Baïkal Leather Intense Nicolaï / Parfums de Nicolaï 2019

Baïkal Leather Intense by Nicolaï / Parfums de Nicolaï

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7.1 / 10 106 Ratings

A perfume by Nicolaï / Parfums de Nicolaï for women and men, released in 2019. The scent is leathery-spicy. It is still in production.

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Main accords

Leathery

Spicy

Woody

Floral

Powdery

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Saffron

Yuzu

Black pepper

Spearmint

Heart Notes

Leather

Orris butter Violet

Violet

Rose

Base Notes

Gaiac wood

Tonka bean absolute

White musk

Sandalwood Vetiver

Vetiver Smoked pine

Perfumer

Patricia de Nicolaï

Ratings

Scent

7.1106 Ratings

Longevity

7.583 Ratings

Sillage

7.087 Ratings

Bottle

7.679 Ratings

Value for money

7.436 Ratings

Submitted by OPomone, last update on 07/08/2025.

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What the fragrance is similar to

Reviews

4 in-depth fragrance descriptions

01/27/2021

10
Pricing 8
Bottle 8
Sillage 10
Longevity 10
Scent

Alconichiwa
8 Reviews

Alconichiwa

Helpful Review 5

Beautiful fresh leather scent

This perfume has one of the best openings I know for this kind of leather perfume.
you can smell the quality of the ingredients in this one. It will last the whole day. you can wear it to a party, or just to smell classy @work and everybody will ask you what scent you are wearing. One of my life scents.

05/24/2020

8
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 4
Scent

Lgsoltek
8 Reviews

Lgsoltek

Helpful Review 3

Generic Woody Amber

With several dozens of bottles small or big from Nicolaï, I think I qualify as a big if not huge fan. I had really high hope for their anniversary release, especially something called "leather" and is said to be inspired by the Cuir de Russie genre.

The first few times I smelled this new release I was confused, disappointed and infuriated, that an atrocious thing such as this could come from my beloved house, from the great Patricia de Nicolaï, that a disgusting thing like this could be their anniversary perfume. An Exsence report on Cafleurebon mentioned this new release months ago and called it a “modern spicy fougère” that should appeal to the “younger generation”. At the time such descriptors had me worried already and I hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be another of those disgusting sharp woody ambers so popular nowadays. But it’s a nightmare come true.

Several wearings later, sorry nope, I still really dislike it, but I’m ready to entertain the idea that this is PdN’s (perhaps cynical?) naturalistic take on the currently popular GMS genre (Generic Man Scent - coined by reviewer @persolaise and his audience), a genre that I would sum up as having the structure of dihydromyrcenol + synthetic woody amber molecules, represented by Sauvage et al., perfectly corresponding to the manspreading culture, crude, offensive, barbaric, things I’d be glad to see eliminated from the face of the earth. If all that official blurb is to be trusted, PdN is trying to replace that crass and overtly synthetic structure with more natural ingredients: yuzu and spearmint substituting for dihydromyrcenol, and guaiac wood and smoked pine replacing those woody ambers.

Sadly though, the end result is as horrible as the imitated, because after all this is not a genre worth replicating, at all. It just smells generic, like “supermarket deodorant aisle burning”, to quote a perfumista friend whom I asked to blind-smell this. This is a bad movie script played by award-winning actors. This is a sculpture of cr*p made in diamonds. It’s just not worth doing. And forget all that mention of leather or Cuir de Russie. This has nothing to do with the leather family. Perhaps Bois Piquants Intense would be a more suitable name.

For a brand who prides itself on their creativity, on their freedom from market considerations, coming out with a thing such as this which is blatantly aimed at the Sauvage generation is really disappointing to longtime fans. It feels like a betrayal. To whoever made the choice of this thing as their celebratory release, from a long time big fan: next time, just don’t.

But of course I’m no perfumer. I can’t say for sure if these are really yuzu, smoked pine and guaiac wood as they say. This could be, really, just another carbon copy of those dihydromyrcenol + woody amber GMSs.

08/04/2021

7
Bottle 6
Sillage 6
Longevity 6
Scent

Chizza
299 Reviews

Translated Show original

Chizza

Top Review 21

More "leather" than leather

Wensker was demoted and was no longer head of the Aicha vorm Wald police station. The police chief showed him his numerous unsuccessful actions and the resulting consequences. Instead he got a superior, Ulla König. She brought reinforcements with her, because Haller left for Recklinghausen to join the police there, so that he - Wensker - was now on patrol duty together with Schubert. The first case was not far away, an assassination attempt on the artist Bastian Von der Tanne, known for his extravagant sculptures. One of them fell on him and injured him badly. It was soon discovered that this did not happen "just like that". Thus resulted in the first case for Wensker in a new role.

Unfortunately, von der Tanne was still in a coma so they had to work with circumstantial evidence. They started with the search of his apartment, Wensker noticed directly the bottle Baikal Leather Intense, where Leather had been replaced by liar. "Schubert, that seems to be the first lead. I'll take a spray."
Without approach, a scent somehow reminiscent of leather spread out, adorned with much floral work and itself more of a leather reminiscence. One remained vague in the fragrance except for the clearly perceptible rose which, however, had no profundity. Rather, it represented part of the leather. There was no trace of fresh notes or peppery elements. Also no saffron found itself, as yes gladly with leather used.
"Smells a little too lukewarm for me. And then Intense? There one was probably misguided. But is that a motive? Where did he get the bottle?"
"He's got cameras installed, maybe we'll catch the guy that way."
So they checked the videos: "Here!" shouted Wensker. "The bald guy with the beard, his head high red, anger seething inside him. He's really slamming the bottle there and tampering with the sculpture. I think we've solved the case. Now we just have to find the culprit!"

"Well, that's a brew! The leathery beginnings are disappearing completely, aren't they? Smell only flowers. Violets, but rather sweet, birch but not birch tar but rather birch sap. That's nothing. Shall we tell the king?"
"No, I'll solve this on my own and then we'll see if I don't get my post back! Send the picture to headquarters sometime. Maybe we know that one."
No sooner said than done. The software threw out that it was the famous rodeo rider and leather connoisseur Ole W. C. in Bavaria. He was arrested and interrogated "That Basti! Sells me a leather scent, Intense, and then such a plörre! Actually, I wanted to throw a melon at his head but that went well with the sculpture. Have you smelled this? As sweet-floral as you smell, probably so!"
"that's true...so we don't detect any smoked pine there either. The sweetness of the tonka comes through and we also notice the sandalwood facets leaning in that direction. It all blends in towards the end with the clean musk."
"Eben! This is supposed to be Baikal leather?"
"Yes, you're right! You're free! We'll arrest von der Tanne at his bedside!"

09/13/2019

4
Bottle 8
Sillage 10
Longevity 5
Scent

Gold
541 Reviews

Translated Show original

Gold

Top Review 29

Boring Baïkal, Bonjour (and goodbye)

Was it really a good idea to order this anniversary fragrance from Patricia de Nicolaï (called PdN below) blind? With "Baïkal Leather Intense" the great perfumer celebrates her 30th company anniversary this month. Since I've been one of their admirers since the beginning of the millennium and love leather scents, I've even been to Lake Baikal (small personal sentimentality on the edge), I thought I wouldn't take any risks and ordered 30 ml for 59 Euro (plus 16 Euro shipping from Paris - why so expensive?) home
For hours now the new PdN fragrance has accompanied me, sprayed in the morning, refreshed at noon, sprayed again in the evening, now still on my skin at night sleeping time.
My daughter and my partner are, of course, very used to me in the "olfactory field" (I'd better not talk about other areas of life now) and like to comment on my perfumes.
In this particular case, my daughter (17! Yes, I am proud of her...) could even draw comparisons to a PdN scent that she once wore but then gave back to me because it was too strong (PdN's "Patchouli Intense" ) Her reaction to the new one: "I imagine Intense differently. Doesn't smell like PdN." "Yeah, okay, but where's the leather?"

The man at my side was much more positive about the new PdN. As a greeting he said: "Hmm, but you smell especially good today."

After all! (So he could take the scent off me).

Cause I'm pretty disappointed myself.
Oh, what do I say, I'm shocked.
This fragrance does not meet my expectations at all.
The cracks here among you of course know the whole range of leather scents... i don't have to bore you with comparisons, from Cuir de Russie to Bandit to Juri Gutsatz or Tom Ford to products from Rossmann.
But maybe even the Rammstein - fragrance has more leather tones than this product of an independent French niche brand.
And what happened to the Guerlain genes in Pdn's nose? I don't want to talk about that at all.

So, what was Madame de Nicolaï thinking of bringing out such a tame, adapted fragrance for her anniversary and then calling it "Baïkal Leather Intense"? Yes, there is a PdN Facebook page in Russian, but does the company really rely so much on customers from the Russian Federation? Or to old fans like me, who are hoping for an exciting leather scent?

At the beginning I was really hoping, was very positive, because the top note is fresh, explodes formally, is fun.
Saffron, by the way, is absolutely imperceptible and is supposed to be contained in the top note. But a lot of green, a pleasant freshness.

Then come... no leather.
Soft tones follow, as if a singer had failed her voice after a run from the high C down.
She is no longer a radiant soprano, but breathes her way hoarse in the middle position and hushes you up. One would like to throw her a microphone, but now one notices that the music has already settled on a pleasantly splashing "Muzac level", this musical background noise of an average shopping center.
Which flowers have to be blamed now - I don't really care, hopefully you do too. Supposedly rose, violet and iris. The usual suspects.

After an hour, the fragrance falls completely into the arbitrariness of a more recent generic men's fragrance. PdN obviously doesn't use ambroxan, but lots of musk and tonka bean. That's quite nice, but if I look for a sweet men's scent like that, I can find a lot better in the mainstream.
At Lake Baikal I remember a small place, Listvyanka, where there was a shop with some typical scents, e.g. "Russian Forest". For three euros. Or you can use a copy from China, for example "12 Million" or "La Nuit d'Yves".
From the shore of Lake Baikal you can see Mongolia when the weather is good...
The Baïkal is a worldwide example of a large number of endemic animals and plants whose existence is threatened.
PdN once stood for an innovative and tasteful French perfume art... whose existence is obviously also threatened.
Madame de Nicolaï herself has really delivered a great analogy with her name.

Well, those were the days...
I call PdN a wistful "Adieu" and dig out my old bottle of "Sacrebleu"