Cuir de Russie (1924)
by Chanel

I find Cuir de Russie to be MORE feminine than Caron's Tabac Blond, or rather elegant, civilized and understated. I could envision Catherine Deneuve wearing this in Belle du Jour, but never Tabac Blond, for instance. This is a soft leather with a soft floral veil, a beautiful skin scent that wears like a quiet, luminous atmosphere. I would enjoy wearing this anytime , anywhere. Beautiful and appropriate without being boring or necessarily conventional. My very favorite leather fragrance to date.

deep and warm fragrance.
Very sensual and feminine.

Stays a loooong time on the skin.

It is a perfect fragrance rich and wonderful...

I think Vibert says it perfectly about this fragrance having a perfect balance of glamour and danger.

I feel it's tipped more towards danger, adventure and a love of masculine things (horses and their saddles, cigar smoke, classic citrusy cologne). I heard this was even MORE animalic originally... Wow, I can't believe this was the kind of scents worn by women then... and can only imagine the kind of wonderfully classy and adventurous women that would wear them today.

I wouldn't mind wearing this, but it personally feels strange to smell like this just from a bottle because the scent is so very very authentic smelling to me. I feel like I'm wearing some kind of costume, that is damned convincing but if I were to be brutally honest with myself could not wear more than once a year. Unless you are an equestrian outdoorsman with royal blood lineage, expect this scent to make a (potential over-) statement.

Supposedly described by Chanel as: “a very improper perfume for nicely brought-up young ladies,” I was expecting something interesting from the current EdT formulation of Cuir de Russie. I would have to say that Chanel’s supposed description has little to do with the current EdT. To my nose it is a floral with some leather that shows Polge’s hand.

The leather is neither a saddle just removed from a horse after a hard ride, nor a leather jacket exposed to tobacco smoke, sweat, and beer in a dark bar. Instead, it is a piece of high fashion leather gracing the form of a Russian oligarch’s daughter or mistress on a shopping trip to Paris.

Cuir de Russie EdT opens with a far too subtle combination of citrus that is quickly overwhelmed by ylang-ylang, iris, and jasmine. Within half an hour the heart of jasmine and rose takes over, followed by a base of squeaky clean high fashion leather, a tinge of vetiver, and very soft cedar and amber.

It is a beautiful floral with some leather, but Russian leather it is not.

EdT.

I recently read a fresh interview, where Jacques Polge told that Cuir de Russie was his inspiration when he created Egoiste, and for me that is very easy to see. I`m suprised no one hasn`t compare the two in anyways. (btw, in that same interview Polge reveiled that he actually never uses any scent as a personal fragrance, but he likes to scent his car with Egoiste)

Of course the top notes in these two are very different, but to me the basenotes resembles each other quite obviously. Still not the same for sure, but they both share that rich balsamic floral note (carnation), smoky styrax and vanilla base with full bodied amber and a fruity ylang-ylang accent.

Go ahead, make a side by side test and wait until the drydown comes alive.

Wonderful, unisex fragrance.

This is an androgynous scent to me. It smells much drier and more masculine than Tabac Blonde (with which it is often compared). They are both leather scents but the similarity stops there. It starts out with a lovely citrus. Then a smokey floral peeks through for about an hour; and the dry down which seems to go on for quite a long time is satisfyingly animalic (leather and civet is what I get). I have not smelled the original, but this one does seem to have a castoreum element in it (synthetic I'm sure), although it is extremely subdued and well blended. It's expensive, but worth every penny! It's so good, that I can't understand why it hasn't been discontinued.