Review: Sultan Leather Attar
When I first got the bottle in the mail, I did what everyone does, I smelled the edge of the top. It smelled like none of Ensar's prior creations, it wasn't his normal clean, simple perfumes that seem to have a clear trajectory when you smell them. This one was odd. It would smell like vanilla one moment, leather one moment, sweet tobacco, rose, kinam, russian forest, with some strange underlying sensuality vibe. All swirling around. It is a very male scent. It is not un-apologetically male, like Dhul Q, mansplaining to his friends while he takes up two seats on the subway with his Putin stance. This one is a little more reserved, less denim and more Italian fabric. Like George Clooney before he fled Europe and ran back to Los Angeles.
First impressions when wearing it: My grandfather shaving. Was it old spice or english leather that he used for aftershave? It's a blur. Then some irresistible note soon follows... is that Kinam? I think to myself when I smell this note 'Wow he's really going all out on this one if he put Kinam in there'. My guess is the Sinensis does have some Kinam notes. Soon after that it smells like the best root beer float you've ever had in your life. Not like A+W root beer, but more like some whole foods hippy sarsaparilla thing that costs as much as micro brew beer. With a vanilla note that makes Jungle Kinam extremely jealous. This lasts for about an hour or two, and combines with a lovely blond tobacco note. I would imagine if it was on your neck, your lady fren would wish to nibble on it. This then finally settles into a powdery rose/iris/vetiver/vanilla/je ne sais quoi of tobacco and sarsaparilla and others. I kept waiting for a pepper note from the Archipelago LTD, but perhaps that note is muted in this version that was used. I also kept waiting for the leather but it must be a really mellow effect, since I was waiting for the leather tannery smell like Cambodi X, but it was not forthcoming. It is not a sharp smelling fragrance, with mostly low powdery notes. Projection is medium. You don't get noticed across the room, but anyone standing next to you will eventually wonder what that intoxicating smell is. There is no way they could tune it out, it is beguiling. The tenacity however is -extremely- strong, and I could smell it on my hand after a few showers, and a shirt I had worn smelled quite noticeably like it a few days later. In this regard it is way above average. I have worn the original rose attar on a different part of my arm the next day, and the leather rose attar was stronger smelling at around the 10 hour mark, even though it had been applied a full day earlier. The Sultan Leather Attar unravels as a fragrance really nicely, it resembles the original swipe the whole time, and has no sour or fermented or wet BBQ smell that can happen with some ouds when they unravel.
The leather attar won nothing but praise from the ladies at work, they even said I should wear this full time and stop wearing oud (sneaky sneaky, not gonna work). Ensar is realllllllllly good at making frags, and it's a shame kafka and turin et al have not spent any time reviewing them. I think Adam should send kafka a nice sample pack with the twis v vial size with just Ensar's perfumes, i'll help pay the expense, just to see what he thinks. I would love his take on them. Anyone else like that idea?
Most purchases I get from Ensar I just think 'oh cool' and add it into the rotation without thinking about it. This Sultan Leather Attar I have been wearing every day for a few days now, trying to understand it, it is an enigma/shapeshifter. It is not as complicated as a Sultan Pasha fragrance, but many times when wearing Pasha I get the feeling he is trying too hard, it is an overly complicated smell. SLA takes it right to the edge of being too complicated a smell, but manages not to cross the line. It's certainly the most complicated perfume Ensar has made to date. Due to it's amazing persistence, you can wear less and less every day and have the same effect due to carryover. I really appreciate Ensar trying to make this, and hope we get some more cologne type frags in the future!