Oriental Leather
Memo (2019)

Sweet and aromatic leather, reminds me of Ombre Leather. Drydown is similar to HdP Outrecuidant. Both are easy to wear leathers that should appeal to many outside of fragcom.

This is a darker, formal scent meant for cooler weather. If you can get at a comparable price to the Tom Ford or HdP, then this is a good one to get. Otherwise, I cannot justify this over those two for the retail price.

Performance is very good with adequate projection and all day longevity.

Memo Paris' latest release, Oriental Leather, is roughly the fifth or sixth entry in their leather series, which I've generally liked but not loved. Oriental Leather is spicy and fairly well-balanced, and frankly, doesn't seem to contain all that much leather, at least not in a dominant proportion, to the other spicy notes that really stand out.

To my nose, it's mainly a blend of lavender, vanilla, benzoin, and some combination of the spicy notes of pimento leaf, coriander seed, leather, aniseed, geranium leaf, cinnamon bark, and to a lesser extent, patchouli. It's a healthy note list with lots of variation in the spicy accords, so it's difficult for me to pin down one or two spices that outshine the rest. The lavender sticks out most of all, note-wise, as its sharpness and freshness cut through a bit amidst the creamy base of vanilla/benzoin.

It's predictably spicier at the opening and within a few hours is quite mellow with more of the vanilla and benzoin coming out. Overall, its performance is strong and it's a nice, spicy, robust fragrance, surely a little masculine-leaning as particularly with the lavender, it reminds me a little bit of a fougere-type but a lot more cold-weather-leaning than most barbershop scents.

I quite like it and while the retail pricing of $295 for 75ml is a bit more than I'd want to pay, personally, for something like this, it'll likely reach the grey markets at a big discount, which might be more fitting. Oriental Leather is roughly as daring as the other leather fragrance of the house: it pushes the envelope slightly while not being too unfamiliar. Oriental Leather might be among the most agreeable in the lot, in fact, as I see it as a pretty workable cold-weather option for most men, albeit stronger than what some men might like.

7 out of 10