Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of Dior Leather Oud, AdP Leather and AdP Oud

[DerangedGoose]

I've been on a leather kick lately, and have gone through most of the offerings where leather is a prominent or strong note. Recently I sampled Floris' Leather Oud and Mahon Leather. Mahon Leather had too much of a mulled wine thing going on (the notes mention Calent, and that is basically what Calent is, anyway).

Leather Oud, on the other hand, had a pleasant "processed leather" vibe to it, like new leather seats or high end leather goods. The oud characteristic gives it a somewhat "rubbery" smell, which is responsible for the feeling that you are smelling brand new worked leather that has not yet acquired the smells of labor and environment.

In a way, it seems to sit squarely between AdP Leather and AdP oud. It doesnt have the "wetter" feel that AdP Leather has (from the citrus). Supposedly the Floris has citrus, but I didnt really get any (I have a carded sample, so its possible those notes have gone off, despite only being a year old). I did get florals and leather, with the dark, dry vibe that AdP Oud has.

Overall, this is a more "dry" middle ground between AdP Leather and AdP Oud. Definitely worth a sample (you can get samples free from Floris' website, I dont know if they ship to the US_

I cant comment on sillage or longevity yet, Floris bills this as an EDP

 

[hednic]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

Thanks for sharing your observations.

 

[sjg3839]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

Will have to get a sample. Interesting

 

[DoctorM81]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

This was on my radar anyway but your comparisons have got me even more interested!

 

[remik]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

Does anyone know - is this a re-release, new packaging, or reformulation...? I'm not familiar with the history of this one, but I recall seeing Floris Leather Oud in gold boxes, not black like in the picture posted by the OP.

 

[Indaco]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

Does anyone know - is this a re-release, new packaging, or reformulation...? I'm not familiar with the history of this one, but I recall seeing Floris Leather Oud in gold boxes, not black like in the picture posted by the OP.

The black box with the little ribbon handle fits over the gold box, which in turn holds the bottle.

 

[Indaco]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

I remember seeing something about this upon its release, but knowing nothing about Floris, quickly forgot about it. My wife pulled me into their Jermyn St shop yesterday and when I saw Leather Oud, I knew what I had to sample first. The leather and oud accords are very similar to those in Dior's Leather Oud, but here they are presented in a much more approachable and wearable manner. This could be partly from the citrus that the OP mentions as listed in the notes. Sillage seems to be quite good, although I can't yet comment on longevity.

 

[remik]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

The black box with the little ribbon handle fits over the gold box, which in turn holds the bottle.

Ah, perfect - thank you for clarifying! I'll have to sample this one. I own a bottle of Floris Vetiver and love its earthy, woody notes, and their Leather Oud sounds delicious as well.

 

[DerangedGoose]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

Ah, perfect - thank you for clarifying! I'll have to sample this one. I own a bottle of Floris Vetiver and love its earthy, woody notes, and their Leather Oud sounds delicious as well.

I have been wearing this often lately. I seem to have hit a point where I wear anything regardless of weather, but I dont wear gourmands or heavy orientals, so maybe I can get away with more in the heat.

Anyway, this performs well in the ~85-90 ish days we have been having. I cant comment for certain on its similarity to Dior's Leather Oud (which I am eager to try), but I can say the Floris is a VERY smooth combined leather-oud note. I like that it is almost creamy, but not powdery and has no sweetness. Ill reiterate and say that it really does smell like brand new worked leather, ready to be broken in.

 

[Franco65]

on a leather kick, always....
just got Floris Leather Oud last saturday good duration and good sillage in full Floris style an edp but an edt in performance
while Mahone Leather was a flop for my likings, an edt with edc performance

AdP Leather is okay

the ultimate Leather Kick in this vibe is Dior Leather Oud....but it may be too strong and funky for those heart fainted

the ultimate Leather is Tuscan Leather or Clive Christian C which is basically the same...just more expensive...
enjoy your L:smiley:eather trip!

 

[DerangedGoose]

Revisiting this one after several months away; great performance! Projection 8-10 hours, a strong skin scent at 12.

Ive forgotten how polished this comes off. Like the glistening black leather of a high end jacket, or a brand new car. It is clean, smooth, and purposeful. It is almost "serious" in its bitterness and absence of sweetness, but it is not dry/dusty/powdery at all, but creamy/smooth.

Fans of leather - oud combos are encouraged to check this one out. There is no skank to be had; its all class.

 

[Ken_Russell]

Thanks for the recommendation, decided to test this asap

 

[ION-ONE]

Great frag IMO - and off the radar of most on Basenotes. The best I've Smelt from the House of Floris!
See if their website enables free samples to your Country

 

[Jardanel]

Re: Floris Leather Oud - good for lovers of AdP Leather and AdP Oud

I have been wearing this often lately. I seem to have hit a point where I wear anything regardless of weather, but I dont wear gourmands or heavy orientals, so maybe I can get away with more in the heat.

Anyway, this performs well in the ~85-90 ish days we have been having. I cant comment for certain on its similarity to Dior's Leather Oud (which I am eager to try), but I can say the Floris is a VERY smooth combined leather-oud note. I like that it is almost creamy, but not powdery and has no sweetness. Ill reiterate and say that it really does smell like brand new worked leather, ready to be broken in.

Personally, I would not wear the Dior Leather Oud on a hot day, but I can see someone else choosing it, as long it was hot and dry. I tend to think it would be a tad "much" in damp heat.

I've worn the ADP Leather in hot dry early autumn weather and it was perfection!

I'm going to try the Floris - thank you for the encouraging descriptions.

 

[The Bark]

There are no real similarities between this and Dior's Leather Oud. There's hardly anything, wait, let me rephrase - there's nothing animalic about this fragrance. It's a soft leather, probably more akin to suede or the leather you find in Ferrari Leather Essence. In fact, it's almost non-existent*. It's a nice scent and I can see it being worn during warmer weather, but something like Yurman's Limited Edition has both more oud and leather (along with rose and raspberry) than this, though it's not really fair to compare the two because Yurman's has the fruity/floral aspect going on - it's just that those two components are much more evident there than here (the rose/carnation note in Floris's Leather Oud is somewhat present in the mid notes, but it's just much different feeling). Dior's Leather Oud is way too smokey, raw and stuffy to wear during the summer (I tried it once for kicks). I actually found Floris Honey Oud to be more interesting.

*The leather is actually a top note and realistic in presentation, but it doesn't last that long and the fragrance gives way to patchouli (mid) that gives it the same feel of Ferrari Leather.

 

[slpfrsly]

In a way, it seems to sit squarely between AdP Leather and AdP oud.

Overall, this is a more "dry" middle ground between AdP Leather and AdP Oud.

I think your assessment is spot on. Reading reviews for this, I was expecting something above the norm, but it's using the same leather accord and same synthetic oud accord that's been used by most mainstream oud and/or leather fragrances for the last decade. It's great if you really wished Tuscan Leather was mixed with the oud note you find in Oud Wood, AdP Oud etc. But on that basis, it just seems like a 'niche remix' of existing scents, which has been the norm for boutique brands for a while. Overall, I'm disappointed, but perhaps that is my fault for (once again) forgetting to disregard the more ebullient reviews before smelling a fragrance. I will give it a few wearings and see if I warm to it.

 

[Brooks Otterlake]

In a way, it seems to sit squarely between AdP Leather and AdP oud. It doesnt have the "wetter" feel that AdP Leather has (from the citrus).

That's not a terribly wrong characterization, but it's of a noticeably higher quality than the ADPs. Floris Leather Oud is rounder, fuller.

Other fragrances in a similar vein to the Floris include Dunhill British Leather, Durga Notorious Oud, Beaufort London Iron Duke, but I'll give the Floris a good lead over any of those.

What makes Floris Leather Oud my favorite modern leather is the way the leather and oud accords add in a lovely medicinal smoke to that lovely, gentlemanly, crisp carnation, which is really the star of the show. On a personal note, this is the only perfume to evoke the aroma of a restaurant I used to frequently visit; it was somewhat rustic and set within an indoor nursery, with the aroma of cool greenery and flowers hanging in the air.

Leather Oud's floral note doesn't tip into rose, IMO, and the contrast is clean if you try it alongside its flanker, Honey Oud. Honey Oud does push into full-on rose-oud-vanilla, and is a touch less interesting to me as a result, even if the honey note is one of the best around.

Floris Leather Oud's clean, tastefully constructed saddle leather here to be the most polished example of a modern-style saddle leather that I have encountered, and it blends seamlessly with the oud into a single accord. The oud in Floris Leather Oud is pretty much the same one used in the aforementioned Durga's Notorious Oud, but if you've smelled that one and try this, you'll recognize what the leather is bringing to the party and how it rounds things out.

All in all, a lovely "old world" gloss on contemporary tropes, with a tailored, slightly aloof, formal posturing that feels quintessentially British.

The downside is that Floris Leather Oud's formality makes it feel a bit stuffy. While compositionally it's more commendable than either of the following, I more readily reach for ADP Leather and its Honey Oud flanker, which are more approachable and versatile.

 

[Varanis Ridari]

I have yet to sample any Floris scents. It's an impossible task without buying a bunch of decant or flying to the UK (the latter being something I'd love to do anyway if I was rich since mom's side is from there).

 

[ION-ONE]

Floris is a potential sleeping giant of a house - bags of potential with a bit of a marketing, branding and distribution push. A heritage that many (more expensive)houses seem desperate to engineer.

Anyway; one needs to be careful what one wishes for

 

[Brooks Otterlake]

I have yet to sample any Floris scents. It's an impossible task without buying a bunch of decant or flying to the UK (the latter being something I'd love to do anyway if I was rich since mom's side is from there).

There used to be a UK importer that carried very extensive sample sets for Floris (which was how I initially found my bearings with the house), but last I checked it was no longer available.

 

[woodnotes55]

I have yet to sample any Floris scents. It's an impossible task without buying a bunch of decant or flying to the UK (the latter being something I'd love to do anyway if I was rich since mom's side is from there).

There was someone selling sample sets of 8 or 10 at a reasonable price, that's how I got the ouds... but he seems to have run out. As to impossible, maybe not, I don't have full bottles of either of those, but have several of their more known fragrances plus a few oddballs and vintage..... if you want to try some of those send a pm....

 

[slpfrsly]

Floris is a potential sleeping giant of a house - bags of potential with a bit of a marketing, branding and distribution push. A heritage that many (more expensive)houses seem desperate to engineer.

Anyway; one needs to be careful what one wishes for

I actually think that's exactly what has happened in the last 10-15 years.

Many of these old British perfumers/shaving companies effectively went tits up after the war and the end of the Empire. I think that was true of Penhaligon's and is probably the case for Trumper's, Floris, Taylor Bond St etc. A quick wiki search seems to suggest as much. I got the impression a lot of them clung on through the decline before relaunching in the 80s when Britain went global, and then were bought out by multinationals in the 90s/00s, after which they're now basically windowdressing/a facade of what they once were. The shaving companies sell ridiculously overpriced grooming tat, like a shit leather washbag for £300 or whatever. I cannot imagine who is buying this. Ridiculously gullible foreign tourists? Surely not, at least not in any great number. It almost has the hallmark of money laundering (I am not suggesting it is, only that the quality to price is ridiculous for a lot of their inventory).

Like Penhaligons, Floris is basically just a node of the big perfume octopus, where one tentacle deals with the 'classy, old world, establishment' brands, another does the Med houses with their dolce vita styling, another the boutique niche Eurabic oriental etc. In other words, it's all basically coming from the same source, but they retain a certain house...I wouldn't go as far as style, let alone signature, but maybe something like flourish or colouring. I think they do this a lot, running two houses almost as sister companies.

Anyway, Floris seems to get the antiquated 'trad' thing that caters to those wanting to fuck the 21st century off on the one hand, but revel in its indulgences on the other. This guy is a good example: the whole world is ditching formal dress, status is increasingly becoming casual/disconnected from formality, and this guy's LARPing in complete contradiction to all of this. In a way, I think that might be the 'new' Floris/Penhaligon's customer. They want tradition, they want reliability, they want something established, but they won't really find it in these companies. Floris is as British as Nando's, after all i.e. it has Portuguese heritage and is now well and truly 'global', it just so happens to operate in the UK!

And you see that in Floris Oud. There is nothing unique or original about it. It is quite literally using the exact accords/ingredients you can find in Tuscan Leather and Oud Wood, or at least the fundamental aspect of each of those scents. It's an aroma that I'm surprised I haven't seen replicated exactly more often given how similar it is to so many scents in its parts. I do think I encountered it before, but in a much more niche fragrance, and not done as well. Christian something? I can't remember. Maybe there are others I'm not remembering, but oh well, it seems like it's done an obvious thing that I would have thought would be more common. In fact, I'm forgetting Ombre Nomade by LV. Now, it doesn't have anything like the sweetness or strength of ON, or the 'sexy' smell which is just great, but you could see this as a stepping stone on the way to ON being made, definitely. I'm not sure where LV sits in relation to these brands specifically, but ON is very much a TL + OW scent as well, so definitely related.

Anyway, it's not bad at all, and a clever one to bring out. I see it came out in 2014, which makes sense. Right at the pinnacle of the oud craze. But it's not higher quality, unique, or anything like that. The oud is what you'd find in Oud Wood, Carved Oud, and Versace's designer oud: so the same smell at three different prices. It creates a nice, fairly simplistic, 'brown' smell - not in a bad way - which is something I really lament is in short supply in the fragrance world. It doesn't overuse ambroxan or amber or anything like that - the obligatory 'gentleman' styling you won't find in other synthetic ouds from Ralph, TF, Versace, Gucci etc - so probably wins points for that, but it's ostensibly like stripping away the supporting notes from Tuscan Leather (particularly the sweetness) and Oud Wood, cleaning it up a bit, adding more brightness, and a bit of an aromatic flourish, and there you go.

Having said all of this, I think I sound a little critical. But I don't dislike it. I'd say it's more the total fatigue (and incredulity) of sampling so many leathers and ouds and finding them to be practically identical/doing the same thing. I'm not quite sure who this really caters for as it's still quite a pungent/dark/rich scent - hardly the kind of subtle thing you can slap on and forget about. But presumably it will find a small, presumably enthusiast, group of customers. For the most part, it seems to be very much a "here's this oud, you need another one, everyone has an oud, it's 2014 and everyone's doing it, it will sell like hotcakes" job. It's quite hard to see how it will stand the test of time but it has a better chance than 95% of these synthetic ouds made by other houses, purely because it doesn't go mental on the cypriol and/or amber and/or ambroxan in the base. It definitely wins points for wearability then. I'll keep wearing it and see how I feel. Maybe I will talk myself out and come round to liking it/buying a bottle! 😆

Oh, and final point on branding of Floris etc, my point was they basically have become a big/well known brand in the last decade or so. What they don't want to do is become like a Bond No. 9, or even a Creed, by chasing the cash and dumbing down too much/too fast and end up with a clientele that diminishes their status/desirability among the long term target market. I don't think they can go much bigger because that's not their role in the market; they're basically making a lot of quite nice/refined versions of existing scents. How many are 'clones'? They have an Aventus, Gucci Envy, Italian Cypress, Tuscan Leather/Oud Wood - that's the ones I know of off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more. So they're not really in a position to innovate/come out with a leading fragrance, as maybe Creed once did, but they can wait a few years and end up with a potentially tidier/more affordable version of what Tom Ford put on the market 3-4 years earlier. That has its place, definitely. I'm not knocking it, because when you take it at the level of product, if you end up with a better/equal but different scent to something like Italian Cypress, that's a great result, particularly for basenoters who are starved for that sort of scent. But I can't really see where they can expand to without really hurting the brand. They are already releasing a shit load of scents each year, too many probably, and have discontinued several that have been on the market for less than a decade. I'd imagine they sell a lot to foreigners visiting London, so go for a mix of reliability/"accessibility" with conservatism that perhaps appeals more to Euro or American customers. In short, to try to go much bigger would be to destroy the purpose they exist - I think.