I really love fragrances where leather is the main focus, even when most of those scents are not overtly leather-based, at least not as much as fragrances such as Tom Ford’s Ombre Leather, where the leather accord takes center stage. African Leather is rather more like Ombre Leather’s sunlit, windswept counterpart.  The leather is surrounded by a wonderfully woody frame, built mostly from Musk, Patchouli, and Rose, but what I really enjoy is how this fragrance slowly changes once it’s sprayed. It starts off extremely woody, but smoothes out in a truly sublime way, revealing more of the leather note soon afterwards, and then stays with you throughout the entire day, delightfully long-lasting and never wavering towards an immediate dry-down. I can imagine that it’s not for everyone, as it’s very attention-grabbing and domineering, but I can really appreciate a fragrance that doesn’t immediately resort to its base notes. I like a scent that stays with you, keeping the heart of the fragrance alive as long as possible, and African Leather does not disappoint. Released in 2015, African Leather is part of Memo Paris’s Nomadic Leathers collection, a series built around different interpretations of leather from around the world, and this particular fragrance is meant to evoke vast landscapes of the African Savannah, reminiscent of heat, spice, and raw nature, being both animalistic and gracefully wild, bold, rich, and confident.