Leather

Leather is not a material you can extract. There is no leather oil. The note is an accord — built, usually, from birch tar, styrax and a sharp synthetic called isobutyl quinoline — and what it conjures is less a handbag than a tack room.

Smoky, dry, faintly tarry, with something almost medicinal at the edges. It is one of the few notes that reads as unmistakably grown-up, and it is the reason a blend can smell warm without smelling sweet.

A base note. It builds slowly and lasts, and it works best where you want a room to have some weight to it — a study, a dining room in winter, anywhere a floral would feel out of place.