Cuir de Russie
Anna Zworykina Perfumes

I know that for many aficionados, Chanel's Cuir de Russie is the gold standard for the Cuir de Russie leather accord in perfumery. I beg to differ. For me, this is the gold standard. Anna Zworikyna's Cuir de Russie. From Russia with love.
Oh, and yes. I owned an 80's flacon of the first, so I have gone the vintage route before making this statement.
This version is the Parfum Extrait, which I much prefer over the EDP, as with all of Anna's works. The blending here is of an alchemy level, and the depth, the richness of the composition, are bottomless. All natural ingredients, so the olfactory spectrum just gets stretched beyond what synthetic molecules could possibly offer.
The pure parfum reveals the Cuir de Russie accord as soon as you spray it, and it dominates the show, the rest of the elements are just playing their fleeting part in the story. It is so well done, so finely tuned that it makes others look amateurish. The birch wood aroma is warm and slightly sweet, and the smokiness is just perfect, never too powerful, nor too soft. The castoreum usage here is my favorite of any perfume. Sweet, animalic, leathery, oily, and with a perceivable chewiness. These two essential notes for building a Cuir de Russie accord are not just exploited to the maximum, but cleverly embellished with auxiliary notes to create something far beyond a simple leather perfume. There is an aromatic, bracing, and bitter-green opening lifting the composition with the help of absinth and galbanum, maybe artemisia. And from the green aromatic burst, it shifts to delicate floral nuances in the heart, difficult to pinpoint, but easy to appreciate in their sumptuous beauty. And to the base, there is a significant addition of oakmoss, providing a beautiful inky-bitterness and velvety touch. It is a leather perfume of many facets. Aromatic-green, floral, and mossy. It might even be considered a leather-chypre, as the oakmoss is quite prominent. But it is woven so well that one can only taste the various flavors, see the colors, and feel the textures, but never separate them. The blending, quality, and complexity are first-class.
As a lover of leather, I have many favorites. And this genre has so many subcategories, as this accord can be exploited in many ways. But as far as the Cuir de Russie leather accord goes, this is the bar for me.

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