A lovely birch tar and oud fragrance - expensive but worth it
Matiere Premiere, or “raw material” in French, uses very high-quality ingredients whose geographical origins are indicated on their website. This brand was established by the perfumer Aurélien Guichard to build perfumes “around one central natural ingredient, used in its highest dosage”. The names of the perfumes indicate the main accord that anchors each perfume. Aurélien Guichard is the nose behind all the perfumes from this brand. This review is based on a full bottle purchased after testing only in boutiques a few times, something which I rarely do.
The main notes listed for Falcon Leather Extrait de Parfum are birch tar, benzoin, labdanum, saffron and oud. I have listed them here in the order of decreasing intensity, as perceived by my nose. Except for the oud, every other ingredient exists in the EDP version. All notes are presented simultaneously in the opening, with very little progression on the skin. There is a minor subsidence of birch tar after 6-8 hours, which makes the sweet benzoin more prominent. This is a very beautiful perfume that manifests exactly what you may visualize from the notes. But there are some nuances that make Falcon Leather Extrait especially exciting. The resins – especially benzoin – makes this a sweeter fragrance than the typical leather scent. The leather accord is really a wood tar essence, so it is smoother and softer too. As my nose for ingredients improves through exposure, I am increasingly hesitant to use the adjective ‘leather’ for birch tar fragrances. I would rather call them birch tar fragrances, because I can differentiate the birch tar note from the strong pungent animalic leather in Naomi Goodsir Corpus Equus, or the more industrial leather in Dior Fahrenheit and Guerlain Cuir Intense. The oud is very meek in this perfume, but it adds a lot of color and richness to the woody notes in the extrait when compared to the EDP.
Falcon Leather extrait lasts 6-8 hours on my skin. The sillage is very good, as befitting a resinous woody fragrance. I can’t see it working well in a party setting as all its subtlety would be lost among other ambient smells. This is an expensive perfume designed for a library or a board room.
Now we get to the thorny question of value. I hesitate to give a universal recommendation for this perfume because it costs $420 for 100 ml through official channels. Though you can get it cheaper at the discounters, it remains an expensive perfume. However, I will encourage everyone to test at least a sample to verify if it is worth the money for them. There are many similar (not identical) perfumes that cost a tiny fraction of this price. For me, it is an unparalleled beauty, perhaps even a historically great perfume. As the old Gershwin song goes, “nice work if you can it”.
