The highest grade of agarwood: transcendent, complex, cool-sweet. Kyar a smells like nothing else on earth: resinous incense clean to an almost spiritual purity, with notes of vanill a, camph or, and old temple wood.
Transcendent and multi-layered. Cool-sweet with vanill a, camph or, and sandalwood qualities. Clean rather than animalic. A crystalline quality distinguishes it from lesser agarwoods. The scent shifts and evolves constantly, revealing new qualities. Less barnyard than standard oud, more clean, more spiritual. The complexity is almost overwhelming.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Cool-sweet incense, camphor-vanilla lift
After a few hours
After a few hours
Crystalline complexity, sandalwood, old temple
After a few days
After a few days
Transcendent warm-sweet base, shifting facets
Terroir & Maturity
Indicative 2025 wholesale prices.
The Full Story
Kyara (also kynam or kinam) is the supreme grade of agarwood, harvested from extremely old, wild-grown Aquilaria trees, primarily from Vietnam. It is the most expensive aromatic substance on earth, with prices exceeding 10,000 USD per gram for authenticated material.
The scent moves beyond ordinary oud: where standard agarwood can be barnyard-animalic, kyar a is clean, cool-sweet, and almost crystalline in its complexity. The fragrance shifts constantly: vanill a, camph or, sandalwood, old incense, and an indefinable sweetness that seems to come from nowhere. Japanese oud connoisseurs describe it through the traditional rikkoku-gomi classificati on of six tastes and five odors.
Kyara is not distilled into oil; it is far too rare and precious. Instead, it is heated gently over mica and ash in the Kodo ceremony (the Japanese 'way of incense'), where practitioners 'listen' to the scent rather than merely smelling it. In perfumery, kyara is represented as a fantasy accord: the closest approximation of a scent most perfumers will never encounter in its authentic form.
This note in Première Peau. Nuit Elastique · Albâtre Sépia. Sample all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.
The Japanese Shoso-in treasury in Nara houses a piece of kyara wood called Ranjatai that has been in the imperial collection since the 8th century. Only three people in history have been granted permission to cut a piece from it: the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa in 1465, Oda Nobunaga in 1574, and Emperor Meiji in 1877.
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: Authentic kyara is not extracted. It is heated gently over mica plates in Japanese Kodo ceremony. In perfumery, the kyara effect is approximated using premium agarwood oils, clean oud synthetics, and vanilla-camphor-sandalwood modifiers.
Not specifically assigned (subset of agarwood; see 8001-80-7 for oud oil)
Botanical Name
Aquilaria malaccensis
IFRA Status
CITES Appendix II (Aquilaria malaccensis). Trade restrictions apply.
Synonyms
agarwood, aloeswood, oudh
Physical Properties
Odor Strength
Medium
Appearance
Pale yellow to amber viscous liquid
Specific Gravity
0.93000 to 0.98000 @ 25.00 °C. (oil)
In Perfumery
Kyara is a fantasy reference note in the highest-end oud compositions. Authentic kyara is never distilled; it is heated as incense. The perfumery accord approximates its clean, cool-sweet, multi-layered character using the finest oud oils and synthetic modifiers. The note carries extraordinary cultural weight in Japanese and Middle Eastern fragrance traditions. It represents the absolute pinnacle of woody-resinous materials.
