Cuir Obscur
Byredo (2016)

First wearing of Byredo Cuir Obscur, a Harrods-exclusive release from 2016 that still remains difficult to find in the US (I'd not even heard about it until recently), fittingly a leather-centric fragrance that has a semi-animalic, semi-dry quality to it while involving rose, amaretto, and patchouli. It has herbal, floral, boozy, and smoky qualities to it.

It's pretty well balanced but lands fairly sharp and heady for a couple hours to start despite having a mellifluous notes, even the sweet amaretto and musk. Overall, it's a nice leather offering with the variety of contributing notes and does calm down quite a bit after several hours of wearing despite being very strong–too strong in the leather/patchouli/nutmeg, perhaps–in the opening.

It feels more like a “like” than a “love” after reapplying a bit to experience the opening again, but it's definitely a unisex (perhaps slightly masculine) winter choice that I think many will like, so I'd recommend trying it if you come by it.

It's priced at a modest-for-the-brand $198 for 100ml (considering that for US customers, it needs to be shipped from the UK, presumably) and that pricing seems reasonable for the product, a very useful cold weather fragrance.

7 out of 10