Beauty Care: Naomi Goodsir Cuir Velours Perfume Review

Naomi Goodsir Cuir Velours Eau de Parfum opens with sweet, almost fruity florals, with boozy rum and tendrils of tobacco smoke all spread over soft, supple leather. On my skin, this particular fragrance started to blur together within an hour and only became gauzier over time, but it tended to appear like a soft, honeyed floral scent with a hint of leather. It was also shorter-wearing than is typical for my skin!

Cuir Velours Notes

It is inspired by the softness of a leather glove, and it is described as a “tobacco atmosphere supported by notes of rum, cistus labdanum, incense, and immortelle.” Retailers list the notes as: leather, tobacco, rum, cistus labdanum, incense, and fleur d’immortelle.

top notes: fleur d’immortelle
heart notes: tobacco, rum, incense
base notes: leather, labdanum

What does Cuir Velours Smell Like?

It opened with sweet florals that felt almost fruity initially but developed a booziness as the rum came through with wafts of tobacco smoke that brought in a subtle gray ashiness, which all served to cut back on some of the fruity sweetness. Then soft, supple leather emerged under the fruity-floral note, which as plush as it was, seemed to give the perfume a slight dry edge (but not dry outright, truly).

After 20 minutes, the notes seemed to harmonize with soft, honeyed florals accented by rum over smoky, smooth leather. The changes were minimal through the next three hours; it remained closer-wearing, soft and hazy with golden immortelle, soft leather, and light tobacco–everything was blended together, which made individual facets harder to tease out.

At the top of the fifth hour, more spiced incense came through over the leather with less floral sweetness. The drydown was quite blurred on me, due to it weakening in overall strength, and seemed like lightly spiced florals.

Longevity

It lasted for three hours until it was a skin-scent and about six hours before it was quite difficult to detect on my skin. The sillage and projection were moderate for the first half hour and then dropped significantly closer from there.

Personal Notes

I expected the tobacco and leather facets to come through much more than they ended up translating on my skin, and I’d go as far as to say this ended up more of a honeyed floral fragrance on me, which is less my style, though certainly pleasant enough to wear and would appeal to those who lean into floral fragrances.

These are more subjective feelings based on what I like (or don’t like) in a perfume as well as considering the fragrance against other perfumes I own and love.

Testing Methodology

For testing, I used 1/3 of a 0.7ml sample vial dabbed to the underside and topside of my wrist area. I used an unscented moisturizer prior to applying the scent as I found scent did not hold well here otherwise.

I purchased my sample in February 2022; fragrances are known to be reformulated over their lifetime, so be mindful of when a review was made, e.g. a review from 2010 may not reflect what the same-named perfume smells like in 2022.

Availability

Cuir Velours is available for $187/50ml.

If possible, I highly recommend trying a fragrance before purchasing a full bottle because fragrance can wear differently just because of skin chemistry. Skin chemistry can effect not just the longevity of a fragrance but also what notes are prominent or hidden.

Cuir Velours Samples

We recommend the following retailers for purchasing decanted samples (typically 0.7ml to 2ml in size). This is a fuller list, so individual availability may depend on inventory.