Peaud'Espagne

“Peau d’Espagne” (piel de España) is not a perfume in the modern sense: it is an ancient art, born in Córdoba under Moorish rule, which consisted of tanning leather with spices and aromatics — clove, cinnamon, sandalwood, musk — so that it would exhale an intoxicating scent upon contact with the body’s warmth. Perfumed Spanish leather gloves were the rage in European courts from the 16th to the 18th century: Catherine de’ Medici imported the fashion to France, and the guild of “glovers-perfumers” — the direct ancestor of modern perfumery — made it their speciality.

The eau de parfum Peau d’Espagne by Oriza L. Legrand (1872) is a tribute to this vanished tradition. The opening is floral and luminous — rose and bergamot — before tilting into a heart of great spicy intensity: clove, aromatic lavender, carnal carnation and creamy sandalwood intertwine in an accord evoking the perfumed leather of gloves past. The base of birch (whose bark yields the famous smoky tar), styrax and benzoin closes the composition in a resinous, animal warmth.

A powerful, carnal and historical fragrance — to be worn like perfumed armour.

The silk glove Rose, Bergamot

Córdoba leather Clove, Lavender, Carnation, Sandalwood

Tanned skin Birch, Styrax, Benzoin

Sodium olivate, sodium cocoate, aqua (water), parfum (fragrance), butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter*, glycerin, sodium chloride, tetrasodium glutamate diacetate, amyl cinnamal, benzyl salicylate, geraniol, coumarin, citronellol, benzyl alcohol, hexyl cinnamal, benzyl benzoate, linalool, amyl cinnamyl alcohol, limonene, citral, anise alcohol.