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The name doesn’t lie, this truly is an exceptionally majestic leather scent. It opens very bright initially with a sweet jammy rose and softly fruity osmanthus, before developing a dry and smoky tobacco to contrast this floral brightness. From here you begin to experience the deliciously intoxicating combination of smooth, powerful leather with sweetly sticky dried fruits. This compliments the tobacco and florals perfectly, with extra touches of sweetness from vanilla and a subtle darkness from oud. This is one of my absolute favourite evening wear fragrances. It’s fantastically luxurious and attention grabbing - by far the best from the Armani Prive line and it’s really disappointing that this is so hard to find nowadays. This is a must try for any leather enthusiast.
I was initially introduced to this perfume in a blind sniffing scenario, to try to evaluate whether I thought this was an expensive perfume or a cheapie. I plumped for expensive, and I think this speaks to a certain level of quality you can expect for Cuir majeste by Armani. I don't know why but to me this fragrance is the olfactory equivalent of the 'try hard' person. I think it's very opulent and all that, and in truth, I do quite like it. I've worn it the past three days and that simply wouldn't happen if I didn't like it. To me the opening is like a strawberry/raspberry accord coupled with a prominent rose note which grows and seems to be shrouded in this sort of dry wood/oud, leather/patchouli which gives it an earthiness and dirt which keeps all the fruity rose and rounded gourmand sweetness in check. It's later that I recognize this amorphous, opulent leathery accord as tobacco!!! Oh course it's bloody tobacco, and in fairness I felt like a boob for having not clocked that straight away because upon the second wear, (and thereafter) I could smell it right away. It's a good combo actually, fruity notes/accords are often paired with tobacco, especially those red berry types (mainly cherry) but then the rose in cuir majeste kinda bridges the gap for me and makes this whole thing a cohesive and luxurious perfume. So having read the notes at this point I can smell osmanthus... it's a real Oracle from the Matrix moment, and I know what folks will say but I rarely look at notes before writing my thoughts, although sometimes I do and does that influence my thoughts, hard to say but inevitably also YES of course it does! but adding to that fruity accord and somewhat dry, freshness on top of all this heavy heavy stuff like rose and tobacco, you'd think it would clash or get lost but once you smell it...you're like.... hmmmm... in the midst of all this... clever. Very clever. Now this is not an osmanthus fragrance by any stretch but it's probably the strangest and most covert use of osmanthus I've personally come across which is really another tick box in this fragrance's favour. I don't really love it or anything but I get why folks would, it's modern and deep, long lasting, I wouldn't be surprised if others could smell you quite strongly and it would leave an impression because I was conscious of it wearing it. Impressive rose tobacco combo then, the price is up there so brace yourself if you do happen to love it, you'll pay a hefty price.