Fragrance Reviews by mschlesser

I always liked perfumes since I was a kid. I always loved spicy oriental perfumes. I remember one of my classmates wearing Cinnabar. I loved it. I loved opium by Yves Saint Laurent.

When I was in my early 20s, as a law school student, I remember venturing into perfume shop in my hometown of Metz, France.

That day, I was looking for some heady man's perfume. I stumbled on Cuir de Russie by Piver, it was cheap, 75 French francs for a huge bottle.

A few years later, as a young gay man going out in Paris at night, I would splash my chest with that Cologne. Several of my boyfriends would do the same. To this day the scent of Cuir de Russie is stamped in my head and memory as my face going through the man's hairy chest in the hot summer night. Cuir de Russie by Piver remains the most homoerotic perfume of all times.

20 years later, I still have friends asking me what was that perfume you were wearing when you lived in Paris?

My answer: a perfume that smells of muscles, leather, the scent of manhood.

PS: the new version is crap. Try to get your hands on a vintage bottle.