewards patience and gets quieter as the night goes on, without ever becoming background.
Cultural impact
Old Woods arrives at a moment when the Saudi fragrance scene is rewriting its own rules. The traditional oud-amber template still dominates the local market, but a new wave of artist-founded houses, Nawaf Saad among them, is pushing toward compositions with more tension and less ritual politeness. Old Woods fits that current: dense, resinous, built around Indian oud and frankincense, but sharpened by cardamom and tobacco in ways that feel contemporary rather than referential. It reads as the work of someone who grew up with the old guard's standards and chose to honor them differently.
The House
Nawaf SaadNawaf Saad is a Saudi Arabian fragrance house founded by artist Nawaf Saad. Based in Saudi Arabia, the house has positioned itself around a commitment to natural ingredients and quality-focused formulation. Since launching its first editions in 2024, the brand has released multiple fragrances including HIGH, Sea Breeze, Good Mood, HICKEY, Jazful Pure Parfum, and the forthcoming Old Woods scheduled for 2026. The house operates within Saudi Arabia's significant fragrance market, where perfume culture carries deep cultural importance despite the country not growing flowers domestically or housing major perfume laboratories. Nawaf Saad represents a newer entrant in the niche fragrance space, with the brand's Instagram presence describing it as an artist-founded house with natural material priorities.
The Creator
Nawaf SaadNawaf's compositions tend toward the complex and multi-layered, often threading together contrasting olfactory families that create unexpected tension. He shows a particular affinity for the interplay between bright citrus top notes and deeper woody or resinous bases, using he…
