Why we’re giddy for the scent of saddle leather

Jagerbomb, Glamourdale, Tiffanys Diamond, Sir Caramello Old… If you’ve spent the summer collecting names of Olympic dressage horses and sharing memes of Snoop Dogg in jodhpurs, how about a perfume to match? A new crop of fragrances is harnessing the equestrian, variously recalling the smell of sweaty saddles or the curious bouquet of straw and ordure with which the humblest groom will be familiar. Call it “horse-girl energy” – in a bottle.

First out of the gate is Hermès, whose Oud Alezan joined the Hermessence stable of high-end perfumes earlier this year. Developed by in-house Swiss perfumer Christine Nagel in an attempt to overcome her own fear of horses – something of an elephant in the room at a luxury house with saddle-making beginnings – the new fragrance is inspired by Nagel’s nuzzle with a chestnut horse named Scheherazade. The smell of sweat and sawdust remained lodged in Nagel’s memory; it resurfaced seven years later, when she sniffed an oud grown in Bangladesh. Blending oud with light rose water and a sharper rose oxide, the result is a deeply sensual perfume with none of the cloying heaviness of traditional ouds.

Hermès Oud Alezan, £283 for 100ml

Perfumer H Saddle, £130 for 50ml

Lyn Harris, the British perfumer and founder of Perfumer H, experienced an equine epiphany in 2023 when her friend Cameron Smith, co-owner of LA antiques showroom Galerie Half, sent her a package containing his horse-loving husband’s saddle soap and brushes. “What’s funny is that I’m not a horsey person,” Harris laughs. “But I’m obsessed with animalic smells and sweat. I had this idea of the soap on the beautiful warm saddle, and I just put pen to paper.”

I had this idea of the soap on the beautiful warm saddle, and I just put pen to paper

Though she originally intended it as a candle and room scent exclusive to Galerie Half, Harris couldn’t resist creating a complementary eau de parfum, Saddle, which will be released on 5 September. “The fragrance is emulating the body form on the saddle; it’s about the sculptural element of how the fragrance wraps itself around you when you wear it,” she explains. With a base of sheer musk, “there are interesting, dirty amber notes, but with very clean aldehydic notes, and a nod of orange blossom”. Still, you won’t see Harris saddling up any time soon. “I love the different smells of the stable. But I’m not tempted to ride.”

Not so with Maison d’Etto, a New York-based fragrance label founded in 2017 by horse-mad luxury branding executive and competitive dressage rider Brianna Lipovsky. Each of Maison d’Etto’s six fragrances is named after Lipovsky’s interactions with an individual horse, though she’s quick to stress: “It’s not necessarily that [the perfumes] smell like horses, but the horses are my muses.” (They are also her market research panel: Lipovsky took sample blotters for what would become the line’s bestselling scent to its equine namesake, Durban Jane, to get his yay or neigh.) 

Today, Lipovsky debuts a seventh perfume, Verdades, created by French perfumer Julien Rasquinet and named after the “spirited” Olympic dressage horse. The tango-coloured, “reverse orange-flower” juice was informed by Lipovsky’s memories of competing at Wellington, Florida.

Then there’s Cowgirl Grass, the latest fragrance from Brooklyn’s DS & Durga. It’s a more feminine take on the “rustic and dirty” Cowboy Grass, the sagebrush and ambergris-laced scent which put DS & Durga on the map when it debuted in 2008 (a time when “in Brooklyn”, co-founder David Seth Moltz recalls, “we were all pretending we lived in 1808”). Cowgirl Grass is an “easy and modern” pink floral “for the modern cowgal – the lady in TX who wears a diamond-studded belt and Lucchese boots,” says Moltz. In other words, it’s a little fancier than its brother scent. “Cowboy Grass [is] for sleeping out on the trail,” says Moltz. “Cowgirl Grass [is] for staying at the nice hotel overlooking said trail.”  

Horse-girl perfumes won’t set every heart cantering. But those who fall, fall hard. Mackenzie Reilly, the young American perfumer who formulated Maison d’Etto’s vetiver-backed Macanudo, was so taken with the equestrian energy that she has since taken up riding. For everyone else, there’s a spritz and a rousing rendition of “Texas Hold ’Em”. Giddy up!