Ensar

Ensar began his house in 2004 under the name Oriscent and later gave it his own: Ensar Oud. His search started with kinam, the rare agarwood the Japanese call kyara, and it led him past the brokers of the oud trade and into the forests of Burma, Borneo, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia, where he works directly with small distillers.

When wild trees grew scarce, the house sent hunters deeper into the remaining jungle, bought vintage harvests from old private collections and, in 2011, began an organic oud project to show that patiently farmed trees could rival wild ones. The same hunt now takes in ambergris, musk and rare flowers, often made in quantities too small for a large house to bother with.

Ensar composes the house's attars and perfumes himself. His first sprays, EO No 1 and EO No 2, followed in 2018 after the success of his Sultan Leather attar, and he says his way of composing, and of refining each draft, was shaped by the years he spent beneath the oud trees.