You take a new bag out of the box and the whole room smells of it. Warm, a bit earthy, something of wood and wax. Or sharp instead, as though you've just opened a tin of paint. That first sniff tells you more about the quality than the product photo does.
The short answer on leather smell: with vegetable-tanned leather, you're smelling the tannins from tree bark along with the fats and wax from the finishing. That smell is earthy and fades over weeks to months. A sharp, chemical smell is something else entirely. That comes from solvents and plasticisers and points to cheap chrome-tanned leather or a PU coating.
Where does the smell of leather actually come from?
Leather is a hide with the water taken out and the tanning agent put in. With vegetable tanning, that's tannins from oak bark, chestnut, mimosa or quebracho, and the process takes weeks. The tannins stay in the fibre, and that's what you smell: a scent many people describe as woodland, tea or wet timber. On top of that comes the finishing. After tanning, the leather is fed with fats and often a coat of beeswax or another natural wax, and those add a warm, slightly sweet note. Together, that's what you smell in the box.
Chrome-tanned leather is tanned in a day or a few days using chromium salts. Those barely smell of anything themselves, but the leather is almost always given a dyed or coated top layer afterwards, and that carries solvents. Faux leather based on polyurethane smells of the plasticisers that keep it supple. Both of those smells are sharper and flatter than the smell of vegetable-tanned leather. How those processes actually differ is covered in our article on the tanning process from hide to leather.
What does the smell tell you about quality?
Quite a lot, with one caveat: you can't identify a tanning method by smell with certainty. But the general direction usually holds. An earthy, warm smell that mellows after a few days indoors goes with vegetable-tanned leather with a natural finish. A neutral, almost odourless bag is often chrome-tanned leather with a thin pigment coating: not bad as such, but the leather won't develop patina and will smell exactly the same in ten years. A sharp smell that's just as strong after a week, or that gives you a headache in a small room, is a warning sign. That usually means there's more coating than leather, or it isn't leather at all.
The difference between vegetable-tanned and chrome-tanned leather shows up in more than the nose, and those differences are set out side by side in vegetable-tanned versus chrome-tanned leather. If you're unsure whether something is leather at all, smell together with the grain and the cut edge helps, and that's covered in how to tell real leather from faux leather.
How long does new leather keep smelling?
For a bag you use every day, the strong phase is over after two to three weeks. After two months, you'll only notice the smell if you put your nose right in. A bag left in a closed wardrobe or its box holds onto the smell for months, since the volatile compounds have nowhere to go. A cognac backpack such as the Bryce still smells almost new after six months on a shelf.
| Situation | Strong smell | Still faintly noticeable |
|---|---|---|
| Carried daily, open room | 2 to 3 weeks | 2 to 3 months |
| Used weekly, kept in the hallway | 1 to 2 months | up to six months |
| In its box or a closed wardrobe | months | a year or longer |
These figures apply to vegetable-tanned leather. A PU coating smells sharp until the plasticisers have worked their way out, and that can take longer than you'd like.
Speeding the smell away, or keeping it
If you want it gone faster, leave the bag open somewhere with airflow, out of the sun and away from a radiator. A week by a half-open window does more than a month in the wardrobe. Take out the packing paper, since that traps the smell in. Don't put it in a plastic bag or a sealed dust bag hoping it will "draw it out", since that just keeps everything in. And don't spray it with perfume, air freshener, or fabric spray. Alcohol and perfume oil soak into vegetable-tanned leather and leave dark marks that never come out.
If you'd rather keep the smell, do the opposite. Store the bag in a cotton bag inside a wardrobe, and feed it thinly once a year with a leather balm based on natural wax. That brings some of the warm note back.
Musty smells differently from new
A bag that smells sour or musty after a spell in a cellar or a boot has nothing to do with tannins. That's moisture, and often early mould. You'll recognise it from a fluffy layer in the creases and a smell that turns bitter rather than warmer. Airing it out isn't enough at that point. Cleaning with diluted vinegar, drying at room temperature and feeding afterwards is the right order, and it's set out step by step in our step-by-step guide to removing stains from leather.
One thing people trip over when buying: in a shop you barely smell a bag, since it's already been hanging open for weeks. At home, straight out of a sealed box, the smell suddenly seems strong and you assume something's wrong. Give it three days somewhere open. If it still smells of paint after that, send it back. If it smells of woodland, you've bought the right thing.
