Kyara Ketone

I have a handful of ouds in small vials that I carry with me. Select oils I personally savor and use to swipe as a gesture of respect and gratitude when I sit with giants like the Ozcays or Bunyamin Usta. Next to the vial labeled Nha Trang LTD lies Kyara Ketone.

This is the only Sri Lankan oud we ever distilled with my Taiwanese kyara sifu, which makes it by far one of my most precious possessions. That’s why I had no intention to make this public yet. It’s been locked up all these years and I have no qualms keeping it so.

Not only is this the only Oriscent walla distillation ever, it predates every future Sri Lankan ouds anyone attempted by many years—this oil has aged for a good half-decade before anybody even heard the words ‘walla patta’.

Kyara Ketone is what happens when you impregnate Silani’s oceanic honey and fresh-flower aquamarine notes with the molecular blueprint of Vietnamese kinam. The result is a mind-numbing, crystalline shot of blue oud smoke.

The narcotic kinam-powder glaze that brands all Oriscent ouds casts a cloud over any semblance to all other Sri Lankan ouds, my own included. The white floral tone remains, but Kyara Ketone ditches any and all fruity chords, along with those whispers of cucumber and sencha. A reminiscent—if you’ve smelled Kyara Koutan or Kynam No 1—smokiness washes those notes away.

And along with them goes the trademark walla cool…

Kyara Ketone’s powdery signature is all warmth; its medicinal kyara heart accentuates those echoes of mimosa and sets its usual ocean green calm alight with narcotic notes of blue incense vapor smelled neat.

This is the original Ceylon, stripped to the marrow, a psychoactive hum that flushes your oud receptors from top to dry and every hour in between. An olfactory gong that gets banged and all you smell from then on is that throbbing mantra of blue kinam.

Looking back, you’ll probably remember the best thing you got from the lockdown is this oil. You’ll look back and wonder, in a surreal moment of bewilderment as you hold the dipstick to your nose, how you managed to get this olfactory heirloom. And get it at this price.

Imagine Kyara LTD, Borneo 4000 or Royal Kinam… dyed in blue, dressed in mimosa white, with the narcotic bite, that piercing cool that short-circuits your prefrontal cortex for a second while you zone off to another dimension: k.y.a.r.a.

That’s what you’ve got here.

Reviews of Kyara Ketone

I would have never guessed that it was from Sri Lanka. Initially, its scent reminded me of naphthalene, but from the very start I was blown away by how powerfully it transported me, both higher and deeper, an olfactory magic carpet ride. And with time, more and more lovely scent components came to the fore, marrying its profoundly uplifting effect with splendid conifer and even floral notes. One of a kind, Kyara Ketone is an incredible Oud. – Hank, USA

This is the king of Sri Lankan oud oils, as far as I’m concerned. Even more refined and smooth, it begins with strong kinamic qualities early on with a backdrop of Walla, and as time passes they shift and the finest Walla takes center stage. Its more rejuvenating than Suriranka 2.0 and even smoother. I’m beginning to wonder if in the distant ancestral species which existed before Aquilaria and Gyrinops diverged, that some genetic traits which are needed for kyara to be produced were born for such similarities to occur today, in addition to just the right environmental situations in the wild for each individual tree, and then to have just the right distillation methods to capture these qualities in oil form. Then again, I’ll need many more years of research and experiences with kyara woods, incenses, and kinam-note-centric oils before I can say any more. What was the wood like which was used in this distillation, when heated a la monkoh style? Kyara Ketone- I can only imagine what the coming years of aging will do for it- masha’Allah! – Lucas, USA

Been living with the Kyara Ketone for a bit now — it seems that every day it is something slightly different. Building a relationship. Now I’m going through a phase of wanting to save it up and leave it for a special occasion, haha! So I just end up smelling it from the vial all the time instead of applying it. – Ethan, USA

I love to go out walking or running with an ultra tiny dot (cause ethereal must rhyme with eternal) of Kyara scrubbed on my temples. I do that on many days and the sample seems as full as the beginning. I love the feeling of wearing it, smelling it from time to time—a discreet and beautiful scent that could be one of trees of flowers from paradise around me.

I love Kyara Ketone so much! When sniffing, it’s close to Suriranka, and I can find Kyara Ketone in Suriranka, and Suriranka in Kyara Ketone. Those 2 oils are speaking well together. Without this comparison, it is pure Vietnamese kyara lightness. An enchanting scent. My choice was very good, you were right 😉 I love Kyara Ketone far beyond Royal Kinam. – Antonin, France

Thanks for the drop of Purple Kinam along with the rest of my order. It has such a warm, complex, supremely natural yet otherworldly fragrance. However, I have to say, The Kyara Ketone resonates with me even more powerfully.

The resinous, narcotic bite; the delicate white floral aroma; the warmth AND coolness to it — it is a truly paradoxical oud oil. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I say experience, because it’s more of an experience than a smell, ultimately. I strongly feel the frequency it imprints in my frontal cortex — you don’t have to be in-tune with smells or the energy of things to notice that — the pressure and activity in one’s brain is palpable; there is undoubtedly a psychoactive effect from the vapors. The oil is so dense and resinous, it’s almost like gasoline in its intensity. Yet that intensity is also incredibly subtle — you lean in to experience more of the hidden dimensions and richness, yet Kyara Ketone remains playfully illusive.

The attempt to grasp it through reason is unavoidably a failure. Yet, to speak of it nonetheless through the child of reason, language: it is pure blue bliss encapsulated in a bottle; reminiscent of itself and itself alone. To wax even more poetical, perhaps it’s like the best smelling bookstore existent only in dreams; or a deep, rich earth — fertile, unconsciously yet loudly sacred, deep in the jungle; or maybe it’s more a calm aquamarine ocean at twilight, with the stars pulsating on its dark, glassy tide. Could this be the secret of Atlantis? Or perhaps it’s the aroma of a soma den of some long-forgotten deity, laughing in celestial unanimity?

The poetic waxing goes on till the vapor silences the drive for linguistic mastery with its humbling, tranquilizing transcendence. Kyara Ketone is a mysterious resin that can’t help but enchant one’s soul. – Ethan, USA