Cuir Intense
Guerlain (2019)

Osmanthus Cuir

Beast mode melt your face all day long baby. Except, when people look for beast mode they also want it to smell nice. This is a cuir, so it's not overly nice.
It opens with that peachy apricot osmanthus smell and tan leather, with the tanning chemicals still on it. You know how some of the modern leathers take that black leather and aggressive ly chemical it up with medicinals and herbs to make it spiky and pungent,? This is the tan leather version of that, with apricot in the opening.
Lasts too long, read days. Projects too heavy. Nice bottle.

The whole line has an aggressive theme under it that is probably love it or hate it.
I feel like this is a fragrance without a home. Its not mass pleasing enough to attract young beau's, and it's too loud and aggressively chemical for older folks. I like the smell in the opening, it's just too strong for me at the end of the day.

Same leather note as that in Montale's Aoud Cuir d'Arabie, but this is a much more polite composition. Much prefer the Montale.

The leather is there in full force straight from the word “go.” It is a direct leather that is neither very smooth nor harsh; and I get neither any gasoline note not any significant heavy sweetness - this is not Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille.

The drydown adds some Osmanthus, which adds additional smoothness as well as touches of a musky aroma as well as an undercurrent of fresh almond of a very restrained sweetness.

The leather still being well present, the base adds a woodsiness that combines impressions of possibly Karmawood-related sawdust aromas with some ambery cedarwood, with latter not displaying much of a pencil shave element.

I get moderate sillage, excellent projection and a splendid longevity of ten hours on my skin.

A pleasant an unobtrusive autumn scent that is very much in the middle of things, not very sweet nor very harsh. A bit generic at times. Overall 2.75/5

Beautiful warm leather, as the name indicates. It is a strong performer with heavy projection in the first 4-6 hours, and still has moderate projection 18 hours after spraying. I could still smell it as a subtle skin scent after 4 days and several showers (spray it on clothes, and it will never go away!).
That said, it's pretty linear from opening til the end, and not unseen before. This one may not be identical to AdP Colonia (Oud/Leather/Ambra) but it shares for sure some similarities with the AdPs, probably because of the huge load of norlimbanol. Still, Guerlain CI may be my favourite of the 4.

Well blended? yes, definitely.
Unique? definitely not.
Bold? No. (While not office safe because of its heavy projection, it's a crowdpleasing leather, that even a woman could pull off. No Dior Fahrenheit or ELdO Rien here, but that was expected from Guerlain)
Will I buy? Yes, but $150-200 is still a little bit steep for what it is. I will wait a couple of years that it hits discounters around $100, like Oud Essentiel and Santal Royal are now retailing for - the fair price imo.

Note that the pyramid is incomplete:
Top: osmanthus, ylang-ylang
Heart: leather, musk
Base: tobacco, cedar, sandalwood