Maître Parfumeur et Gantier Cuir Fétiche, a new women’s perfume, just launched. According to house perfumer Jean-Paul Millet Lage, he was inspired to create Cuir Fétiche on a scouting trip to southern France where he was looking at (and apparently sniffing) leathers for a new line of Maître Parfumeur et Gantier gloves. (As Robin said last week; I’m pretty tired of “creation stories.”)

Cuir Fétiche tries to be “racy;” it’s advertised using a woman wearing nothing but leather gloves (that make her hands look a tad masculine!), and the Cuir Fétiche bottle comes wrapped in a red corset.* Though Cuir Fétiche’s ads may be “suggestive” for Maître Parfumeur et Gantier, the perfume is far from “sexy;” it’s “bound” by convention, not leather handcuffs. Cuir Fétiche is a classic leather fragrance: elegant, calm, well-dressed (not, well, “un-dressed” for sure).

Cuir Fétiche contains fragrance notes of red mandarin, lemon, bergamot, geranium, leather, ylang ylang, jasmine, rose, iris, vanilla, musk, ambergris, patchouli, cedar and sandalwood. Cuir Fétiche goes on bright with glints of citrus and aldehydes…

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One of the hazards of a bulging perfume cabinet is how hard it can be to justify buying another bottle, especially when you know you already have a few bottles from the same fragrance family. That’s my dilemma with Serge Lutens Cuir Mauresque. Since Cuir Mauresque became available in the United States last year, my fingers have wavered over the “add to shopping cart” button many a time. I tell myself Cuir Mauresque is special — warm and cozy, intimate and spicy, different from my other leathers. Meanwhile, Caron Tabac Blond, Lancôme Cuir de Lancôme, Bvlgari Black, Robert Piguet Bandit, Christian Dior Diorling, and probably some others I’m forgetting languish as they wait their turn in the fragrance rotation. What’s a girl to do?

Serge Lutens launched Cuir Mauresque in 1996 as one of its non-export, bell jar “exclusives” (as opposed to the export line in the rectangular bottle). In 2010, Cuir Mauresque (“moorish leather”) joined the export line for a limited edition run. Perfumer Christopher Sheldrake developed Cuir Mauresque, and its notes include mandarin peel, orange blossom, burnt styrax, incense, cinnamon, nutmeg, amber, myrrh, cumin, musk, cedar, and civet.

Like many of the Serge Lutens fragrances, Cuir Mauresque kicks off with a surprising note that offers a freaky insight into the rest of the fragrance…

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Daim Blond, by Serge Lutens, launched in 2004. That was the same year as Chêne, Vetiver Oriental and Fleurs de Citronnier — a good year over at Serge Lutens, no? Chêne especially stole my heart (I’m wearing it now for the first time in months, and I’m falling in love all over again). Daim Blond — French for white pale suede — was nice, but it was Chêne and Fleurs de Citronnier that went on my buy list…

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In Perfume: Joy, Obsession, Scandal, Sin, Richard Stamelman quotes from a 1936 Chanel publicity text about Chanel Cuir de Russie:

…I easily imagine this perfume floating in the wake of a tall, slender brunette, whose moves are confident, who voice is accustomed to giving orders, and who fingers are slightly darkened by tobacco. She is one of those women who always wears a suit, even at midnight at the Savoy; one of those women captivating to watch at the casino in Monaco, who after having lost a sum of money, takes bills and a money order from a love letter hidden in her fine leather handbag, where they have taken on a pungent, slightly wild odor, and with great calm throws them on the green baize of the gaming table.¹

Wowee! Who could resist a fragrance like that? (Let’s hope the copy writer went on to a career as a novelist.) But by dint of perspective or reformulation, today’s Cuir de Russie is still beautiful, but not the butch aristocrat of yesteryear. Instead, it’s as if the Cuir de Russie of 70 years ago earned an advanced degree and spent time on the therapist’s couch. She’s still elegant and self-possessed, but she’s not getting written up in the gossip columns…

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Kevin reviewed the L'Artisan Aedes de Venustas Parfum d'Ambiance room spray back in 2006, and noted that he used the spray on his skin as much as in the air. Not being a big fan of room sprays, I used it only as a personal fragrance, and despite the fact that like most room sprays, it doesn't really “bloom” on skin, it quickly became a fall/winter favorite…

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Finally, last month Cuir testers showed up at discounters in the United States, and within a few days I had a bottle in my hands…

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We’ve taken the rich leather scent from our Premium Economy cabin and created an unparalleled luxury fragrance for an intense posh sensation that will evoke the blissful travel experience of Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy.

— Virgin Atlantic spokesperson Nick Larkworthy on the airline's new fragrance, Le Cuir. Read more (and watch the video) at Virgin release new fragrance: Le Cuir - The Essence of Leather (link no longer working, sorry!) at LiveNews.

She sniffed each wrist and said, “This one smells kind of light and alcohol-y. That one is a diva. It's really strong and reminds me of something…”

“Leather?” I asked. “Yes!” she said, “Like shoes.”

“Well,” I told her, “They're the same perfume: Diorling by Christian Dior. This one —” Here I pointed with some disgust at the wrist with the light, fizzy scent, “Is the new version. The other one is the old one.”

Paul Vacher, the nose behind the sublime Miss Dior, created Diorling in 1963. Diorling is a leather chypre with its leather front-loaded…

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Tijuana is beloved by college students who cross the Mexican border from San Diego to visit its raunchy nightclubs. Older folks travel to Tijuana by tour bus on daytrips to load up on huaraches, serapes, colorful blankets, and Day of the Dead-themed refrigerator magnets. Most people I knew in 1990 considered Tijuana a “joke” — a cheesy town full of cheap souvenir shops and hucksters.

Tijuana was the first Mexican city I visited and I loved its cluttered old-fashioned folk art shops stocked with brightly painted wooden carvings of saints and animals, black pottery, tinwork and jewelry from all over Mexico…

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I’ve had decades to learn my perfume lessons. I know I shouldn’t buy a fragrance without sampling it beforehand; I know I shouldn’t commit money and perfume-shelf space to a fragrance before wearing that fragrance all day…

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