The fragrance of leather.

[Sheilajeanne]

Two of my favourite smells go together - leather and horses! 

[Mulesaw]

1 hour ago, Sheilajeanne said:

Two of my favourite smells go together - leather and horses! 

You are absolutely right.

Horses smell the best when they have been grazing. 
There is a difference in the smell if they have been eating hay in the winter time compared to the smell of them in the summer when they are on grass. 

Despite being 50 years old, I still deeply inhale that smell whenever we go to fetch the horses and bring them home in the summer. It is a smell that goes all the way down to happy childhood memories.

Oh yeah, leather smells nice too, but a horse beats that smell in my world :-)

[Doc Reaper]

I have lost my ability to smell leather, been doling it for 52 years 

[dikman]

A leather shop without that smell just isn't right!

Another smell that has a "uniqueness" about it is black powder, there's something incredibly evocative when someone shoots it on the firing line (it's a bit smoky though ).

[SUP]

@Mulesaw, @Sheilajeanne I wish I knew how horses smell at different times of the year. Not been exposed at all.. evidently I missed a lot.

@dikman I am familiar with black powder (gunpowder?) because of fireworks during festivals - smoky but wonderful! Hubby agrees. 

When I left Weaver Leather, I wondered, at first, why I felt dissatisfied. Then it struck me. I felt like I had been to an anonymous,  large, beautiful store, not a leather store. Like  a bakery without the fragrance of bread and cakes.

We unconsciously associate scent with so many things, don't we? 

[bladegrinder]

1 hour ago, dikman said:

A leather shop without that smell just isn't right!

Another smell that has a "uniqueness" about it is black powder, there's something incredibly evocative when someone shoots it on the firing line (it's a bit smoky though ).

I'm with you on the black powder, I have several black powder guns and love that smell in the air when I'm shooting them.

I worked the leak response truck for a natural gas distributor for over 20 years, I've got a really good sniffer when it come's to smelling things!

[fredk]

20 hours ago, SUP said:

If one is away from leatherworking for a while, does the ability to smell it come back? Or is this loss permanent?

Unless you've had an illness, you don't loose your ability to smell. You've just got used to the smell of leather and your brain blocks out the scent. Its like your garbage collector, he/she has become so used to the smell of their truck that they no longer notice the pong. Or my local butcher who no longer notices the smell of chickens roasting in his machine, but he notices if they start to over-cook!

Like some others mentioned, I keep most of my leather in sealed boxes and I get a real knock-out smell of the leather when I open a box

Maybe when you were at Weavers there was a smell of leather but it was subtle and not as strong as you are used to. Just a thought

A smell for me is Castrol-R oil. Its an oil added to petrol/gas for racing car engines. That and 2-stroke oil & petrol/gas. Both remind me of of race days before we got so environmentally 'friendly' and banned those oil additives (note that the word environmentally has within it the word mental!)

[SUP]

@fredk LOL. Agree with the 'mental' part.

What you say about Weaver makes sense. The fragrance was probably subtle. Anyway, their stock on display was not as much, per sq foot of the space as the Tandy stores I visit here. The sheer volume must surely make a difference.

On a slightly different note, how do you keep your leather sealed? I live in a very humid area and am always worried that my leathers will get mildew or mold. So checking and airing each week is a chore, pleasant until now but could become tedious over the years as my collection grows. It is so humid here that the Damp-rid I place around the house, supposed to last 2 1/2 months, barely lasts a fortnight. (Damp-rid is, I think, rock salt in a hanging bag made of a thick paper through which water vapor can permeate. Attached to this bag on the lower end is a plastic bag into which the water drains.)

Edited August 22, 2023 by SUP

[fredk]

4 hours ago, SUP said:

On a slightly different note, how do you keep your leather sealed? 

1. I use big long plastic boxes meant for storing artificial Christmas trees. The lids overlap the base part and there is a snap lock at each end. I always reckoned they were maybe just about water tight but I found out last week they are 100%. I was moving them about and put a few out in my yard and forgot about them. That afternoon, thru to the next evening we had a real big storm. Not a drop of water in any of the boxes

This sort of box; the blue things at the ends are the lid locks which become handles when open

Unfortunately you can only really get these boxes at around Christmas time

4 hours ago, SUP said:

I live in a very humid area and am always worried that my leathers will get mildew or mold. So checking and airing each week is a chore, pleasant until now but could become tedious over the years as my collection grows. It is so humid here that the Damp-rid I place around the house, supposed to last 2 1/2 months, barely lasts a fortnight. (Damp-rid is, I think, rock salt in a hanging bag made of a thick paper through which water vapor can permeate. Attached to this bag on the lower end is a plastic bag into which the water drains.)

2. I bet I can compete with you on that. We don't have humidity - we just have rain, all the time. Actually our average humidity level is around 75 to 90%, all year. Today, a relatively dry summer day, humidity level was 80% and tonite it will be 90%. Get more house plants in. Certain ones take moisture out of the air and plants purify your air

[SUP]

@fredk I must look for such boxes.. Christmas is in a few months now.

I love the rains, so lucky you!  I did not know plants take moisture out of the air. I'll try that as well.

Than you for that information.