Russian Leather

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Russian Leather is the leather style the trade also calls Cuir de Russie. It is built on rectified birch tar, so it is smoky and animalic in the way plain leather is. What sets it apart is a floral heart. Rose and jasmine run through the accord and soften the tar without covering it.

Scent Profile

Russian Leather leads with tanned leather and dense birch-tar smoke, and with the tar's own carbolic, creosote edge under it. Under that smoke sits a clear animalic warmth, read by one reviewer as sweaty and close to fecal at full strength. Over it sits the floral heart that names the style: rose gives a rounded floral body, and jasmine adds a white-floral lift. A soft creamy edge and a light warm spice sit between the two halves, and a thin resinous sweetness comes with the tar. A trace of citrus is reported on the opening of finished perfumes in this style.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~36h lasting

Family Amber · Musk · Leather, Woody & Earthy, Floral

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

The style is named after Russia leather, a hide cured with birch tar. Perfume Shrine records the traditional process: tanners softened dried hide with birch tar and the fat of sea animals, and rubbed silver birch into Cossack riding boots to keep the wet out. The perfumery material is a compounded base, not a distillate of hide. Rectified birch tar carries the smoke, and rose and jasmine are built over it. Fraterworks sells it as a classical leather base. No manufacturer datasheet from Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF or Symrise was found for it.

Usage in Perfumery

Used as a base to give a composition a smoky, worn-leather floor that still has a floral heart. Fraterworks calls it a sweeter alternative to raw birch tar smoke, so it is the choice when tar alone would be too harsh. It sits under rose, jasmine, iris and spice, and it is the signature of the classical leather chypre.