My signature scent.
My first encounter with African Leather was rather negative. I thought on my first wearing that it was harsh, medicinal, skanky, and altogether unpleasant. I wondered what the hell I would do with a 10ml decant of a juice that smelled this gnarly. But I had reacted similarly to fragrances in the past and changed my mind - Reflection Man, for instance, which at first blush reminded me of a bottle of Le Male smothered with talcum powder, or Pure Tonka, Pure Havane, and L'Instant de Guerlain EDP, all of which I disliked for their dominant use of patchouli, a note I now adore - so despite feeling rather blasé about African Leather, I decided to give it another go.
That's when the magic happened. Something clicked, something changed, who knows, but suddenly African Leather started to smell downright amazing. It wasn't long before I became utterly addicted and enraptured by it, and for basically an entire month back in the spring of 2019, I wore it almost every single day. Hot, cold, rain, shine - no matter. For me it was African Leather all the way. I often thought to myself, "You're wearing this too much...You only have 10mls." Yet I was powerless to stop myself, and watched in dismay as the juice level fell with a terrifying rapidity day-by-day. As I had long suspected, and to my great horror, the moment came at the end of that month of wonder when I held up my decant to the twilit sky and was greeted not by the shimmering, aureate glow of African Leather, but by a vast, yawning emptiness. What light was left in that star-crossed gloaming died. Night fell, and so too did my spirits, sprawling into darkness as if weighted with a lode of iron.
I knew that it would be a while before I would be able to get a bottle. Even at a discount, the price is still high, especially for a 75ml bottle. And it was a long time (around a year), before I was able to gather together the taels to finally get it. At long last, the bottle sits before me in the gilded half-light as the rain falls softly outside, its golden embossed face plate glimmering warmly, if not seductively, as if the cheetah decorating it has come to life and begun to beckon to me with a menacing purr. "I have you," I whisper to it in the gloom, gently stroking the thick black glass, feeling its weight in my sweating and expectant palms...
Apologies for that rather embarrassing screed. Allow me to now enumerate some particulars about the scent profile itself.
Performance from my bottle isn't the greatest unfortunately - I get about 5 hours of longevity with pretty decent projection and sillage for the first hour, which is definitely less than my decant, which got me through a whole workday and beyond. I'm hoping that that changes, and my bottle simply needs time to macerate. But even if it didn't, I would still be a relentless crack fiend for this fragrance.
For me, a 10/10
