I have spent many days in a boat on the open ocean. Once you lose sight of land there is realization how small you are in relation to the water you’re skimming over the top of. There is a scent to those times. As I would move back and forth adjusting sails in my leather Top Siders there came a natural comingling of the shoe material and the ocean water. It was always one of my favorite combinations for it reminded me, I was out on the ocean wind in my sails. It has been a few years since I’ve done that. Memo Ocean Leather reminded me of it.
Clara Molloy
Ocean Leather is the latest release in the Cuirs Nomades collection for Memo. It has been one of my favorite collections of any perfume. Some of it has to do with the long-time partnership between creative director Clara Molloy and perfumer Alienor Massenet. They have one of the more creative partnerships in all of perfumery.
Alienor Massenet
For Ocean Leather Mme Molloy had a dream of Moby Dick. Not as Ahab hunting the elusive whale but as a penitent sharing the ocean with the leviathan. The beauty of it moving through the water. She asked Mme Massenet for, “a perfume excessive…. like a quest, an epic, a sailor’s tale”. Through a re-working of classic marine notes the fragrance delivers.
As I’ve mentioned the scent of the open ocean is much different than that of the sea spray of the waves crashing on the beach caught in the breeze. There is a weight to that sea experience. Mme Massenet captures that by taking a typical marine accord without the accompanying ozonic notes which give the expansiveness of a generic accord. In its place she lashes it down with two herbs and violet leaf. The herbs are sage and basil which become equally as piercing as the violet leaf. They add a textural depth to the marine notes making them rise and fall like the deep-sea swells. A combination of cedar and elemi find the wood of the deck awash in the ocean. The sweeter spice of nutmeg connects to the leather accord in the base. This is a rich leather accord which works ideally with the aquatic accord from earlier. Vetiver adds back some woodiness to the latter phase of development.
Ocean Leather has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
Ocean Leather is another recent perfume which has me looking forward to new aquatic releases from brands with imagination. Mmes Molloy and Massenet have consistently shown that. Ocean Leather was a fantastic companion on these spring days. Even as I was walking on dry land, I smelled the days I spent at sea. I also smiled to myself as I recalled Mme Molloy’s Inspiration. There was a part of me that imagined Mme Massenet chronicling her time with Captain Molloy through a perfume which says, “Call me Alienor!”
Disclosure: this review is based on a sample provided by Memo.
–Mark Behnke
