salomerises:

Incredibly Orientalist article from this month’s issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine

TL;DR: the article is about perfume, which really doesn’t have to be problematic and honestly I thought I would enjoy it because I myself happen to love perfumes. Then the article starts going on about how trendy and fashionable it is to use “Oriental” notes in fragrances because they’re ooh so exotic and the west is obsessed with the Middle East. The article then goes on to praise the genius of marketing the Middle East as an olfactory commodity to western consumers (which is ironic, because how often do white people tell us we smell and so does our food) and generally promotes cultural appropriation in perfume bottles. It lauds Tom Ford and YSL for producing perfumes with “Oud” in their names, and acts like these brands were so smart and chic to capitalize on this new “Middle Eastern trend.” (Because it’s especially cool to sell fragrances that are stereotypically associated with a subjugated ethnic group while your country’s army is out murdering those people en masse.) Also correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I know “oud” just means “lute” in a bunch of different Middle Eastern languages (including Arabic and Armenian). It is a musical instrument, and these corporations are trying to act like its some kind of exotic fragrance. Seriously, if you’re going to culturally appropriate, you can’t even invest ten seconds of research into fact-checking to make sure you’re appropriating properly?

The correct name is agarwood if I’m not mistaken, and is the resin resulting from certain species of evergreen trees getting a fungal infection? Though it may be referred to as oud or oodh somewhere for all I know