scenting gloves: PARFUMERIE GENERALE Cuir d'Iris

I'm sure it's antiquated and pretentious and everything, but I got some nice gloves and I think I'm going to scent them. Well, I already did -- with Parfumerie Générale Cuir d'Iris.

It is the exact smell-replica of my gloves! There are more notes to Cuir d'Iris than 'perfect leather accord' but they get more or less lost to me, in its note-perfect reproduction of soft, supple, compulsively strokable leather. Cold sniff of it is light, clean, and medicinal, and on my gloves, it is a little brighter and fruity-sweetish, but on my skin, it turns into a more animalic leather, though not too aggressive and not at all acrid, with a too-brief early-exit cameo by a dry iris, some smokiness from incense, and much later, a barely traceable residual chocolatey-ambery afterglow -- but these are mostly offstage and the main show, clearly, is the cuir. It isn't something I would frequently wear myself (though it is not difficult to wear), not being very good with leathers this neat or predominant, but it is just the thing to intensify the 'natural' scent of my gloves so that I can admire them all the more.

The official list of notes also includes cardamom, vetiver, woods, and Rhizophora tannin, besides the aforementioned elements. I wouldn't know. All I know is that it is the most perfect leather, realistic enough for a hint of mortality but soft enough not to be a beast. I can quite see why gloves might be a fetishistic item.

And now, I think I'll go add a drop of Coup de Fouet to the inside wrist on them...
















top left image: Strawbridge & Clothier Quarterly, Winter 1885-6; view entire issue at digitalchangeling.com.
above image (repeated) from shootingstarhistory.com.
left image: Prestige Hong Kong, cover June 2007. Check out Zhang's gloves. Damn.