English Leather (1949)
by Dana (orig. by Mem Company)

I bought a bottle of this recently not for nostalgic purposes but to find out why the reviews of it lacked the playful sarcasm that I thought English Leather deserved. What I discovered is that the English Leather being sold today is NOT the English Leather that I used for a while back in the sixties. This is softer, lighter, and more refined. It is not that in-your-face, leather accord that was so vibrantly 1960s: this one is has toned down that “leather” ambiance considerably. I had overdosed on the ‘60s version of English Leather and I still have a strong memory of how cloying it could be… But the cloying element seems to have been eliminated for the most part… Gone is the stupendous sillage that announced “English Leather” to the people three apartments down the hall (I remember this happening)… Gone is the epic longevity that made applying it more than once every three days totally redundant...

The current English Leather is less potent. In the most recent version I can smell the citrus top that I never smelled in the ‘60s version. The leather? I get an echo of the leather accord only occasionally, mostly I get an undetermined wood dominance. I get an unidentifiable but amiable citrus in the opening, which gradually changes to a discreet and civilized mossy / wood / maybe leather accord for the rest of the fragrance. The citrus is non-spectacular, the moss is competent, the woods are somewhat generic / somewhat synthetic, and the leather only occasionally raises its head. The leather Superbomb of the ‘60s has become a mild mannered Clark Kent of a fragrance – competent, unassuming, a bit shy, and sometimes quirky. For the price, this one is a deal to be considered: sometimes those reformulations are for the better. (Edit of 01 December 2005 review. Changed from thumbs down.)

"Saddlesoap and flowers," as I sometimes think of it. I think the barbershop that my mom always took me to as a small child smelled like this, and I only recently realized it. I guess it's mostly old-fashioned flowery soap with a little bit of something incensey? I struggled with whether it's so flowery as to be effeminate, but I think that this question is ultimately moot with English Leather. It's more of a clean-man than a manly-man scent, and I'm sure that's how it was intended: for fine, upstanding, well-groomed, clean-shaven gentlemen in their offices, hard at work during a time of post-war prosperity. Naturally it's not as strong as all the later EdTs, but since I'm sure this was meant more as an splash-on augmentation to one's aftershave than as a statement on its own, I won't criticize it for weakness. A fairly good cheapy.

It smells alot like the Products Jaguar Recommends for their Connolly leather interiors.
Maybe Connolly hide food ? IDK
It's sharp and brisk and leathery, which I don't mind a light trace of after detailing my car, but I don't want to wear this out anywhere on my clothes, even if I was a senior citizen.

This was truly the Frankenstein fragrance of my youth. I loathed getting this as a gift. This scent screams, " I am cheap and loud." I once knew someone who put a bottle of this in his air conditioning unit and regretted it for a week. I cannot believe this monstrosity is still around.

wjlamp is sooo lucky to have discovered a vintage bottle! I used to wear this in the sixties before it was "permissible" for unisex fragrances and I loved it! There was a very rich, sexy-sweet quality about the leather note that is lacking in any of the leather fragrances that I have tried lately (although I have not tried the new Chanel). The new versions of this scent are adequate but not special. 5 stars for the old; 3 stars for the new.

This was my Dad's cologne, I still have a bottle that reminds me of him. In fact my Mom commented how much she liked smelling this on pop. It is not bad for a drug store scent, it is artificial though. Kind of an artificial leathery soapy scent. It is very strong and lasts a good while.

Not the best cologne at the grocery store but not the worst. I give it a thumbs up simply for nostalgia and memories of my pop.