Skin IN THE GAME

What does the bag you wear on your arm have in common with the perfume you spray on the nape of your neck? We'll let you in on a little secret.

- APRIL LONG

There’s something ineffably tantalizing about the scent of leather. The warm, velvety smell of a new handbag’s untouched interior; the grassy, chestnutty aroma of an old book binding; the horsey tang of a weathered saddle. Leather has an umami-like olfactive deliciousness, but it also offers up a whiff of... What is that? Sex? Danger? Money?

Although distilling the smell of actual leather is possible—Louis Vuitton perfumer Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud achieved it, pairing a bespoke leather infusion with raspberry and osmanthus in the masterful Mille Feux—virtually all leather notes in perfumery are created from other ingredients. Resins gathered from styrax and labdanum shrubs, birch and juniper tar, essential oils of cassia and everlasting flower, not to mention an alphabet soup of synthetic molecules, can all be used to create a sort of trompe-nez effect, conjuring the impression of leather without using the material itself. But what is perhaps most interesting is why we want to smell this way at all.