Cuoio dei Dolci

Descrizione

Da Kafkaesque blog:

Cuoio dei Dolci (“Sweet Leather”) is another scent that was originally made as a custom creation for a client. It’s now available for sale to the public, which makes me very happy because it is my favourite of the fragrances covered today. Its description on the Profumo website is a simple one:

“Cuoio dei Dolci (Sweet Leather)  was composed for a customer who specified castoreum, tonka and tobacco in that order, followed by cocoa, vanilla, ylang, and mandarin.”

AbdesSalaam told me that there were other elements in minor, subtle doses as well, like sandalwood and an accord from his Amber Chocolate fragrance. He says there isn’t ambergris in the scent, but it really smells as though there is to me and on my skin. Nevertheless, the official note list is:

Castoreum, Tonka, Tobacco, Cocoa, Vanilla, Ylang-Ylang, Mandarin, & Mysore Sandalwood.

Cuoio dei Dolci (hereinafter sometimes referred to as “CDD” for reasons of convenience and speed) opens on my skin with boozy cognac poured in heavy waves upon rich, dark chocolate that is semi-sweet and semi-dry. It’s similar to the accord in Amber Chocolate, only this is not herbal, it’s less bitter, and the liqueured note is very different. It’s the macerated fruit of aged cognac with an elusive, almost ghostly whiff of the saltiness that you’d find in whisky, no doubt the result of the ambergris that lies in a thick haze over everything.

The chocolate is a really beautiful, addictive note. Its slightly bitter, dark cocoa powder is juxtaposed next to vanilla that is silky, dark, sweet, dry, and with almost a boozy Bourbon quality to it. It also bears quite a few of the woody vanilla aspects of Peru Balsam as well. (AbdesSalaam’s Peru Balsam was one of my favourite essences that I worked with during his seminar, and the material that I always turned to when I sought the best “vanilla” aroma, so I wouldn’t be astonished if a bit of it were used here as well.) But the chocolate is also offset by other elements as well. There is tonka cream and also caramel from the ambergris. A touch of spicy, buttery sweetness licks its edges, but I can’t say it’s redolent of ylang ylang flowers on my skin in any clearly delineated, tangible, and concrete way. Only its spiciness hints at ylang, and only if I apply a lot of the Cuoio dei Dolci. Instead, there is a different sort of buttery plushness and spiciness that is more evident, one that stems from the sandalwood in the base.

Cuoio dei Dolci shifts quickly. Less than 5 minutes in, the castoreum stirs in the base, initially wafting a quiet, musky darkness that slowly, gradually, turns into something smokier and more evocative of castoreum-style leather. Roughly 20-30 minutes into the fragrance’s development, it seeps up to fuse with the boozy cognac and chocolate, turning Cuoio dei Dolci darker and muskier. The level of smokiness slowly accelerates as well, but I can’t determine its source with any certainty.

In fact, it’s difficult to pinpoint several of the notes in Cuoio dei Dolci as a whole. I’ve tried the fragrance five or six times now, but I can’t say that I’ve ever detected a clear, unquestionable tobacco note on my skin, something that I can point to and say, “Aha, this is a tobacco scent.” There is a definite gingerbread-ish sweetness that, if I focus hard, suggests tobacco, but it is a light brush stroke that is enveloped within the other spicy and dark notes, and nothing like the clear, profound, multi-faceted tobacco in Profumo’s fantastic Tabac on my skin. The mandarin must be partially responsible for the cognac booze note since, after all, cognac is derived from macerated fruits, but I can’t detect that clearly either. And, as I explained up above, the ylang is equally abstract in nature on my skin.

Part of the difficulty is that Cuoio dei Dolci, like so many of the Profumo scents, is seamlessly blended, while the rest of it is the AbdesSalaam aesthetic style. Some notes are clear, but flow one into the other, while others are subsumed within a cloud that feels like an artist painted in broad, abstract brushstrokes. The only things that are clear on my skin and consistent throughout the fragrance’s development is a central bouquet of chocolate-vanilla slathered in thick layers over musky castoreum leather, then streaked with boozy cognac, smoky darkness, and sandalwood-like spicy creaminess, before the whole thing is subsumed within a rich, heavy cloud of ambergris goldenness, muskiness, and gingerbread spiciness.

Cuoio dei Dolci doesn’t change in any dramatic or significant way throughout its lifetime on my skin. Its notes and nuances merely fluctuate in their strength or prominence. Sometimes the chocolate gives way to let the castoreum shine with its musky leather tonalities. At other times, a mixed vanilla/tonka and buttery Mysore sandalwood accord overtakes both the chocolate and the leather, particularly from the 7th hour onwards. On other occasions, the ambergris and the gingerbread-ish spiciness take turns as the central note. The boozy, macerated cognac generally ripples over everything from the sidelines. Roughly 2.75 hours in, it becomes virtually impossible to dissect the layers beyond the broadest accords. Everything is a haze of perfectly balanced oriental notes with gourmand sweetness, darkness, and buttery creaminess, but it’s never cloying or gooey. It’s also never dry, too musky, or particularly smoky, either. I think all of it is cozy, gorgeously delectable, enticing, and addictive from start to finish.

It’s also a strong, rich scent with greater projection, sillage, and longevity on my skin than other Profumo fragrances. Using two good sprays from my small bottle, Cuoio dei Dolci typically opened with 4 inches of projection and about 5-6 inches of sillage. It took a while for the numbers to drop. After 3 hours, the projection was roughly 2-2.5 inches, while the scent trail was about 4. It generally took between 5.75 to 6 hours for Cuoio dei Dolci to turn into a skin scent on me but, even then, I could detect it up close without major effort. Things tend to become harder after the 9th hour. In total, Cuoio dei Dolci lasts between 11.5 and 12.5 hours on my skin.

Luca Turin really liked Cuoio dei Dolci as well. On his blog, Perfumes I Love, he wrote about AbdesSalaam’s bespoke or custom perfume business, its affordability, and the appealing fragrances which ensue. CDD was one of two examples that he used. His post reads, in part, as follows:

Dubrana’s approach is much cleverer and less onerous, but requires a little more knowledge from the buyer. He asks you to chose and rank 7 materials you like best from a list of approximately eighty. He then composes a fragrance for you, mostly from those seven materials. He charges €240, and the process takes two weeks. He did a violet-iris one for me several years ago which I liked very much. The two he sent me are Cuoio dei Dolci (Sweet Leather) and Nicolaya. CdD was composed for a dentist who specified castoreum, tonka and tobacco in that order, followed by cocoa, vanilla, ylang, and mandarin. Dubrana rose to the challenge and produced a delicious confection, a sort of gingerbread ottoman that hits all the buttons as required, yet works nicely as a whole. The whole idea is fun and, given his skill, will smell good no matter how cockeyed your list is. [Emphasis to perfume name added by me.]

I agree, Cuoio dei Dolci is a “delicious confection.” In fact, it’s pretty much my ideal sort of “gourmand.” I have a very low tolerance for sweetness but none at all for saccharine excess; Cuoio dei Dolci hits the perfect balance. It’s something that I really enjoy as a “cozy comfort,” bedtime scent and I plan to wear it long after any review. If you love any of the notes or accords described here, I strongly recommend that you try it yourself.