Blacks Club Leather 
Shay & Blue (2014)

First thing's first, Shay & Blue London is what I like to call "Nouveau-Niche", or a niche house founded in response to the interest in higher-priced and more-exclusive perfumes rather than one born from any true desire for artistic expression via perfume and whatnot. Shay & Blue London is the brainchild of former Chanel Senior Vice President Dom de Vetta, who was also Global General Manager of Jo Malone London before he decided to take his ball and go home. So many executives with zero knowledge of how perfume is made end up taking this "I can do it better" path, and it does get tiresome, especially when they end up hiring a nose then asking them to make pretty much slightly less-derivative versions of all the same stuff already on the market, just with a higher price, a heavier bottle, and a puff piece to sell it. Blacks Club Leather (2014) really is not so different than that unfortunately, and it smells like something that could sell for $60 in a mall boutique (or $20 from Avon), but amped a bit in strength and going for $140+ instead. The official market copy reads: "Sophisticated, tasteful, avant-garde, traditional, egalitarian. These are all words that apply equally to Black's Club, the renowned members-only club in London's Soho district." Let me stop you right there. Egalitarian and members-only do not really get along well when describing the same thing, like rich Hollywood fake-progressives that pretend to have everyone's interests at heart but lunge for their lawyers on speeddial the instant someone asks them to be as charitable as they say they are.

The basic gist of Blacks Club Leather is to be a cleaned up and polished leather scent of some strength and character, just without the winching animal growl of classics like Hermès Bel Ami (1986). Since oakmoss is untenable and isobutyl quinoline out-of-fashion as a leather note, that really just leaves the usual soft suede smell of modern ambery leathers or the bootstrap and raspberries shtick of Tom Ford, but Shay & Blue doesn't go that way. Instead, they actually serve up something which to me doesn't feel like a leather scent at all, opting to use the same medicinal compounds as most designer oud-themed fragrances, stirring in some heavy woodyamber aromachemicals, and then gussy it up in the usual way these houses do. Problem is, I've smelled this before too many times, just not in a "leather" scent. The opening reminds me very much of Yves Saint Laurent M7 (2002), or at least the "oud note" element of it, surrounded by some peppery notes. There is a "boozy" cognac note in the heart but to me that just smells like sugar in contrast to the grit on display in the opening, until it is followed by some kind of benzoin and ambrocenide/amber xtreme style molecule. Bogart One Man Show Oud Edition (2014) uses a bit of this, but luckily focuses more on the leather and oud aspects, while Avon Premiere Luxe Oud (2017) goes in more of a peppery traditional amber direction. Any "leather" that is supposed to be here just isn't, but this isn't bad. Wear time is over 10+ hours and sillage is steady, even if projection is thankfully not enormous. You know the drill, winter use or formal use, because this is a woody punch to the face if not used carefully. High heat in particular would make this mighty scratchy and unbearable, and may feel a bit too stiff for casual use.

I like Shay & Blue London Blacks Club Leather, and might even love it if it wasn't called a leather scent, but points must be deducted for delivering a very synthetic smell that comes across like the seventh son of a seventh son to M7 or even Gucci pour Homme (2002) from the Tom Ford era of LVMH. Shay & Blue has a lot of renown product in their catalog, and house perfumer Julie Massé is a talented woman, but this is perhaps unintentionally an insult because of the delivery. In essence, we have a scent named after a frou-frou gentleman's club in London, claiming to be a leather fragrance, smelling like a cut-rate synthetic woodyamber typically identified as "oud" instead, but still somehow coming out pleasant, solid-performing, and elegant if unoriginal. Again, if this was shopped by a mailorder house like Jafra or Oriflame, all would be forgiven, or even perhaps as the latest Zara Intense-Something fragrance, but it's in a Shay & Blue bottle and goes for the price of anything Montale sells at retail, which is a deal-breaker. If you are a collector of the house, this may be worth sampling, but if you're looking for something of this style, you have tons of more-affordable options. Likewise, if you're looking for a leather scent, you won't find one here so don't get burned by diving in blind, but if you like it, you could do far worse. I'll spare this one the axe because objectively it is nicely constructed, it just talks "the talk" of niche then fails to deliver on the promise of its own market copy, especially when the brand overall gets hyped to death by influencers on social media. Neutral