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Tango


Tango Shadow, originally uploaded by sk8rsherman.

Tango is one of my favourites from the Aftelier line. And one of the newest addition to it (it was launched this winter along with Orchid – which is my absolute favourite perfume by Mandy Aftel). Tango is a subtle and sexy perfume that leaves you with a taste for more, and is an example for the complexity and versatility of the champaca flower.

Tango starts smoky and rubbery with notes of myrrh and Choya Nakh (an essence of toasted seashells from India). Like asphalt heating in the scorching sun, it may feel overbearing but at the same time casts its magic upon the pedestrians as long as they don’t get burnt...

Than it softens into a soft, almost buttery floral perfume dominated by the rich, full-bodied and slightly fruity spiciness of red champaca and the creamy powderiness of tuberose. The dry down is complex and interesting, mostly a continuation of the tropical floral accord, but much softer, and well blended into the skin. A note of tonka bean helps balance the headiness of the florals and bring sweetness to the initial burnt impression. This olfactory dance lasts for a very long time, in a soft, muted manner –calculated like the controlled passion of the Tango steps, and never overpowering. The Tango dancer here really knows how to restrain her feelings and maintain her dignity through a brutally painful romance.

Tango is available via Aftelier's website, and retailers that carry the line. 1/4oz Parfum Extrait is $140, a miniature of 2ml is $40, and samples of about 1/2ml can be had for $5 each (sold in threes for a total of $15).

Cuir de Russie

While Tabac Blond is a rebel, with an elegant off-beat premise – Cuir de Russie is an unusual take on luxury and chic.

While the animalic notes in Tabac Blond are abstract and allude to leather bound books and horse-takcs, and set the mood of a desired loneliness, in Cuir de Russie these are present to make a statement of uncompromised luxury and decadent style.

Cuir de Russie, more than other leather scents that I met, really makes me re-think the relationships between luxury, wilderness, death and perfume. The animal essences here are so strongly present, that you can’t help but think of the forests in Russia where wild animals’ lives has been taken away for the sake of their skins and furs. I cannot wear Cuir de Russie without thinking about a fur coat and a furry Russian hat. Maybe it’s because my mind is set on these clichés. Maybe it is because the first time I smelled Cuir de Russie was in one of the most luxurious spaces – the Chanel boutique. Perhaps it’s really the scent doing this, as reeks of luxury quite blatantly.

Wearing Cuir de Russie is like wearing a fur coat. Which is a big statement. It’s going all the way for appearance. It’s telling the world that you are willing to kill for your looks. That you don’t really care about wild life. But it’s also a reminder that once upon a time, before we learned how to make textile and fabricate our clothes, we had to burrow other animal’s skins and furs to survive the cold long winters. In those far-away days, where fur was a question of life-and-death.

When I wear Cuir de Russie, I think of a snow-covered forest in Siberia, where a hunter is just recovering the hunted animal, breathlessly giving away its winter coat which is soon to be traded for rye bread, sausages, vodka, and other Russian necessities of life.

Chanel’s Cuir de Russie reeks of animal essences – primarily castoreum absolute, an essence extracted from the Russian – and Canadian – beavers, after they have been hunted for their furs. There is also civet galore. It’s amazing how furry this perfume is thanks to those essences. But there are other notes as well, and these are what make Cuir de Russie such a masterpiece:
It opens with notes of cade and a resinous, dark myrrh. Than, leathery cassie notes fleet around, like a misty cloud of foggy vapour – airy, powdery, barely visible. Soon enough, we move into a phase of an airy white floral bouquet – jasmine sambac being the most visible of all. Roses undfold later and the perfume turns into a smooth bouquet of notes that are not quite separable from one another, but harmonize to create an overall creamy, smooth leatherness. There are sweet resins and balsams (namely benzoin and labdanum), a subtle, sexy musk, and a most definite note of castoreum paired with civet. Hours later, I smell a familiar oakmoss dry down, but it is very subdued.

*Image of a Woman in a Fur Coat by Nick DeWolf dated December 8th 1970, courtesy of dboo
**I chose this picture because it is elegant, yet it seems the woman really needs the warmth of the coat...

Tabac Blond

Leather perfumes have so much character, that it’s hard to believe I am having hard time writing about them. Perhaps they have too much personality? Maybe it is because they can all be summed up in one word: Leather. They are not all the same, but they all boil down to some kind of leather – suede, fur, horse saddles and tacks, and so on. Strangely, I find myself associating leather perfumes with things rather than people or emotions. Mind you, very pleasant things, such as old books and libraries, horse saddles, shoes and shoe stores. All things that I don’t really associate with a particular emotional state or memory for the most part, just a simple pleasure of serene rainy afternoon reading an old book or near quiet horses at the stable. So perhaps leather perfumes are the scent of serenity for me, where no complex emotions are involved – just enjoying things, aka objects?

Tabac Blond is the first leather perfume I wanted to write about. It is so original, and as it has been launched as early as 1919, it preceded most of the leather perfumes that followed in the 20th century. First whiff of Tabac Blond immediately reminded me of my old German dictionary that I found in one of my old school’s library giveaways (apparently, nobody read dictionaries at my school except for me). It had the most gorgeous gothic letters throughout, not just the cover, but also inside. I thought that having it in my private library was the most fantastic thing which would make me feel very sophisticated and worldy, not to mention help to enhance my German needed to expressively sing the romantic Lieder by Schubert and Schuman.

That was my first impression of Tabac Blond, and this is how it smells straight from the flacon. Wearing Tabac Blond is a different story altogether though. It unfolds with its rich notes, and every time I discover something different in it. The rich dark and dense notes unfurl and uncurl, open up their dark buds of smudge and resin. They do so slowly and without any attempt to compete with one another.

Tabac blond opens with the notes of old leather bound books in a monastery’s library. It’s dim-lit, and full of studying monks and dark brown robes (perhaps they are Franciscans?). The structure gives away the age, but the building is well preserved – the rocks as well as the burnished wood. As satisfying a note as this may be, it is enriched with other dark notes – starting with the rich, sweet-spicy floral eugenol of carnations, which to me, reeks of luxury. When the carnation wears off a tad, I can sense the sweet clean woody scent of vetiver, and a sweet floral note that could be the ylang ylang, but to me smells more of rose and jasmine, very subdued. The florals are there just to smooth rough corners, as there is nothing really floral about Tabac Blond. The base is a rich, balsamic, resinous mélange of patchouli, vanilla, ambery labdanum, and musk. A base that develops into something that is somewhat reminiscent of Shalimar’s dry down on my own skin…

The notes, based on the Perfume Addicts Database, are:

Top notes: Leather (achieved by castoreum absolute, in my opinion), Linden, Carnatnion
Heart notes: Iris, Vetiver, Ylang Ylang
Base notes: Cedar, Patchouli, Vanilla, Amber, Musk

As you can see, there is no tobacco here. Not in the listing and none that I can detect with my own nose. Like Narcisse Noir, the name is mostly fantasy. And so is the perfume itself!
The reference to tobacco is more likely to have more to do with the twist of history, than with tobacco itself: right after World War I, when women started to smoke more openly in public, amongst other signs of emancipation. I can't smell the linden either, but I won't be surprised to find it there one day, when least expected. And Tabac Blond is indeed an unusual scent for a woman in its time, one that would wear pants, smoke in public, wear her hair short, and insist on having a political opinion strong enough to cast a vote. So it is not surprising that nowadays it is worn and admired by men and women alike.

If you live in North America, but not near any reputable Caron boutique that carries the urn scents, I highly recommend you contact Diane Haksa at the Caron Boutique in New York. She can also be reached by phone on this toll-free number: 1-877-882-2766
The Caron Boutique in NYC accepts credit cards as well as personal cheques. The only draw back is if you live in Canada: you can send a Canadian cheque but you will have to have a kind family member or a buddy in the US that can accept the package and redirect it to you. My aunt in Washington DC will be hearing from me soon... (Well, she hears from me quite often anyways).

Here are the prices for the Urn scents:
7.5ml-$100
15ml-$150
25ml-$180
- Don't be alarmed by the price: these are pure parfum extrait, and are worth every penny!
Plus if you buy these you actually are supporting a classic perfume house that is not owned by LVMH and is standing up to it's unique artistic vision for the last century.

Image credits:
Image of Monastery Library courtesy of That Other Guy.
Image of Tabac Blond vintage flacon from the Museum of Grasse.

Decoding Obscure Notes Part VI: Leather Notes

When trying to understand leather perfumes, one cannot ignore the connection of the perfume industry to some of the foulest-smelling man-made creations (or by-products): death and feces.
I am not being sarcastic, though obviously I have just used one of the most alarming yet well-tested demagogue techniques: shock the audience to get attention.

Now that I have captured your attention, I am going to skin it, and use it to create a brief map of the history of leather scents and draw the connection between perfume and scents that are much less fine.

Let us start from the beginning: Death.
Leather is animals’ skin, pulled off their dead bodies after they have been hunted or slaughtered (usually for food), and than processed in various ways. Leather has been an important material for mankind for thousands of years. It helped our forefathers to survive the cold winters (clothes and shelters) and create and build many different tools that were crucial for their survival. I won’t bore you with the details, as I am sure we all learned something about the pre-historic men in elementary school or sometimes afterwards. Now that we have invented the wheel, and along the way also the ability to create many useful man-made materials for protecting our bodies from the climate etc., leather has become more of a luxury good than a necessity. But whatever the purpose of the leather used –from horse-saddles, to warm boots, to leather outfits for our fetishes and fantasies – at certain point early in its process the skin had to be cleaned and treated in a way to ensure that it does not smell like a rotting dead animal as well as softened to enable it to be useful and workable. The scent of death is not enjoyable and it is not even an acquired taste. I think this is one of the few scents that triggered a consensus amongst humans. And so, the leather hides from the animals have to go through an elaborate process of curing and tanning in order chase away any bacteria. For more details on the traditional curing process visit this website, and to read about the modern process, visit here:
http://www.cudahytanning.com/process.htm
http://www.ilo.org/encyclopedia/?print&nd=857200643
http://www.tft.csiro.au/leather/manufacture.html

Barks from trees were used to preserve the leather, colour it, enhance its texture and also, as a side effect, give it a more agreeable scent. Most of the barks and materials used contain a high concentration of tannin.

Here are a few of the oils that are known for their use in the tanning process and that are also used in perfumery:

Birch TarSmells intensely of wintergreen and is used frequently in tanning Russian leather.

Cassie flower and bark
Cassie is a type of mimosa, only far more intense, woody, and deeply scented, as it is a base note. The bark and the flower absolute are used in the curing process due to their high tannin content.

Cade Oil
This dark oil has an intense smoky odour of forest fires. This is the destructive distillation of a species of juniper (the plant material is actually burnt during the distillation and therefore the intense smoky aroma). Also used in Russian leather, and provides durability for leather. Books bound with Russian leather will not get mouldy, according to this site.

Myrtle
The oil of myrtle is used mosly in Turkish leather tanning. This is not used in lperfumery very often for creating leather accords, as this is a very green, clean, fresh, camphor-like scent and it’s not associated with leather as much as the other notes.

To read more about plants used for tanning Visit this website .
We are now going to move to the mundane and familiar odour of feces, especially those which filled the metropolis of ancient times, before the sophisticated sanitary systems that we enjoy today in our air-polluted cities. The open sewers were an inevitable part of the daily lives of all the people who lived in the cities, rich or poor. But the rich and the noble ones could afford to suffer just a bit less of it, as they were able to afford coaches and horses which provided some distance from the stench; and also the nobelty had certain privileges such as walking in the middle of the street and away from the sides where potties could be emptied on their heads…The stench of the streets lead to the creative collaboration between glove makers and perfumers:

The first thing that one wants to do is to cover their noses from the stench… And the hand was usually covered with a glove… Which was, indeed, covered with scent strong enough to mask the terrible odour of the old urban jungles.

With the improvement of the sanitary systems in the cities the gloves fashion gradually faded out. But it left behind it an elaborate legacy of European perfumery. Later on, the leather as a scent made a come back with Chanel’s Cuir de Russie – this time romanticizing the exoticism of furs of wild animals caught in the woods of cold, far away Russia (or, perhaps, Canada). It employed an impressive amount of castoreum, a by-product of the fur industry. Castoreum is a secretion from a gland of both the male and the female beavers that live in Russia and Canada. It can only be found after killing the animal, thus making capturing beavers a double-shot of wealth for the hunter. On its own, castoreum smells like death. It really does. As repulsive as death could possibly be, combined with the guilt of smelling the remains a wild animal hunted for its fur and sexual smell. When highly diluted, castoreum smells just like leather. Like old leather bound books. Dry, leathery, exquisite.

So now that we have pretty much exhausted the topics of dead animals and poop, perhaps we can move on to the two main questions that you have in mind are (in hopes that your appetite for that fragrance family isn’t ruined yet):

WHAT DO LEATHER PERFUMES SMELL LIKE?
The answer is simple: they smell like leather!
Step in to the nearest shoe store, and get your nose close to a pair of leather boots.
Go to your nearest horse-barn and get acquainted with the saddles and tacks.
Bury your nose in an old leather book…
That’s what leather perfumes smell like, at least in part.

To this may be added spices, resins and balsams for sweetness and warmth; flowers for a sophisticated perfume-y impression; Tobacco that accentuates the tannin scent of cured leather; aldehydes for softness and warm roundness or an oily skin like residue; citrus for clean freshness and to add balance to the heaviness and darkness of leather; and more often than ever – there will be smoky notes.

HOW ARE LEATHER SCENTS BEING MADE?
By now you probably guessed that there is no leather essential oil, and perfumers don't soak and tincture leather to make leather perfumes... The only animal material that has any importance in leather perfumes is castoreum.
Although castoerum is a key ingredient in many leather perfumes, it is not essential to kill animals to enjoy a leather aroma. When well crafted, other “vegan” notes, such as tobacco, black tea, labdanum, cade, patchouli and birch tar can create the impression of leather without drawing as much as a drop of blood from an innocent animal. I am proud to say that such an example lies in my line in the form of Espionage – the formidable leathery concoction that dries down into a musky-vanilla skin scent.

Leathery perfumes can be taken to all kinds of directions – aromatic, woody, floral, even gourmand (if, like Charlie Chaplin, you find leather appetizing). Technically, leather is considered a member of the Chypre family, which is where it originally branched out from. Many leathery perfumes have oakmoss in at least minute quantities, and are considered a sub-category of the chypre family. However, there are some leathers that have very little in common with Chypre, and are more of an oriental. I personally think that even though it may be convenient to add more and more sub-categories to the Chypre family, that perhaps the Leathery scents truly deserve a category of their own. Scents such as Tabac Blond, Cuir de Russie, Bandit, Feuilles de Tabac, truly deserve their own family.

Leather Month

November was scheduled in my book to be dedicated to leather perfumes. We are almost half way through the month, and I have lots of catching up to do!
So, the following couple of weeks will be dedicated, for the most part, to leather. Leather perfumes and their history, decoding the obscurity of leather notes, and of course - reviews of my favourite leather fragrances and a few significant others...
So stay tuned, and if you know any other leather fetishizers out there, refer them to SmellyBlog!
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