The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Empathy arrived in 2017 as the fifth chapter in The House of Oud's Klem Garden collection, a series built around the idea that gardens can translate emotion into scent. The collection had already explored anticipation, desire, and other states of longing. Empathy was the house asking a harder question: what does it smell like when two people recognize each other instantly, without explanation? Andrea Thero Casotti built the composition around that silence. Not the words, but the space before them. The fruit and tobacco don't perform, they suggest. The charred wood grounds everything in something real.
What makes Empathy work is the way its materials refuse to compete. Davana opens with an herbaceous edge that could easily overpower, but it's given just enough space to breathe before the raspberry and pear blossom sweep in. The heart, raspberry water and tobacco, is neither sweet nor dry, sitting in a middle register that feels intimate rather than performative. Then the base arrives: New Guinean oud woven through charred wood and benzoin. The oud isn't aggressive here. It's the warm signature that stays behind when everything else has settled. This is an oud for people who aren't sure they like oud, it earns the material by not insisting on it.
The evolution
The davana in the opening arrives sharp and almost medicinal, a brief moment of herbal tension that most wearers either love or need a minute to accept. Within fifteen minutes, the raspberry blossom cuts through and softens everything. The pear blossom adds a quiet floral layer that keeps the top from reading as purely fruit. By the second hour, the tobacco takes over, warm, slightly dry, with a huskiness that anchors the composition. The charred wood becomes more pronounced in hours three through five, lending smoke without aggression. Around hour six, the New Guinean oud emerges from the base, not announcing itself but settling into the wearer's skin like a signature. The drydown on fabric or skin the next morning reads as benzoin and musk, warm, skin-like, intimate. Performance holds through eight to ten hours on most skin types, with sillage that starts moderate and settles into something closer, the kind of presence you have to lean in to find.
Cultural impact
Empathy sits in a particular corner of niche perfumery, not the confrontational oud experience, not the safe fruity designer approach, but something in between. The Klem Garden series has attracted wearers who want oud-adjacent compositions without the full commitment. Community discussions place it alongside tobacco-forward fragrances like Feuilles de Tabac and softer oud interpretations from the niche space. The 2017 launch arrived during a period when many houses were exploring accessible niche, scents that brought complexity to everyday wear rather than demanding a specific occasion or wardrobe.
