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Elsha 1776 Cologne (formerly Elsha Russian Leather)

Item Description

I read about this cologne on a few different message boards and finally got around to buying it. For the price, I thought it would okay to do a blind buy. It retails for $22 for a 4oz splash bottle or $38 for a 8oz bottle. I bought the 4oz bottle because there is no way I would ever get through 8oz of cologne. There is also a 4oz aftershave splash available. Supposedly, this stuff has been around for decades and was a staple of traditional main street men's clothing stores.

It comes in a cheap looking box and the cologne is packaged in a heavy glass bottle with a goldtone screw cap. The labels are just stickers tacked onto the bottle. No big deal, it's the stuff inside that matters. Since I don't care for splash bottles, I decanted some of the cologne into a 1/2 oz atomizer.

The basenotes.net comments and reviews on this seemed to describe it a a "sweet leather". I'd agree. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed when I first tried this cologne. If you sniff the bottle, you get a very pleasant, slightly sweet smell that's not too far off from root beer or cream soda. On my skin, the initial spray smells like some kind of odd chemical concoction. I have no way to be 100% sure, but my guess is this cologne, like many colognes, is primarily synthetic. However, once the cologne has mellowed and dried down (which takes about 10-15 minutes) it settles into a very subtle, pleasant leather smell with a slightly sweet, powdery overtone that dominates over the leather component. Together, these two components are very nice.

Staying power is pretty good, but this is not a "strong" cologne. I sprayed some on my chest around noon and I can still smell it on my shirt and skin 6.5 hours later. I would say this scent stays fairly close to the skin. Nothing too strong or likely to offend others.

Overall, I think a lot of B&B members would enjoy this one. If you like things like Dunhill 1934, Mr. Taylor, Bay Rum, or even Pinaud / Old Spice type stuff this is probably up your alley.

I bought mine from Sampters.com, got good service with no hassles.

The only other place I could find this online was the official store at Elsha.com


The discussion thread for this cologne is located here:

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?p=995759#post995759

Latest reviews

I had a generous sample of this from a friend last year and I found this to be a very unusual and interesting fragrance. I generally hate sweet mens' fragrances, and this is a bit sweet, but for reasons related mostly to the "old time" sensibility of this, I didn't mind the sweetness. Add to that that it is enigmatic in that it has good staying power but is not too strong or forward. That is, it won't get you a bad reputation among the staff in your office as the "perfume guy"; as in the "perfume guy" is coming down the hall. Is it a leather fragrance, well, leather is "in there". A bit like Knize Ten? Well, maybe a little, but not much. How about Royal Leather by Creed? Not really like that at all, it lacks that orange peel thing that RL has. It is unique; inexpensive; is supposed to have an illustrious past with the Russian royalty and nobility (of which I am more than a touch incredulous); and it smells pretty nice if you like heritage fragrances. Not a party dude fragrance; not an old time dandy fragrance either, but for what it is pretty good. I realize this is a terrible review. So let me say its a mildly coke/root beer fragrance with a bit of motor oil and some soft glove leather in there. That's as close as I can get.
Price
5.00 star(s)
Scent
4.00 star(s)
Quality
4.00 star(s)
Packaging
4.00 star(s)
Complexity
3.00 star(s)
Staying Power
4.00 star(s)
Quality of Atomizer
0.00 star(s)

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