English Leather: Familiar, reliable, and easily available, but is it for you?

When I was 10 years old, I seem to have been more self-assured and not as self-conscious about my looks, personality, and real or perceived shortcomings as I am at 43. Even though I had been born with a mild case of cerebral palsy, my widowed mom had been wise enough to treat me as though I had no disability, and for a while I was able to chase girls with all the vim and vigor that pre-teen guys who liked girls could muster. Thus, from 1972 to 1977 I "went steady" with the same girl (her name was Kerri), who, I recently discovered, now lives in North Florida and has a 12-year-old daughter.

I mention this seemingly irrelevant bit of personal trivia because every two weeks or so, I'd be driven over to Kerri's house to spend a few hours with my girlfriend. Being kids (she was 10, I was nine when we met), we basically played games (Hungry Hungry Hippo, Connect Four, and Sorry), watched television in the living room, ate snacks in the kitchen, and would always end up in pretty intense liplocks before my mom came to take me back home.

Of course, for such "hot dates" I'd always go the extra mile to be as attractive as a young boy could be at that age. Even though the idea of sexiness (or sex itself) didn't cross my mind at that point in time, somehow I always managed to spend extra time showering and washing my hair, brushing my teeth a bit more carefully, and, last but not least, putting on the right cologne to please my young red-headed sweetie.

One of my favorite men's fragrances was, and still is, English Leather Cologne, with its distinctively cube-shaped bottle and oversized wooden cap. One of my mom's friends, upon hearing that I had a girlfriend, had given me a cologne and after shave set (even though, natch, shaving was still seven or so years in my future), saying, "Now that you're a big guy with his own girlfriend, you need this cologne."

To me, English Leather has always been pleasant to wear and smell, although I like Ralph Lauren Polo and Brut a lot more. Its fragrance is hard to describe, being a rather interesting combination of citrus, herbs, spices, flora of all sorts, and even, yes, a hint of leather. (How Dana achieves this is a mystery, but the fragrance magicians do evoke the smell of leather and musk in this cologne.) It isn't as "limey" as Gucci for Men or as foo foo as Bill Blass For Men (one of my least favorite colognes), and while it might not be as adventurous as Aspen, it still smells nice, clean, and masculine.

Whether English Leather is the right fragrance for all guys is a matter of some debate. It still sells well and is widely available, so there are guys (or the women who date them) who like it. However, there are men who don't really like English Leather because, as a friend of mine recently said to me, "it smells like an old attic."

As with all fragrances, English Leather should be applied carefully in small doses. Just a few drops should be carefully "splashed" on one's cheeks and neck area after showering and shaving, preferably at least one hour before a date or other social engagement. This allows the cologne to "settle" and be absorbed by the wearer's skin and spares others from the "French Cathouse" effect....provided one has not overdone the "splashing" and used half the bottle in one application.