Once you like one Tom Ford bottle, the rest of the range starts to make sense. The house is fond of big, plainly named ideas: a wood, a tobacco, a cherry, a sunny beach. Each is a mood with the volume turned up.

Oud Wood, with sandalwood and pink pepper, is the closest in spirit to Ombre Leather, smooth and dark without being loud. Tobacco Vanille, with tonka bean and ginger, is the cozy winter one, like a library with the fire going, and one spray does the work of three. I think of it as the bottle for reading in a coat indoors. Lost Cherry, with black cherry and rose, is the outlier in the best sense, glossy and dramatic, and I would wear it to a party where I wanted to be remembered.

Then there are the sunny ones. Soleil Blanc, with amber and bergamot, smells like warm skin and sun cream. Soleil Neige, with citrus, is the airy, brighter cousin that works in a snowy city as well as on a beach. They make a useful contrast if the leather is your night scent: a bright bottle for the day, a dark one for after seven.

Pick by season and by how loud you want to be. A wardrobe of three or four scents, each with a job, beats one bottle worn to death. If a room is small, wear less. If the evening is long, wear the deeper bottle and reapply once, on the wrists only.

Leather is a hard note to find in the wild, and people often want something in the same direction without repeating a bottle. These are smoky, woody, or suede-soft, and none of them try to copy anything.

Hugo Boss Bottled Beyond, with ginger and leather, is the crisp, easy option for the office. Maison Louis Marie No.04 Bois de Balincourt is a woody, quiet scent that feels like a cedar cupboard. Kilian Paris Old Fashioned, with cedarwood, is the bar-at-midnight bottle, warm and a little boozy. Ruhveda Mughal Majesty, with jasmine and leather, is closest to the Ombre Leather idea and a fair second opinion. Yves Saint Laurent Babycat, with bourbon vanilla and suede, is soft and sweet, the coziest of the group. KAYALI The Wedding Silk Santal is a creamy sandalwood that suits anyone who finds leather too severe.

What I would skip: judging any of these from the paper strip alone, and layering two woody scents on the same wrist. Leather and smoke build fast, and two of them together can turn into a fog. If you want to combine, spray one on your clothes and the other on your skin, and keep both light. The other trick is patience: give each bottle a full afternoon on your skin before you let it into the running, because smoke and wood often reveal their sweeter side only after the first few hours.

Wear a leather fragrance the way you would wear a good jacket: on cooler days, with intention, and not every single day. Two sprays is generally enough for something dense. The neck and the inside of the elbows work well, and a little on a scarf will carry through the afternoon. Keep the bottle away from radiators and windows, since warmth and light are what dull a perfume first.

Sample before you commit. Spray it on your skin, walk around for a few hours, and ask someone you trust what they notice. If you like it at hour four, it is yours. If you keep noticing a note you do not love, move on to the next bottle in the grid and try again.