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fwg003bedyWelty – :
A somber masculine leaning incense perfume. In this case like most Profumum offerlings, the note pyramid is deceptively simple. Just 3 more ingredients: Orange blossom, myrrh and a slight touch of sandalwood. The resulting juice is a simple yet dense, resinuous and warm fragrance that reflects the absolutely high quality of ingredients it contains. Long lasting with moderate to strong sillage and projection. Beautifully blended and frightfully expensive. However a lovely and very natural smelling and feeling perfume. Enjoy!
KingOfBeer – :
I get a very tangy incense fragrance. The orange blossom does not play its usual role as a white floral. Instead the orange blossom gives off a tangy orange backbone to this fragrance. I say tangy in the sance that it is sour without any sweetness, floralcy or fruitiness. In this sense it comes off almost like petitgrain. So if the idea of petitgtain and incense does not appeal to yoj, this may be a pass.
onu172speagoessenda – :
My colleague, a straight male, opened my office door to chat and stopped mid-sentence to say: “You smell divine!”. I think I do too!
Olibanum is deep, resinous, smoky and intoxicating. The overall effect is comforting but with an unusual and mystical edge. One might think of tar or petroleum, but in an utterly fetching way.
Well-crafted incense based scents have a reverence to them and this is no exception. As it develops, an animalic funk comes through upon close sniffing, however, it’s never off-putting. In fact it serves to link the holiness to humanity.
There is only a subtle nod to the top notes (lemon? pine?), keeping Olibanum firmly planted in the earth like the trees from which this scent was made.
Overall I would say this leans masculine, but would be right at home on a confident, creative and perhaps bohemian woman.
This is what I personally look for in a fragrance. The quality of the entire Profumum Roma line is outstanding, owing to their high concentration of oils. Olibanum is my first purchase from the house but I could have gone a number of others. I’m head over heals in love and it seems like others around me are too!
mfanatoliy – :
Sorry to shout, but in just one word: HEAVENLY.
Insanely beautiful, if you truly love wood + incense + resins. Dry yet rich, airy yet intense. For me, as with other P Roma things, not as smoky as billed – it’s lush and rounded, not at all sharp or acrid. Stunning. Had my nose glued to my wrist for hours. Can’t express how much I love it. I wish it were even bigger – the first projection is extrovert but it mellows down and quiets down fast, to one of the most seductive skin scents I can imagine. Want, want, want.
zver_vit – :
Of all of the incense fragrances I’ve tried, Profumum Olibanum is the simplest and most everyday wearable. It has a light, sheer quality that matches the color of the liquid itself. When first applied I get the lemony facets of frankincense with a vague floral sweetness.
Edit: I’ve since purchased a full bottle and it remains my fave from Profumum Roma and one of my alltime favorite perfumes. I get three distinct flavors from it all at the same time: freshly blown out candles, orange blossom, and somali frankincense. It’s modern and everyday wearable and a must-try for fans of frankincense.
HawkWind – :
When I first tried this fragrance, it smelled like very moldy cardboard…not a good thing to my nose. But subsequent wearings fared better, and I began liking the smoky, resinous character. An interesting scent for cooler and colder weather.
Atatoliy – :
One of the best fragrances I’ve smelled yet. I just got a bottle and I could wear this everyday. So resinous and beautiful! A perfect blend that just makes me feel amazing. I hold this fragrance in very high regard.
erice – :
Profumum Olibanum is, as its name suggests, an incense-dominant fragrance, and one done very well. Smooth, strong incense dominate the scent. Mainly a combination of incense, sandalwood, and myrrh to my nose, surely this is a winter fragrance that leans masculine. I doubt I’d find myself wearing it in the summer heat.
As with most Profumum fragrances I’ve tried, the care and quality of Olibanum is obvious.
It reminds me of By Kilian Incense Oud in terms of both its incense dominance and smoothness, and especially since the orange blossom that some seem to find so apparent is so reticent in my own experience of the fragrance.
Performance is unsurprisingly very strong, characteristic of the house, particularly its cold-weather-leaning offerings like this, Arso, Ambra Aurea, etc.
Certainly full bottle worthy if I didn’t already own By Kilian Incense Oud.
8 out of 10
BReerully – :
Second time around..I still don’t get much of the orange blossom scent. Incense and myrrh dominate, which I like.
Евген890 – :
Interesting scent, smokey and incense, at first I wasn’t sure I’d like it but after a little while I grew to like it a lot. Moderate sillage and great longevity, as expected form this quality fragrance house. After a while longer I get a leather in a nice kind of way. Definitely different and not for everyone.
Anellessy – :
Scent – bright orange blossom & incense.
Season/Time of Day – I prefer to use this one in the colder months, day or night.
Projection – I didn’t get noticed, I didn’t get a compliment.
Longevity – I get 8hrs consistently.
Wesker575 – :
My bottle is almost empty. 🙁 Some more affordable suggestions to replace it? Please don’t tell me Rock Crystal, it doesn’t have the same nice orange blossom note. Please MP.
kamikadze2010 – :
Very similar to Tam Dao in the drydown but this is slightly darker, with more richness and dynamism in the “woods”. Incense is a really prominent note here. This should last way longer too.
clarieicego – :
On me this is quite a simplistic fragrance. One huge wallop of myrhh at the start with the incense and sandalwood coming up close behind. Now, where the neroli is in this is a mystery for me. Neroli is not really a lightweight note but olibanum and incense are heaviy basenotes and I think its been drowned out.
I think its the sandalwood note in the mix that is making this a particular love for me. I think its very unisex but then Im biased. My main loves are the balsamic and woody fragrances. Phenomanel longevity and big sillage. Somehow with woody and balsamic fragrances a big sillage is not quite as disturbing for others if perchance you are trapped in a full lift lol
lobzik – :
Great fragrance with prominent notes of myrrh, incense, resin, and sandalwood. Not sure about the orange blossom note mentioned by others, I don’t detect it, though I’m not sure what orange blossom smells like in general. Agree with the previous reviewer that this is a greenish/fresh incense scent, much different than other generic incense scented fragrances. Strong longevity and sillage. Seems more masculine than feminine. My only complaint is that the fragrance comes in a regular perfume bottle without a sprayer (dab-on only), though the brand does include a small roll-on bottle and funnel for filling.
Dolmat – :
Fantastic fragrance, the shopkeeper told to me that it has a “green incense” note what is different from the other incenses that is used and that is why it has a kind of green, pine-fresh feeling, and not so much that dark churchy incense as others have. It is a meditative, deep, green forest kind of feeling for me.
lertalikkan – :
I just got a sample of this fragrance and tried it on my wrist. It is certainly different and unusual. Dark even. I can see why people define it “mysterious”.
The opening is very smoky. Dark and bitter. It only lasts 5 minutes, then it develops into a mellower woodiness. Almost sweet. Definitely too much. I like it, but I don’t know if I would ever find an occasion to wear Olibanum.
A few of the reviews here talk about some “green” notes: I disagree. Everything in this fragrance is dry, brown and burnt. The comparison with “Encre Noire” by Lalique fits, in the sense that also with this fragrance you have the impression you smell like a freshly sharpened pencil, but while in Encre Noire you feel embraced floating in a bubble of mysterious coziness, with Olibanum you feel rejected by the invisible aura of unmentionable secrets.
Adrian-kotya – :
I’ve tried this twice on myself now – first time was a cold day and it was one I kept sniffing on my wrist. I like it because it lasts, unlike say Victrix which quickly dissolved into my skin despite its very nice smell.
It’s an unusal scent – these insense smells might be hit and miss with some people, they are more challenging than a typical “nice” smell. But I was after something a bit more edgy, darker, something that says, “keep your distance” whilst at the same time is intoxicating and draws people in. A dark Siren!
I think that Olibanum is the one. I’ve tried the Armani/Prive “Bois d`Encens” which is Armani’s take on cool, dark catherdrals which is what I believe PR are trying to do with Olibanum. Although the Armani was quite interesting, this Olibanum just punches above its weight.
Because it’s odd (and expensive), I had to try it on my skin a second time. This time however was a muggy hot day.
On the cold day I was thinking to myself that this could be worn in warmer months. I had noticed a menthol vibe to it as it dried down, not a note anyone else has mentioned. I do not get the citrus although when I presented my wrist to a co-worker, the first thing he said was, “citrus”. ‘Go figure’, as the Americans say!
Now… on the hot day, I was in a relatively packed tube train right after spraying on my neck and both wrists. I was wafting the stuff! I noticed mnay heads on the train do that head-lifting thing and sniff the air and look around – this stuff carries on the air for sure. But it was hard to tell what they were thinking… it’s more the myterious aspect that I think was grabbing their attention.
I myself was hot and could feel sweat building on my skin and I felt this was not working this time with Olibanum. I thought, “ah, this is why people say this is a winter scent”. The sweat seemed in my mind to be turning it into a polluted oil-slick type of affair. It seeemed to reduce its potency on sniffing it.
However, back at work, after my “citrus” male co-worker, I let the hot Polish girl I’d been flirting with all morning sniff it. (I directed her to sniff my neck not my wrists 😉 – she burried her head in it and sighed, “Oh my God.. that’s not fair… ” Is it nice? I aksed her. “YES! she exclaimed. “It smells like sex!”
That’s the kind of response I like to hear 😉
She is currently single and muttered something about how “that would keep her going until…”
Anyway – later that same day I went to see another girl who I’m actually dating. During our “embrace” I noticed her sniffing deeply into my neck. Again, like the people on the train, more of an inquisitiveness than outright, “OMG what is that I have to have some!!!”
Afterwards I asked her if she liked it. She said it was “OK” but she preferred what I wore last time. (I believe a mixture of Byredo’s Oud Immortel and Gucci Pour Homme 1)
So, there you have it, strange, mixed reactions from “I like it, it’s OK” to “it smells like sex” and sending a girl crazy in her mind.
I think that’s what this perfume is suppsoed to do – baffle, confuse, intrigue, excite, deter.. all at once.
Best on cold rainy days I think. But if you want that sweaty, post-coital messy-hair effect, wear it on hot days too… ;P
andruha911 – :
Very strong stuff, I get more myrrh than olibanum, a salty smoky raw myrrh. Very interesting smell I have never used something like this although I can’t say I like it. It’s more like an ambient scent than perfume.
AlexChay – :
A great off-beat incense that eschews the common focus on frankincense (often appearing these days “unburned,” slightly soapy with sometimes lemony accents). This fella, however, is different!
The green, bitter, and antiseptic opening is bracing, but also music to my nose. Love it or hate it, though, it’s gone in 60 seconds. Then we settle into a dirt incense with a slight cumin/oud sweat and an earthy vibe I think is best described as “boiled peanut.” An hour and a half later it’s vetiver and a little chemical fuzz.
Fantasic.
korsar-50 – :
Wow!!! I’m happy.
So reading the review below as I post this and I got a bit of a green note in the opening too but generally this is thick with resinous spicy Myrrh and sandalwood.
It’s exactly what I’d pictured in my minds eye/nose so in that sense linear and predictable to a degree.
I for one am glad, too often I look forward to a fragrance simply named after a note and it doesn’t deliver that note as expected.
Great dry down, superb quality only negative thing is that it’s pricey stuff for something that isn’t a complex composition.
Only minor criticism really because I love Olibanum and any other incense resin lovers will love it too.
uxl983Unlogrere – :
Dirty and earthy incense. I get more vetiver and no orange blossom. Very earthy and is more masculine than feminine. It dries down to an Encre Noire type but much more appealing. Incense and vetiver are the key notes that I detect. Very long lasting with great projection.
servelator – :
I’m testing a lot perfumes with incense recently. Olibanum was the latest one.
It hit my nose with aldehydic-orange intro. I know aldehydes aren’t supposed to be here, however I do feel them. And unfortunately, they’re cloying to my nose. But luckilly after 1,5 hours they were gone. Orange blossom lasts surprisingly all the way through. Drydown comes quite fast, after 15 minutes and that’s when the myrrh-incense combo kicks in. As a whole fragrance, especially after it dries down, it reminds me of Montale Full Incense. They have the same feel of incense, that “woodiness” is simillar too!
It lasts about 10-12 hours on me, sillage is moderate.
I like it, but it’s definitely not love from first sniff.
8/10 from me.
40rus – :
Green, bitter and astringent incense opens the show. There’s very little development, I think the linear quality suits this scent to a t. I don’t think this reminds me of any other incense because the metallic quality of frankincense is not present here, maybe the myrrh is keeping things wearable. Great scent with excellent longevity (24 hrs and counting) and moderate sillage. Profumum is quickly becoming my favorite line.
itw898intitytek – :
I like this a lot as its a kind of hypnotizing composition.
Don’t know why cardamom is not listed in the notes, as I get a lot of it besides from olibanum and citrus notes.
Pretty captivating stuff!
Ильюшка95 – :
After going to the trouble and expense of obtaining a smaple I couldn’t just throw it away as soon as I smelt it and deciding it was too strong and austere for me to enjoy. And anyway, it is not as though it was a bad perfume in the techicial sense, as it appears to a very realistic, non-synthetic smelling oilbanum. Just too much of one thing…
I started thinking about how some of the most beautiful floral perfumes have one or two “dirty” sort of notes hidden at their base, which you are not meant to smell directly, but whose precence somehow brings out the true beauty of the flowers even more then if they were just on their own.
So I started by spraying on to my wrist the most beautiful but simple floral perfume I own, which is Le Labo Neroli 36. Then I added the tiniest, and I mean TINIEST bit of Olibanum on top of it. Literally I just rubbed the wet nozzle of the bottle on my wrist to get just the smallest amount of scent on to it. And you know what? Neroli 36 smelt even better after that. I almost can’t believe it myself, because I was of the opinion that Neroli 36 could not be improved. Apparently Olibanum also has the smell of citrus in it, which I can’t exactly dectect (but the experts can) so perhaps the two make a very good pairing on a subconcious level.
hkw978speagoessenda – :
Opening: intensely sharp and green petit grain
Heart: cold, citrusy, piney frankincense
Dry down: smokey,astringent and bitter incense
Cold and sharp. I love incense, but this is too austere for me. To my nose it reads as a masculine scent. Not my cup of tea.
unoploster – :
34)what a strange mix than this orange blossom with incense. It’s green, next it’s a little bit citrus and at the end the incens is “soft” like the smell of a hundred melted candle in a chapel.
It’s weird and, like with everything with orange blossom, a little bit painfull for my nose.
For a hot and comfortable incense I’m always in love with Jaisalmer (Comme des Garçons).
Iconienokix – :
Somehow makes me feel a bit sick to my stomach….i am realizing that niche perfumes are mostly not meant to be pretty.
ЕГЕРЬ – :
Well if Cardinal is air in a church
this one is furniture in a church…and more
cleanest white clothes in a old wood settle.
the ethereal idea of spiritual and material cleanliness suspended in the time… natural and pleasant .
amazing association :incense and orang flower
update:on the skin the begin is horrible after a long time 5-10 minutes you find a marvelous orange blossom hide behind woods and incense…
also try Neroli of the same line
OVERPRICED
orken2007 – :
I have owned frankincense and myrrh essential oils for natural perfumery. To me, though similar in ways, they are distinctly different. This, Olibanum, smells like Myrrh, which is odd, because Olibanum is another name for Frakincense, which I don’t smell in this. There is another Profumum scent, Arso, that uses a lot of Frankincense and is smoky and lovely. This smells like Myrrh and is a little medicinal for my taste. It’s a bit like Heeley’s Cardinal. Not a big fan of this scent but I do like Arso.
apentyawaiste – :
This is realy nice olibanum fragrance without churchy connotation. When I first smelled it I was quite impressed and I found it very simillar to Durbano’s masterpiece Rock Crystal. But after direct comparison I starded to think that Olibanum is uglier and much less complex brother of RC.
Simplicity of Olibanum isn’t really a bad thing, it’s actually quite good, because allows me to smell clearly all the notes – cold and slightly bitter olibanum, spicy and sweet myrrh and characteristicly cold and white smell of orange flowers. These flowers are problem for me, at first I liked them but after that they started to annoy me. They are just too strong for my taste.
The bottom line is that Olibanum is pretty incense perfume with too strong orange flowers note, but loses most of its charm when compared with RC.
Ивашка – :
Extraordinary, realistic, impressive olibanum surrounded by orange blossom and waxed wood. It is just a masterpiece to me. Medieval cathedral inside – dinstinctive, intriguing, peaceful. One of my favourites.
xps769Negeltzex – :
Starts out very balmy and resinous at the top. Fierce with smokey incense and wood. In time the resinous quality calms down and the sweet sandalwood shows it’s face more. Very well done fragrance…love it! I was told I smelled like a burnt tree 🙂
33bit – :
Olibanum, olibanum… my lovely fragrance. It inspired me to start lovely journey to the scents world. My first niche fragrance. I was collecting money to buy it for very long time. I remember for how long I was impressed that this is the best fragrance ever made. Heaven in the bottle. Since that time I never found better incense fragrance. I bought African olibanum to compare the smell and it is exact interpretation of it. There is no other fragrances that are full, deep mix of both olibanum resin and olibanum fume. Now I have my second bottle for special use… only for intimate time in my life.
123333333 – :
This is a real alternative to seminal scents like Avignon or Incense Extreme. Olibanum is great if you like smoky incense based fragrances but it’s quite different form the well known antagonist scents of the same family. Together with the usual liturgic vibe Profumum introduced a sealing wax effect that make Olibanum irresistible. While the opening is still quite severe and chilling, the drydown turns dry-and-warm, meditative and comfortable. A terrific woody-green option. Highly recommended!
Rating: 7.5/10
rhicheplope – :
Incense lovers, rejoice! This scent is a dry, heavy, lovely, and yet somehow still sheer incense for the skin.
The opening is a bit sharp, when the fragrance hits your skin there is an immediate and strong note of orange and myrrh. The orange, which I assume is from the orange blossoms, calms down and becomes a background note on me within maybe five minutes, which is how I want it with this one. (It should be noted — I do NOT normally turn orange blossom into heavy orange, this is unusual and unwanted, but the stage is very fast).
I had worried when I saw “orange blossom” in the notes that this scent would become very sweet, and it would end up being a sweet, or even sugared, incense. I needen’t have worried. It is one of the smoothest and driest I have tried. The deep and resiny base is intact, it’s all the myrrh a myrrh lover could wish for, and the incense note gives it a whiff of smoke and chil that is perfect.
Sillage is good, but not huge. For this scent I think it is perfect, enough to be noticeable but not at all “headshop-ish” and not aggressive with reasonable application. You could even wear it to work without concern, or on a hot day, which is unusual for an incensey blend. Lasting power is above average, but the latter half of the experience is resin-heavy and less nuanced. If you are a resin fan, this won’t be a dealbreaker because this is some of the best myrrh around.