Esprit de Cuir by Auguste

With an ingredient list that reads lemon, geranium, galbanum, jasmine, clove, birch, opoponax, tonka beans and tree moss, you might be forgiven for assuming that Esprit de Cuir, from relatively new prefume kid on the block Auguste, is going to be a whip-crackin' chypre. Your assumption, however, would be wrong.

The backstory to the Auguste line is that founder Catherine Fructus commissioned three fragrances to be based on traditional French perfume formulae from the early 1900's. This was perhaps intended as a way to introduce contemporary consumers to the glory days of Grasse perfumery, yet from what I've read about the glory days of Grasse perfumery, Esprit de Cuir seems a bit too sweet and a tad too pretty of a leather-chypre scent to have lasted very long on any early 20th century shopkeeper's restock list.

It opens with a promising aroma of prickly lemon, smoky birch tar, crisp green galbanum and a whiff of bitter moss, and I immediately think: "Okay! Old French perfumery, here we come!" -- but twenty minutes later, the sweet jasmin, geranium, opoponax and tonka beans kick in and then they never let go, so instead of "the spirit of leather" I find myself holding a jug full of floral amber (or, if I were to ask the BF, he'd say, "Smells like vanilla" and turn back to his computer).

The gang over at Perfume Posse say that Esprit de Cuir is a "rich, earthy leather . . . elegant without being too refined. Earthy without being too raw. An interesting take on leather" and perhaps this is how it's meant to strike the wearer -- not as being heavily sweet, but rather, heavy in a thick, old-world potion kind of way.

So maybe it all boils down to your idea of the smell of leather, and what the "spirit of leather" might mean to you personally. Esprit de Cuir has a quality much like soft caramel skin -- a well-oiled, freshly soaped and professionally tanned hide; or even the interior of a black and cream Dusseldorf whose owner smoked cigars as he drove the miles of back country roads to his estate. I just wish it showed a little less gleam on the chrome, a little more dirt on the mud-flaps. Its spotless, pleasant nature isn't offering me that old, vintage leather vibe I was somehow hoping for.

Wasn't it civet musk that pretty much every traditional French perfumery used as a base ingredient in its fine fragrances? I didn't see it on the ingredient list for Esprit de Cuir. I think all that Esprit de Cuir lacks is a nice dose of that gritty civet, and then we'd be the best of friends.

Esprit de Cuir comes in an oily, very concentrated parfum-extrait formula only, bottled in painted porcelain containers -- the website claims the bottles are hand-painted, but I'm sitting here looking at a bottle in front of me, and I'd say it's more likely hand-colored than hand-painted (or partially hand-painted rather than entirely so), but it's not worth arguing with anyone about it. You can order a bottle of Esprit de Cuir from Lucky Scent, which seems to be the only place in the United States that's authorized to carry it.

A couple of photos of the Esprit de Cuir bottle below: