Dana Classic Fragrances launched English Leather Black in March:
Bold and distinctive, English Leather Black is the first new scent from one of America's best known classic men's fragrances, English Leather. It features base notes of musk and sandalwood, combined with top notes of bergamot and coriander to create a mysterious and masculine cologne.
"English Leather Black is a young, exciting scent that expands the heritage of English Leather into the 21st century," says Barbara Eden, Vice President of Marketing, Dana Classic Fragrances.
English Leather Black is available at Walgreens and other drugstores, and is $15.95 for 100 ml. (via prnewswire)
“A young, exciting scent”? Oh, god–they're youth-marketing English Leather, one of the great classics of men's perfumery. The list of notes isn't complete, so I wonder how they're going to youthify it. Calone? Frozen pink grapefruit and lychee? Hydroponic patchouli and neon amber?
And where the hell is the leather?
They've already “youthified” Old Spice and Brut, so I guess English Leather was next in line! Frankly I've never smelled the original, so no idea what they'd need to do to market it to young people. Hope Old Spice is doing well with their new ad campaign though, I love Old Spice
I love Old Spice, too. It's amazingly good, and not at all what people expect (everyone seems to think it's some sort of grandfathery, old-fashioned scent when it's actually a very sexy, complex floral-oriental scent). The revamped, youth-oriented version, OS, is just disgusting–fresh, blatant, noxious, exactly what you'd expect these days.
English Leather is also nice. It's pretty sweet, not an especially sophisticated leather scent, but still very attractive. It's almost as good as Stetson.
I didn't know Brut had been redone for the youth market. It's probably just as well; I never liked the original, and the new version can't be an improvement.
Brut's new version is Brut Revolution, which I think launched around the same time as OS Signature — and I've never smelled either. I have very fond memories of Old Spice and keep meaning to buy a bottle. Brut, to be honest, I hardly remember.
Brut original was really distinctive and awful; green juice with a loud floral note, unscored by equally loud musk. Of course, as I remember, it also carried the Eau de Sweat note of high school jocks (I don't even want to think about how long ago this was!) Truly, *they* couldn't make it much worse.
I do have fond memories of both English Leather and Old Spice, and March from Perfume Posse turned me on to Coty's Wild Woods, which is a very pleasant, cedary scent that is great to layer with. Like the black and red updated bottle on the new EL; hope it doesn't smell too *youthified*.
If you like Coty's Wild Woods, have you tried Wild Spice? It's even better (in my opinion), warm, luscious and clove-laden, like an even softer version of Halston Catalyst for Men. I've never layered it with anything but I'd imagine you could. The whole line, I thought, was very unisex. (The third men's scent was Wild Citrus, which never struck me as being very interesting: there are just a lot of men's citrus scents out there.) It's too bad they were discontinued, but a lot of online places still have them all.
Rosarita, I have a sample of Coty Wild Woods (maybe from March?) and need to dig it out and try it. Sounds lovely, I love cedar.