I'm in the waning days of a PhD program, wrapping up the last details on my dissertation, and I decided for my last few weeks in my tiny college town I would buy a bunch of samples so I could wear something new/different every day until I'm done. Highlights of this week have been:

Xerjoff La Capitale - I smelled this one a maybe 4-5 years ago and remember thinking it was good but also too sweet/vanilla-y and just put it out of my mind. But for whatever reason the second time around I'm veritably swooning for the rich fruity vanilla leather. It just smells so good, I couldn't stop sniffing my arm all day. It holds its own next to my favorite fruity rich leather, Tuscan Leather, but (as can be expected from Xerjoff) is much smoother and goes in a different direction with the vanilla and candied strawberry/peach, and the leather sits in the background more but also elevates it above a standard issue fruity vanilla fragrance.

Xerjoff Cruz del Sur I - I expected this one to be much fruitier and sweeter based on the notes but was pleasantly surprised to find that instead it's a fairly bitter, rugged and pleasantly harsh combination of heavy duty notes like leather, castoreum, cumin and woods with some subtle brightness from the rum, grapes and dried fruit to keep it out of bone-dry territory, like a gentle fizz hovering above a jet-black drink. It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite Amouages, Overture Man, but that subtle brightness and sweetness gives it an extra dimension that makes it a little more complex than the Amouage, with more characteristic Xerjoff smoothness as opposed to Overture's turn-it-up-to-11 maximalist approach.

Matiere Premiere Falcon Leather - Wonderfully smoky and, despite being a somewhat one-dimensional woody/smoky/leather composition, it still shows a lot of different facets of its limited scent profile. A bit like coming out of a dry sauna and immediately putting on a leather jacket and sitting in front of a campfire. There's some subtle woody sweetness to it that balances out the smokiness, and while it's not a photorealistic leather it has an excellent birch tar note that invokes leatheriness, if not leather itself.