Cuoium - ( DX029986 )

A worn-out boot, dug up and brought back to life, is the image Alessandro Gualtieri built this around. Cuoium arrived in 2021 as an Orto Parisi parfum, named for the Italian word for tanned leather and tied to the story of the perfumer's grandfather Vincenzo Parisi, a shoemaker who left Puglia for Genoa in the early twentieth century. Gualtieri traditionally refuses to publish full note lists. A Cuoium decant in Bangladesh is the only responsible way to test something this confrontational.

Fragrance Notes

Top: Black Pepper, Mandarin, Animalic Notes, Woody Notes

Heart: Violet

Base: Leather, Incense, Cade Oil, Cedar, Labdanum, Patchouli, Vanilla

Full note breakdown on Fragrantica.

The Scent

The leather here is built on quinoline materials, the same family Gualtieri has used across Nasomatto Nudiflorum and Orto Parisi Stercus, and it is tough, tarry and unfriendly in the opening. Black pepper and a flash of mandarin give it a brief lift before the wall closes in. Labdanum softens the leather with a sweet resinous edge, and violet sits in the middle adding a strange powdery gentleness that stops the composition from being purely aggressive. Underneath there is smoke of two kinds, the black smoke of cade and juniper tar and a bitter white smoke that gives the base a slightly burnt shade. There is always something in an Orto Parisi that is not pleasant to everyone, and that is by design. Reviews split violently. One camp reports genuine filth, describing cattle hair, wet dog, soil and worse, with one wearer joking it could be used for crowd control. The opposing camp says the animalics are barely there, calling it close to a pure leather fragrance with maybe a whisper of civet, and accusing the first group of imagining a note that is not in the bottle. The most useful comparison comes from that second camp: Tom Ford Tuscan Leather with the raspberry removed and the smoke multiplied. Memo Iberian Leather and Nasomatto Nudiflorum come up repeatedly too. Both camps are describing something real, because quinoline leather accords read differently across skin chemistry to an unusual degree, and this one carries no fresh top notes to soften the first impression.

The brand's promotional film shows a worn boot being dug up and restored under candlelight, and that image of repair rather than replacement is the stated idea behind the fragrance. Whether you find the result beautiful or repellent, it is doing what Gualtieri intended, since every Orto Parisi release is built with a deliberate flaw in it.

When to Wear

Autumn and winter nights, casual and dressed-up evenings where you have space around you. This is not a fragrance for a crowded lift or an office in August. Belongs with our Leather | Suede collection.

Who Is It For

Someone who owns a few leather fragrances and finds the polished ones boring, and who is comfortable wearing something that will get a reaction.

If you want the house's other divisive animalic, Seminalis pushes further in the same direction. Browse the full Orto Parisi collection at .

Available as an authentic decant in Bangladesh at in 3ml, 5ml, and 9ml.

Specifications

• Brand: Orto Parisi
• Type: Fragrances
• Options: 3ML Decant (45+ sprays), 5ML Decant (75+ sprays), 9ML Decant (135+ sprays)