Parfums Retro Grand Cuir – debut at the LA Scentsation!

My darlings!  Can you believe it?  In just a few days I’ll be in LA for the (drum roll, please)

I’m just TOO excited!  I’m sending all our unneeded rain out to the West Coast so we don’t get smoked out – we really, really don’t need it.Really!  The floodwaters are receding  here and Floyd knows LA could use it so off you go, rain!    I’m so excited to see good friends and meet new ones, like the uber-fabulous …and sniff new and wonderful perfumes and slap on new Beauty stuff that will transform me into a fabulous combination of Halle Berry, JLo and Helen Mirren in .043 seconds…oh, it’s going to be magical!

The new perfumes will be the most fun to try – and one of them is Grand Cuir by Parfums Retro.  The tagline is “a leather with soul’.   They break the notes down into Four Parts.

The opening (Part One) is a ‘leather illusion’ :  cistus-labdanum, clary sage and birch tar rectified combine to create  a shimmering leather…well, ‘illusion’ really is an excellent way to describe it.  It’s the smell of having run a white cotton glove over a rough leather jacket.  The cotton mutes the oiliness of the crudely tanned hide – it’s an interesting juxtaposition that is different from the smooth suedes we associate with scents like Daim Blonde or Cuir de Russie… Grand Cuir skirts Kelly Caleche territory but where I get specific floral notes in Kelly Caleche, in Grand Cuir I get cold cream.

It took me 3 wearings to figure out what that note was because it’s such an unusual pairing.  The leather ‘illusion’ actually floats above the cold cream note, rather than the other way around, which is what I would’ve expected.  It’s a very different leather scent, very difficult to pin down and all the more intriguing because of that.

I was trying to figure out how the cold cream note came about – maybe the carnation in Part Two?  (notes: orange flower, geranium, lavender, violet leaf, carnation, rose)

Part three is cinnamon leaf oil and tarragon, which give me no cold cream clues – but they are reminiscent of bay rum aftershaves in old barbershops.  I love the smell of old barbershops, with the Barbicide and Barbasol and bay rum…I get a little hint of that in Grand Cuir, which gives it a clean twist (not the dreaded ‘fresh’  – just the feeling of being pulled together and polished).

Grand Cuir finishes with a base of pine moss, musk sandalwood, patchouli and rosewood oil.    I have a little bottle of gorgeous rosewood EO and I can smell the rosewood in this perfume  – it also builds on the barbershop/cold cream note.

I am really intrigued by this scent!  I like it because it’s not a heavy leather scent.  Not that I don’t LOVE me some heavy leathers – you all know me, the Handmaiden at the Temple of Leather Love. But it’s nice to have a scent that dances around the notion of leather.

Everybody on The Bus will get a chance to try this!  Parfums Retro is giving each Guest (with a Capital G) a 3.75ml dram of this new scent, so you can smell for yourselves – is there a leather/ cold cream vibe or is Musette nuts!  I think you’ll like it as much as I do!  It will be introduced at Scent Bar during the LA Scentsation!  How much fun is that?!

FIVE DAYS!!!!!

squeeee!!!