ElfeLotta

In my note to this fragrance was for a long time "--> Test as a potentially particularly good leather fragrance". From a dear perfumer I once got a sample, which initially landed in my box for blind tests. (Let's not fool ourselves: I am quite suggestible, which is why I have acquired this trick to give many fragrances first the chance to meet me free of images, names and expectations.)

So I reached on an autumn day at almost 20 degrees and rainy-windy weather in the blind test box, sprayed with squinting eye to catch just no name on my forearm - and was pleased that I had obviously caught a fragrance, which could well fit today.

Beautiful, slightly cool resin notes make me immediately think of incense. There is briefly something fruity in the opening, more sweet than sour, more "flat" than "voluminous"... A cool pear? Unripe banana? Flavorless raspberry? Papaya??
With time, the resin gets a tiny bit warmer. I'm nowhere near the typically opulent amber notes [spoiler: not even by the end], but it's also not as cool and short of pungent as it was at the beginning. It keeps itself wonderfully in between in a very fine balance. Mmh, there I have probably just caught a really nice, unexcited incense scent.
1.5 h rum and I wonder if there is vanilla in the game? Now and then there are still discreet fruit approaches. Overall, it remains but the resin.

Then I look up... Scroll to the fragrance notes...
And tear the eyes open.
Ok, the different resins have definitely arrived at me, but -
I see my note... "--> Test as a potentially particularly good leather scent"
I'm sorry, what? Leather? That's what this should actually be about?
I sniff and sniff, press at some point panic nose against my arm, fear already acute olfactory dysfunction of my olfactory organ.... I get no leather.
Finally, I run off and hold me everything under the nose, what I can find in a hurry at leather: Belt, bag, jacket, hat, shoes, gloves, backpack, wallet - everything smells different, some very intense leathery, others barely perceptible. Nothing seems comparable to Oro 1920.

Phew, so, if I SHOULD think leather here, then comes to mind most likely freshly waxed outer leather of somewhat brittle hiking boots. [Look at: there is even beeswax listed as a base note.] But even that is somehow far-fetched.
But calm blood. We are not yet at the end of the line here...
The longer the skin had time to warm up the whole thing a bit, the sooner it works with the leather association: a leather chair, whose cool surface does not really want to allow me to sink into the relaxation that its shape might offer me. Or the smell of a leather apron, which is blown by the cool wind during indeterminate forest work between slightly resinous trunks to me now and then.
If I turn up the heat so right - say: sit down with the sprayed arm for a while next to the heater - suddenly emerges an almost animal note. Since I'm with the nose sometimes in the fur, sometimes on sweaty skin - and finally the vanilla comes through so properly.
With all that I associate and discover there so: the resinous notes remain omnipresent in my nose.

Well, leather is nothing whose smell is distilled and added to a perfume as an ingredient. And the range of leather smells "in natura" is also rather gigantic. In my search for ingredients that are usually used to create a leather accord, I find mainly juniper (tar oil), birch (tar), musk, styrax, myrtle, labdanum, castoreum and civet. In addition, various synthetics.
I have no idea what was ultimately used for this perfume, but if I had been presented directly with the list of these typical ingredients instead of the leather association, I probably would have just nodded in agreement.

Conclusion after several test runs:
For me, this scent clearly stays more in the resinous corner than the leathery one, with a very nice balance between coolness and warmth. I perceive leather, but keeping up the image actually requires rather cognitive effort. If I want leather that is directly "there," I guess I need something else.
Regardless, Oro 1920 is an absolutely interesting fragrance that has provided me with a lot of entertainment along the way and that I would certainly find appropriate days and moods to wear.

Thanks for reading and thanks to Bejot for the testing opportunity! :)

The story: Excursion day Salzburg perfumeries

The completely overloaded noses now had two days to sniff through the development of various scents distributed on arms and necks, decisions were made, questioned, overturned and then held, and finally we are back at our favorite saleswoman in the store, which, however, just served a young gentleman along with entourage of mom and girlfriend.
What the heck, the noses can yes again after the last walk, then we make but equal even a little further...

I'm just thinking about whether it makes sense, at 28 degrees and sunshine, to look around already for a fragrance for the cooler season, as the elf husband plucks a bottle from the shelf, sprays courageously and pushes me the arm under the nose. "Smell times. I find the good."
Oha...! No idea what that is, but... Ohhh, he gets me...
Dog head? Uh... Is that supposed to mean something to me? I don't think it smells like dog right now.
I browse further - Amber here, Iris there... Ouch! Bitten by the detergent in the nose! - Quickly what to recover... Where is my husband and his arm?
Yum! He's getting better and better.
Any analytical-olfactory skills, which I possess at times, have now said goodbye and I'm not even trying to identify anything here.
May I please just put me in?

We go home with two other fragrances - virtually for the price of this one. The Duke accompanies us only on the arm of my husband, while I underhook me on the other side and grapsche over every now and then.

When I next morning still the remains of the Duke on the arm next to me erschnuppere, I become beinah weak and seriously consider to move the departure until the perfumery opens and I can still acquire him. Or at least test it again. At home in the province, these bottles are rather not to be found ... so, should mean ... not at all.

Fortunately, there's something called Souk. So at least one bottling has made it to our home. And with the tempo, with which it goes to the Neige, I see it already coming: Sometime we come on the whole dog.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The scent: warm freshness? Yep, that works.

Overall, the fragrance brings for me in a very wonderful way opposites together, of which I previously did not even know that I would have liked to bring them together. At the same time, I experience it neither in a boring middle, nor in biting contrasts: warmth and freshness; bright juicy green with a hint of dry powder; the notes of a seasoned gentleman, which I could spray on a youngster at the same time, or like to wear them myself as a woman. And these different contrasting aspects do not follow each other here, they are there at the same time.

In general, I perceive no great development in the fragrance. (Which is very right for me, because I do not want to give any of its shares so really) After the more intense and spicy-fresh prelude, it becomes a bit more subdued. From the start, there's something comfortingly warm about it, which perhaps increases a bit as it progresses, while a green, citrusy freshness lingers until the end. If you want, you can associate quite a bit into it, which probably fits the whole gin idea. (I'm more of a whiskey guy, and there's a lot you can associate into it, after all!) At times I think kitchen spices - coriander? Herbs de Provence? - sometimes I think warm-moist spring leaves, sometimes maybe actually pepper, sometimes almost fruity - and at the core: juniper. --schmacht--

Juniper seems to be one of the fragrances that go with me through the nose directly into the brain stem and paralyze there everything that just thinks I have to make life difficult.
Vetiver is there rather a different caliber, which I often meet with skepticism. What attracts me to it but again and again, is this green, citrus freshness, which it often brings and the woody something. In the case of Portrait des Dukes, subtly woody, lemongrass-like notes rise from the base very soon, which I would most likely attribute to vetiver. And so beautiful my nose has never experienced them before.

Excuse me? Rose? Oh, yeah, right. Yes, that's there too. Objectively speaking, probably not too scarce either. (As I said: juniper. Shuts down everything else for me and catapults me somewhere else) But yes: rose. That's probably where my powder association comes from. It gives it a drier touch, perhaps also working in tandem with the vetiver. Reminds me actually rather of a still faintly fragrant and already slightly dried rose petal, which I pick up from the lawn, than of rose water or soap.

As a base smell im at the spray head actually most striking the rose; on the skin remains at the end of the most beautiful me so far encountered vetiver as the last.

Slight differences in nuances I perceive when I compare the fragrance on my skin and on that of my husband. Sometimes a bit heavier and warmer, sometimes a touch more sweetness... Overall, however, almost identical.

The projection is pretty decent, at least at first. When I come into the apartment, I know it immediately when my husband has indulged in a single spray an hour earlier. (Yes, the small bottling is hard fought...!) After that, it becomes rather close to the skin, is thus less noticeable, but keeps quite solid: A spray on the right and one on the left on my neck and my nose catches him until 8 hours later still now and then, but he remains overall already in the background. On the skin is then after about 10 hours conclusion.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusion: a fragrance composition that picks me up on many levels and thrilled. If he were only a little more energetic in his appearance and he would probably already move in, the charmer. So it will probably happen when I encounter a bargain.

I received a sample of this fragrance from a dear perfumer as an addition to the souk. (Thanks again at this point! :D) The given fragrance notes had already made me all tingly with excitement. Not to mention the name - both of the brand and the perfume. When I realize that I WANT to like a fragrance for whatever reason, it's usually a bad omen - disappointment is almost inevitable.
But! That could actually be different here...
In the meantime, it has been tested twice and since there is hardly anything about it here so far, I thought I'd try to find comprehensible words...

At the first snuff: undeniable enthusiasm! About the beautiful difference to the many perfume tests of more floral and fruity of late; perhaps also about the coffee note, which I experience so clearly for the first time in perfume.
(Was I actually in the perfume section of the orange drugstore chain recently and asked for a perfume with a coffee note and both ladies looked at me completely aghast - they'd never heard of such a thing! I beg your pardon? And all this time I thought I was clueless as a beginner...)
Anyway, coffee is present here, and in a very nice way for me: warm, soft, heavy - while keeping a touch of coolness, of fresh sharpness and dryness. This is definitely first coffee, not café. ;)
There's always a hint of something slightly sour that makes me wonder what it reminds me of.... As so often with this kind of development, I finally think of chocolate cherry pie for a moment, but that's not it. It's that sour touch that basically seems to develop quickly on my skin and always threatens to spoil pleasant perfumes for me.... (My suspect candidate is jasmine, possibly also labdanum.) But he holds himself here in both test runs so far in limits that it goes well and I can continue to indulge in the enthusiasm.

And then - after about an hour - it slowly gets sweeter.... Slowly... But steadily. Mmhhh.... :) Whereas up to now I've been sitting with my little coffee grinder on the windy, sunny autumn balcony, grinding beans, wafted by pleasantly cool fresh air with a hint of smoke from the distant neighbourhood mixed in now and then, I'm now slowly packing up and finally moving to a café where the smells of baked delicacies mingle with the coffee in the air and the spices of the chai tea at the neighbouring table. They use sugar a little more sparingly here than in some other bake shops. If I want the full on sweetness - preferably with a decent amount of vanilla - then I have to look elsewhere. Most of the time, though, the version offered here is exactly what I'm craving: there's still something tart, something spicy, something dark. That grounds and caresses at the same time.

And when I think about whether I would rather imagine the fragrance on a man or a woman, my brain reports "error" at some point, because the image jumps back and forth too quickly.

Bottom line: I wanted to like you so much. And I do - but hello!

This fragrance got a longer, multiple test run today with interesting results:

With me it presents itself floral green-fresh in the prelude and remains first very smooth-soft and stable.
The slightly tart-green (of the fig leaf? Assignment according to the exclusion principle, because honestly, I've never sniffed the leaves of a fig tree until now) then seamlessly transitions into a comparatively gentle vetiver. And that's where it stays.
Very unexcited, but in its insistence on this tart-fresh-green note for the sensation of my nose almost a little penetrating.

With my companion it seemed like a different perfume: In the prelude similar, but then clearly more development and thereby less "smooth": The flowers flash and play with the slightly tart green. Eventually, it gets noticeably woodier and warmer. The musk comes out, which seems to be completely hidden with me.
In this version a really nice thing - interesting without becoming too prominent, round without being boring.

Durability amazing, for the fact that only "Cologne" is on the bottle.

In my experience absolutely unisex - and somehow not so suitable for my skin..

Whoo!! Shock! Sweet! Sour! Gummy??
I'm confused. It's not just my thoughts escaping me - it's like the whole scent keeps disappearing, reappearing, disappearing again, there it is again...
Ohhh, damn! What is this? What does this remind me of??? Wood? Something very distantly woodsy?
My mind jumps to various faraway places...forest-sun-forest-sun...
It gets a bit more tart and somehow there's a note buzzing around me here that I can't place at all - so subtle and peculiar that I don't even know if it's from this perfume...
Every now and then I'm assailed by a very strangely confusing mixture of fruity and ... hm ... smoky? Is this smoky? Will it still be smoky? (I can't help thinking of church in between, Easter fires, incense, but only very distantly...)
Yep, that buzzing scent around me is definitely from the perfume, sweet-fruity, but so distant, so alienated...

So much for the first impression.

When my jumbled thoughts can sort themselves out a bit and think straight again, I decide to approach it from the "official" side:
Aha! A look at the fragrance pyramid clarifies: Labdanum = a resin (that should explain the forest association), which is also gladly smoked (na? smokes it?) and is extracted from various species of cistus in the Mediterranean - especially from the Cretan (Ha! Here I can perhaps classify the sunny travel feeling)
Metallic - that would also be a fitting description. Every now and then flashes a smell like in the past, when my hand slipped around an iron climbing pole for a long time. And lo and behold, the official description actually says: "A scent that is at once reminiscent of tanned skin and skin cooled by metal." :O Well, hello! So a khandjar is a dagger. Learned something again.

After about 20 minutes, I notice the first touch of vanilla. The sweetness before then was probably more plum, if I take a look at the official notes. Yes, the comparisons with plum brandy I can increasingly understand... If I now still knew how Ylang Ylang smells... And sandalwood I also still do not know well enough to be able to identify it I'm afraid... Does not matter. There's enough to discover in there as it is. I can't stop sniffing, it's so fascinating! Each time it smells somehow different - and yet always similar. And again and again it sighs in me with pleasure, before I then, nevertheless, something zurückcke if it becomes too intensive.

After an hour or so, the whole thing has finally settled on a comparatively stable resinous-sweetish mixture with a sour touch, which is always on the verge of disturbing me, but then keeps politely smiling in the background. And it gets darker. "Easter Mass" is now quite present as an association, but without the classic incense, but with something else ... something "behind" it ... That smell in the dark, as if warming from within, when the Easter candle is carried into the cold, dark church and - slowly, pew by pew - more and more timid flames flare up, sending comforting shivers down the spine of the child listening as if spellbound, while familiar, strange sounds resonate through the stone hall. And as the tension eases with time and my excited little heart calms, it becomes comfortingly warm in that scent. And that lasts. Sublime!

Would I wear it? Hm... I can imagine days when it would be just right for me; when I feel like sitting wrapped in a warm coat at the dark edge of the action and watch people in peace of mind, without wanting to interfere; when nothing pushes me; when I'm just there - right there! - while people come and go and I exchange friendly words, a smile here and there - and that's all it takes to be satisfied. Then I would wear it with relish!
Most of the time, though, I'd rather let him hold me. That way I'd be well prepared for a bone-chillingly cold night by the Easter fire.
For now, it's autumn.
That's all right. For the I am also well prepared with it.
And for the winter.
Long enough lingers the fragrance always.

Meanwhile, I say goodbye.
Thanks for reading!