This season, the team at CafleureBon has written about their favorite  winter warmers and comforting fragrances for this cold and dark time of year. It is certainly true that many of these fragrances have helped me through a wintry January in Denmark  (among those a fair few vanilla, leather and tobacco fragrances). Now a  new release  from Giorgio Armani's Prive line has captivated me.

 

Being an admirer of the Armani Privé line, I was naturally very curious about their newest addition to the Arabian nights’ collection; ‘La Collection des Mille et une Nuits’, Cuir Noir. I have always enjoyed the perfect simplicity of the private line, (Bois d’Encens to me is a reference incense,)  its opposite lush oriental tales of 1001 nights, as well as the utterly gorgeous limited edition La Femme Bleue, which have made me come to expect great things from the Privés. This time, according to the ad copy, the inspiration came from the art of leather tanning, a craft which has its home from the Spanish city of Cordoba, and all the way down past the city of Marrakesh to the Atlas mountains. Cordoba- although today a Spanish city- was ruled by Muslims between 711 and 1236 and is heavily influenced by Arab culture and a world heritage site, hence it fits in nicely with the oriental themed perfume.

 

From the name I was expecting a leathery vanilla, but this Arabian tale opens with a genie out of the bottle; Oud. Supported by creamy honey-like sandalwood, the oud mixed with delicate rose unfolds proud like the tower of a minaret. Perhaps because of the very subdued spices of nutmeg and coriander, there is a medicinal tinge to the opening oud very akin to that of saffron, and it gives that same shimmering aura off as well as making me associating a golden radiance to this stage. Although I must ruefully confess to not being a keen admirer of oud, I absolutely adore the opening of Cuir Noir, and could keep applying this all day just to get the kick of this particular blend of stunning top notes.  Who knows maybe this will be the open-sesame moment in terms of me actually coming to love agarwood?  In those first moments of the fragrance one is truly transported to a land of Sheherazade, minarets and golden sunsets fading into dark nights with a crescent moon.

 

From my infatuation with the oud-opener, the fragrance develops into a soft tobacco leather scent, the leather here being very smooth and suede like, a subtle whisper of an oriental leather, not a fetish outcry of saddle and tar. You feel the smokiness and a slight hint at booze of the vanilla, with the woods and resins highlighting the dry tobacco effect. As the resins start to dominate, it all adds to that dusty dry feeling of sun-heated palace walls.

 

I love the way that the perfumer manages to make the last stage of the fragrance quite sleek and not turning it into an opulent  amber, this is very much in keeping with the line and with the flowing fabric quality of the Armani couture I find, and the way the perfume stays close to your skin in the latter stages of its aromatic life feels hushed sexy. It’s all resiny, the benzion leaning in the vanilla direction, and still a tiny bit woody, with just the slightest bit of a leathery touch left from the oud.

 

This smoky leather-vanilla fragrance holds its own on a market which has already seen its fair share of this kind of scents. Although not exactly reinventing the wheel, it’s a truly beautiful rendition of this theme and a fragrance of highest quality. It’s a luxuriously well blended and golden leathery fragrance, which is both rounder and warmer than the sombre name suggest, and, with a little help from genies, I think it will soon find its way to my perfume cupboard.

 

Let me end this post with a little quote for perfume lovers from One Thousand and One Nights:

“I found the floor overspread with saffron, and the place illuminated by golden lamps and by candles, which diffused the odours of musk and ambergris; and two large perfuming-vessels filled with aloes-wood and ambergris, and a perfume compounded with honey, spread fragrance through the whole place.

I saw also a black horse, of the hue of the darkest night, before which was a manger of white crystal filled with cleansed sesame, and another, similar to it, containing rose-water infused with musk; he was saddled and bridled, and his saddle was of red gold".

– Jasia Julia Nielson, Contributor

Art direction: Michelyn Camen E-I-C

We will be offering  a draw of 1ml of Cuir Noir. In order to be eligible, please leave your comment about your love/hate relationship with oud and why you would like to try Cuir Noir by February 6, 2012.

We announce the winners only on site and on our Facebook page, so Like Cafleurebon and use our RSS option… or your dream prize will be just spilt perfume