What is the difference between Amouage Decision and Decision 42?

According to the House of Amouage, Decision is an eau de parfum with 33% oil and 5 weeks of ageing, while Decision 42 is an extrait with 42% oil and 6 weeks of ageing. Fragrantica dates them 2025 and 2026. Decision 42 keeps all nine of Decision's notes and adds neroli, cinnamon, sandalwood, rectified pine tar and labdanum. The maker's family moves from fresh to amber.

When was Decision 42 released?

Fragrantica reports that sales at Amouage boutiques and on the official website began on 1 September 2026, followed by international distributors on 1 October 2026. The original Decision, an eau de parfum, came earlier: Fragrantica's database says it was launched in 2025.

Who made Amouage Decision?

Quentin Bisch created Amouage Decision, according to the House of Amouage, and he also made Decision 42 and its sister launch Existence. Renaud Salmon is Amouage's chief creative officer whose trip to Jebel Shams in Oman, with its twisted juniper trees, inspired Decision, as iFragrance reported in March 2025.

Is Amouage Decision for men or women?

Fragrantica and Parfumo both list Amouage Decision for women and men. They list Decision 42 for men, and Scento's catalogue name for it is Decision 42 Man. These are database labels rather than rules, so anyone can wear either; a decant is a low-risk way to find out which suits you.

How long does Amouage Decision last?

No source we read gives wear time in hours. Parfumo's summaries say "Projection and longevity are above-average" for both Decision and Decision 42. Amouage chief creative officer Renaud Salmon told WWD that the highest concentration isn't always the best, so the 42% oil in the extrait does not by itself promise more power.

What does Amouage Decision smell like?

Amouage lists pink pepper, bergamot and cardamom at the top, frankincense, juniper and myrrh in the heart, and patchouli, cedarwood and vanilla in the base. Fragrantica critic Eddie Bulliqi describes an incense note made creamy with milky-vanilla amber notes and a finish of apricot brioche, with a slightly smoky, vegetal greenness.

Amouage Decision Review: Decision 42 and the Original

Q: What does the 42 in Decision 42 mean?

The 42 is the perfume oil concentration: 42%. Fragrantica reports that the names of the two new releases refer directly to their concentrations, and that for Decision 42 the optimal concentration proved to be 42%. WWD adds that Amouage names its extraits for their oil concentration, so the number is not a version or batch number.

Q: Can I try Decision 42 before buying a bottle?

Yes. Scento sells Decision 42 Man and Decision as 2 ml, 5 ml and 8 ml decants, hand-poured from original full-size bottles bought through authorised retail channels, with no dilution. Wearing both for a few days on skin is the simplest way to decide which strength and style you prefer.

Amouage Decision is a fresh, woody, aromatic eau de parfum by Quentin Bisch, built on juniper and frankincense.¹ Decision 42 is its Exceptional Extrait at 42% oil, darker and smokier, with amber replacing fresh in its family.² Scento stocks Decision 42 Man and Decision as decants.

In short

Oil concentration rises from 33% to 42%, and ageing from 5 weeks to 6 weeks.¹^,2
Decision 42 keeps all nine of Decision’s notes and adds five: neroli, cinnamon, sandalwood, rectified pine tar and labdanum.¹^,2
The maker’s family moves from fresh to amber; woody and aromatic stay.¹^,2
Parfumo’s summaries call projection and longevity above-average for both.³^,4

Key figures, 2026

42%

Perfume oil concentration of Decision 42, the number in its name

The House of Amouage ², Fragrantica ⁵

33%

Oil concentration of the original Decision eau de parfum

The House of Amouage ¹

6 weeks

Ageing of Decision 42 (4 weeks maceration, 2 maturation), against 5 weeks for Decision

The House of Amouage ²^,1

5 notes added

Neroli, cinnamon, sandalwood, rectified pine tar and labdanum

Scento analysis of the maker’s pyramids ¹^,2

Amouage’s rank among houses by share of Scento decants, at 8.5%

Scento Fragrance Index, Europe, Oct 2025 – Sep 2026

Amouage Decision 42 at a glance

The two perfumes share a creator and a theme, but they are not the same formula at a different strength. Here is what each one is, in the maker’s own terms.

Decision: Eau de parfum by Quentin Bisch; Fragrantica dates it 2025.⁶ Listed for women and men.³
Decision 42: Exceptional Extrait, 2026, also by Quentin Bisch. Sales at Amouage boutiques and on its website began on 1 September 2026, followed by international distributors on 1 October 2026.⁵ Fragrantica calls it a woody spicy fragrance for men.⁷

If you only want to know whether Decision 42 suits you, a decant of Decision 42 Man lets you find out before committing to a full bottle.

Amouage, the Omani house behind it

Amouage was founded in the Sultanate of Oman in 1983 by the Albusaidi family, to be “The Gift of Kings”. The house describes Oman as “a historic trading center for incense and myrrh”.⁸ Its manufacture and visitors’ centre is Muscat-based.⁸ The name is built from the Arabic “Amwaj”, meaning waves, and the French word for love, “Amour”.⁹

The house is no longer a small one. WWD reports that Amouage sells in close to 100 countries through 32 boutiques and roughly 1,500 wholesale doors.¹⁰ In Scento’s own order data for Europe, Amouage is the second house by share of paid decant units, at 8.5%, between October 2025 and September 2026. Louis Vuitton is first at 9.5% and Parfums de Marly third at 7%. Across Europe, Amouage’s most-bought perfumes in that window are Guidance in third place, Guidance 46 in eighth and Reflection Man in tenth; among masculine perfumes, Reflection Man ranks fifth, Reflection 45 Man fourteenth and Interlude Man nineteenth. Decision and Decision 42 do not appear in any of our most-bought lists; Decision 42 only launched in the last month of that window. For the wider range, see our Amouage page and the guide to the best Amouage perfumes.

The story: a juniper tree struck by lightning

Decision grew out of a trip by Renaud Salmon to Jebel Shams, “the country’s highest peak, towering over 3,000 meters above sea level”, where the slopes are “adorned with twisted juniper trees”.¹¹ The maker’s own story opens with “an olfactory bolt of lightning” that “banishes the darkness of uncertainty”.¹ Salmon later told WWD: “It presented the story of a juniper tree struck by lightning, and then asked a seemingly simple question: would the tree survive the attack or would it perish?”¹⁰

The perfume continues what iFragrance calls a journey that began in 2020 with the Odyssey Collection: Meander, Ashore, Guidance and Purpose.¹¹ Parfumo files Decision under The Odyssey Collection too.³ It was launched alongside Existence, a sister composition also created by Quentin Bisch and built around a note of lily of the valley.¹² The original came in “a rectangular ceramic bottle in a soft grey hue, topped with the signature ‘khanjar’ cap in white”.¹¹ iFragrance reports that it went on sale on Amouage’s website from 12 March, in boutiques from 1 April and worldwide on 1 May.¹¹

Decision 42 carries on the colour: a seagull grey shade that echoes the palette of the original Decision, with a glossy inner lacquer finish. Fragrantica adds that the packaging artwork is by the Belgian artist Louise Mertens and that the perfume comes in a 100ml bottle.⁵ Amouage launched it alongside Overture 41, as part of its new Exceptional Extraits.¹³

Notes: how Decision 42 smells, top to base

This pyramid follows the maker’s page for Decision 42.² Sources differ slightly on where cardamom sits, so we use Amouage’s own list.

Top: pink pepper, bergamot, cardamom, neroli, cinnamon.
Heart: frankincense, juniper, myrrh, sandalwood, rectified pine tar.
Base: patchouli, cedarwood, vanilla, labdanum.

The maker describes the change from the original in three moves. The opening becomes “a sharper evocation of the lightning, thanks to the use of Neroli, Cardamom and Cinnamon”. The juniper is combined with Javanol, patchouli and rectified pine tar “to make it darker, smokier, and more far-reaching”. And the base turns “more life-affirming with the addition of Vanilla and Labdanum”.²

The original Decision is lighter on its feet. Its top is pink pepper, bergamot and cardamom, its heart frankincense, juniper and myrrh, and its base patchouli, cedarwood and vanilla.¹ The maker highlights “the cool woodiness and citrus-mineralic sparkle” of frankincense, bergamot, myrrh and juniper berries, and “the gleaming sheen of Atlas Cedarwood”, before “a warm Vanilla in the base”.¹

Critic Eddie Bulliqi, writing for Fragrantica, describes Decision as “an incense note made creamy with milky-vanilla amber notes and a finish of apricot brioche”, with “a greenness hovering around that won’t go away, slightly smoky and vegetal”.¹⁴ He also calls it “a milky vanilla incense”.¹⁴ That is the original; the extrait pushes the smoke further forward, as the maker’s own wording above makes clear.

Decision vs Decision 42: what changed

The “42” is not a version number. Fragrantica explains that the names of the two new releases refer directly to their concentrations, and that for Decision 42 “the optimal concentration proved to be 42%”.⁵ WWD adds that Amouage names its extraits for their oil concentration.¹⁰ Amouage describes its Exceptional Extraits as using different concentration levels and longer ageing times to “push ingredients to their utmost limits”.¹³

Amouage Decision against Decision 42, as given by the maker and the listed sources
Row	Decision	Decision 42	Source
Type	Eau de parfum	Exceptional Extrait	¹^,2^,13
Year	2025	2026	⁶^,5
Perfumer	Quentin Bisch	Quentin Bisch	¹^,2
Oil concentration	33%	42%	¹^,2
Ageing	5 weeks	6 weeks	¹^,2
Maker’s family	Fresh, Woody, Aromatic	Amber, Woody, Aromatic	¹^,2
Top notes	Pink pepper, bergamot, cardamom	Pink pepper, bergamot, cardamom, neroli, cinnamon	¹^,2
Heart notes	Frankincense, juniper, myrrh	Frankincense, juniper, myrrh, sandalwood, rectified pine tar	¹^,2
Base notes	Patchouli, cedarwood, vanilla	Patchouli, cedarwood, vanilla, labdanum	¹^,2
Listed for	Women and men	Men	³^,4
Scento decant sizes	2 / 5 / 8 ml	2 / 5 / 8 ml	Scento catalogue

The ageing split also differs. Decision spends 3 weeks in maceration and 2 in maturation, for 5 weeks;¹ Decision 42 spends 4 weeks in maceration and 2 in maturation, for 6.² WWD adds context on how Amouage arrives at these numbers: it waits at least a year after an eau de parfum launches, then evaluates formulas in five-point increments from 30 percent through 60 percent.¹⁰

WWD places the pair inside a wider shift. Amouage began numbering its concentrations in 2021, and the percentages run from 40 to 56, against the 15 to 20 percent that long defined the format.¹⁰ Ageing across the extraits has run from four weeks for Purpose 50 to seven months for Interlude 53 Man.¹⁰ Salmon also says extraits “can serve as an entry point into a line that might have been rejected in its eau de parfum form”.¹⁰

More oil is not presented as a straight upgrade. Salmon tells WWD: “It’s crucial to remember that the highest concentration isn’t always the best,” and “It’s a mistake to think that ‘the more concentrated it is, the better’”.¹⁰ The extrait is a different composition, not the same one turned up.

Wear time and projection

No source we read gives wear time in hours, so we will not invent a figure. Parfumo’s summary of Decision says “Projection and longevity are above-average”,³ and its summary of Decision 42 uses the same words.⁴ The same summaries describe the scent as spicy-woody for Decision and spicy-resinous for Decision 42, which fits the move from a fresh family to an amber one.³^,4 A 42% oil concentration does not by itself guarantee more power: that is Salmon’s point above, and it is why we suggest wearing a vial of each on skin before choosing.

When to wear it

This section is editorial reasoning from the notes, not a measurement. Amber, resins and pine tar read as cold-weather materials, so Decision 42 suits autumn and winter, evenings and dressier occasions. The original Decision, with bergamot and pink pepper at the front and a fresh family label, has more room for spring and milder days. Neither is an obvious choice for a hot summer afternoon.

Who should skip it

Anyone who wants a classic, opulent Amouage. Bulliqi is direct about this: “I find Amouage’s new signature to be crass and unidentifiable as Omani.”¹⁴ That is one critic’s view, but it is worth knowing if the older house style is what you love.
Anyone who dislikes smoky resin or pine tar. The maker added rectified pine tar to make the juniper “darker, smokier”.²
Anyone who wants something fresh for summer. The eau de parfum, whose family reads fresh, woody and aromatic, is the lighter of the two.¹

Where to go next in Amouage

Existence: launched with Decision and also created by Quentin Bisch, around lily of the valley.¹²
Purpose: described by WWD as Bisch’s austere, incense-driven Purpose.¹⁰
Purpose 50: an Exceptional Extrait; Salmon says it sells better than Purpose.¹⁰
Guidance 46: the eighth most-bought perfume of any house across Europe at Scento between October 2025 and September 2026 (Scento Fragrance Index).
Interlude 53 Man: an Exceptional Extrait aged seven months, the longest ageing WWD cites.¹⁰

If you are comparing Decision with other fragrances, see our Amouage Decision comparison guide.

Try Decision 42 in a decant

Scento pours Decision 42 Man and Decision as 2 ml, 5 ml and 8 ml decants, hand-poured from original full-size bottles bought through authorised retail channels, with no dilution. Fragrantica lists the full-size Decision 42 as a 100ml bottle,⁵ so a vial is a small step before that commitment. Wearing both for a few days is the quickest way to decide which strength suits you.

How we compiled this

Notes, concentrations, ageing and launch dates come from Amouage’s own product pages, read on 30 October 2026, and from trade coverage by WWD and Fragrantica. Wear-time wording comes from Parfumo’s summaries only. The house rank is a share from the Scento Fragrance Index, covering Scento’s own European decant orders from October 2025 to September 2026. The comparison table and the count of added notes are Scento’s own analysis of the two maker pyramids.

Sources

Decision, The House of Amouage, product page. Read 30 October 2026.
Decision 42, The House of Amouage, product page. Read 30 October 2026.
Decision, Amouage 2025, Parfumo. Read 30 October 2026.
Decision 42, Amouage 2026, Parfumo. Read 30 October 2026.
Amouage Introduces Decision 42 and Overture 41, Fragrantica, Igor Masyukov, 1 September 2026.
Decision Amouage perfume, Fragrantica database. Read 30 October 2026.
Decision 42 Man, Fragrantica database. Read 30 October 2026.
About Amouage, The House of Amouage. Read 30 October 2026.
About The House of Amouage, Amouage Help Center, 21 February 2022.
Amouage Raises the Stakes on Extrait Concentration, WWD, Ritu Upadhyay, 2 September 2026.
Amouage Launches Decision and Existence Eaux de Parfum, iFragrance, Mona Mostafa, 17 March 2025.
The Power of the Infinite, The House of Amouage. Read 30 October 2026.
New Exceptional Extraits, The House of Amouage. Read 30 October 2026.
Amouage Decision: Creamy Bell Pepper Incense, Fragrantica, Eddie Bulliqi, 12 February 2026.