IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense 150ml: What the Smoke Is Actually Made Of

IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense is a unisex perfume from the Saudi house Ibrahim Al Qurashi, launched in 2023 as part of its Diamond Collection. Black currant, sea-water freshness and birch open it. Incense, vanilla and sandalwood sit in the middle. Leather, oud, smoke and amber hold the base.

Two things trip buyers up. Despite the name, this sprays rather than burns, so it is not bakhoor. And it exists in three sizes that listings constantly confuse, which matters because you cannot compare prices across them.

IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense: the short version

• What it is: IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense sprays rather than burns. A unisex perfume from 2023.
• Smells like: Smoky leather and oud, opened by something cool and fruity.
• Dominant accord: Smoky dominates the accord ranking outright, ahead of amber, oud and leather.
• Sizes: Two sprays and an oil, carrying three separate barcodes.
• Best for: Evenings, cold weather, formal rooms.
• The brand: IBRAQ is the house formerly trading as Ibrahim Al Qurashi.

IBRAQ BLACK DIAMOND INCENSE Fragrance Notes:

• Top Notes: Black Currant, Aquatic notes, Birch.
• Middle Notes: Incense, Vanilla, Sandalwood.
• Base Notes: Leather, Oud, Smoke, Amber.

Count the notes on IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense and you get eleven. Count the materials and the number drops sharply, because several of those words name an effect rather than an ingredient. The next section explains which ones.

What does IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense smell like?

The opening of IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense is the surprising part. Black currant brings a tart fruity bite, and an aquatic accord gives a cool, almost saline lift. That is an unusual doorway into an oud fragrance, and it reads deliberately modern.

Underneath the freshness, birch is already working. It arrives early and dark, and it carries the whole composition toward the base rather than sitting in the opening as a separate idea.

The middle softens things. Frankincense brings its dry resinous character, sandalwood adds a creamy wood, and vanilla keeps the smoke from turning harsh. This is the most wearable stretch of the fragrance.

Then the base takes over completely. Leather, oud, smoke and amber combine into the dense, animalic drydown that gives IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense its name. The published accord ranking puts smoky at the maximum value, well clear of everything else.

Birch, leather and smoke are one material

Start with leather, because it does not exist. There is no essential oil of hide and no leather extract of any kind. Leather in perfumery is an accord, which means a perfumer builds it from other things every single time.

The classic build has three pillars. Something smoky, usually birch tar or cade. Something acrid and green, usually isobutyl quinoline. Something animalic, traditionally castoreum, now mostly synthetic phenolics with labdanum or styrax for warmth.

Birch tar is the smoky pillar, and it smells of tar, burnt leather and phenol all at once. So when the IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense pyramid lists birch near the top and then leather and smoke in the base, it is very likely describing one material three times, at three points in the fragrance, under three different names.

None of this makes the fragrance worse. It makes the note list less informative than it looks, and it explains why IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense smells more unified than eleven separate notes would suggest. Those three are pulling in the same direction because they share a source.

Why that material is measured in parts per billion

Birch tar comes from pyrolysis: birch wood cooks in an oven without oxygen until it breaks down into a black, viscous tar. That process also creates polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and some of them are carcinogenic.

So regulators bar crude birch tar from finished fragrance outright. Only a rectified grade qualifies, made by redistilling the tar under vacuum, which cuts benzopyrene content from roughly 1,000 parts per million down to around 10.

Even then the ceiling for a fragrance like IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense is severe. IFRA caps benzopyrene and 1,2-benzanthracene combined at one part per billion in the finished product. Perfumers work with the rectified oil at a tiny fraction of a formula.

Which produces the striking fact about IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense. Smoky is its loudest accord by a distance, and the material most responsible for that is regulated down to parts per billion. Potency in perfumery has very little to do with quantity.

150 ml, 200 ml or 15 ml: check which one you are buying

The house sells IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense in three formats, and they carry different barcodes. There is a 150 ml spray, a 200 ml spray, and a 15 ml perfume oil listed under the Duhn name, duhn being the Arabic word for oil.

Retailer listings mix the two IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense sprays up constantly. Titles saying 150 ml sit on pages whose own web addresses say 200 ml, and the reverse happens just as often. Marketplace sellers copy each other, so the error spreads.

That matters for one practical reason. A price that looks good against a 200 ml bottle stops looking good against a 150 ml one, and the gap is a third of the product. Check the millilitres on the carton rather than the title.

The 15 ml oil is a different proposition again. Oils apply differently, last differently on skin, and should not be compared to a spray on price per millilitre at all.

Who IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense suits

IBRAQ Black Diamond Incense belongs to cold evenings and formal rooms. It suits someone who already enjoys smoky leather and oud, and who wants a version with a cooler, more contemporary opening than the usual Gulf oud entrance.

It is the wrong pick for anyone who wants fresh and inoffensive. The aquatic opening is brief, and what follows is dark, animalic and assertive.