Primrose Hill

Top: Pink Pepper, Raspberry, Bergamot
Heart: Leather, Soft Woods
Base: Sylheti Oud, Vetiver, Cedar, Vanilla, Amber

Real Sylheti oud. £75. Not for long.

I was told it couldn't be done. A fragrance with real oud in it, distilled from agarwood in Sylhet, for under $100. Oud is one of the most expensive materials in perfumery. Plenty of bottles at this price say oud on the label and are built entirely on synthetic accords.

So I made one that isn't. Primrose Hill.

It opens bright. Pink pepper, a flash of raspberry, cold bergamot. The kind of first spray that gets you asked what you're wearing before you've left the house.

Then it settles. Soft leather and smooth woods, dry and warm, like a jacket that's been worn in properly.

Hours later, close to the skin, the oud arrives. Sylheti oud wrapped in vetiver, cedar, amber and a thread of vanilla. Not the smoky, medicinal oud that puts people off for life. A depth you catch on your wrist late in the afternoon and keep going back to.

Around a third of the concentrate is natural, the oud included. Modern materials give it the reach and staying power to last your whole day.

You don't need to know anything about oud to love this. That was the whole point.

The catch

£75 was the challenge, and I won it. Keeping it there is another matter. Real oud costs what it costs, production has caught up with us, and when this run sells through, the price goes up for good.

If you've ever wanted to try real oud without gambling three figures on it, this is the bottle. And this is the price. Once.