GansREliot – 2022-07-02:

5 out of 5

PPHHHWWOOOOAR!
What a scent!
RAWHEAD has a good description here.
To me though – despite the notes – this smells like slightly damp tobacco with caramel fudge and salt!
On the dry down after a few minutes the bright citrus disappears. A cursory sniff to me smelled more like caramel fudge and tobacco but its your nose playing tricks.
I can smell the great projection being the same with mint and anise registering but closer nose to skin I can start smelling the note table though to me mostly mint and very much liquorice with cigarette tobacco rather than pipe as well as hay and lavender.
After a while darker earthy notes like the patchouli and civet come forward.
Amazing scent – if you like tobacco you will want this… haven’t got anything like this except Atelier Cologne Tobacco Nuit which is simpler. This is more complicated with many changes and layers.
Tope shelf next to PDM Herod, TF TV, Miller Harris Feuilles De Tabac, Comptor Sud Pacifique Rhum et Tabac, Atelier Tabacco Nuit, Xerjoff Naxos, Slumberhouse Baque, Ex Idolo Ryder and Farmacia SS Annunzia Tobacco D’AUtore – all give remarkably different takes on a tobacco scent (except TV and Herod).
Wish I had a bigger bottle 😉

aleks75 – 2022-07-02:

5 out of 5

interesting scent, slightly reminiscent of Aramis Havana, problem is it’s a skin scent priced like a perfume!

sharhan13 – 2022-07-02:

4 out of 5

This is amazing, the best tobacco type fragrance i ever tried. It is very different from the others and screams class. An absolute masterpiece and unique perfume

navi – 2022-07-02:

4 out of 5

This is damp tobacco with spicy licorice. And maybe little bit civet.
This may not be a great crowd pleaser. Overall 4/5

ZPtaubL – 2022-07-02:

4 out of 5

جاندار چارپا
بسیار عجیب و خاص و یاداورنده روغن کرمانشاهی
بیشتر در دفع ادمها اثرگذار است تا جذبشان
خدا رو شکر که پخش و دوامش کنترل شده است و عربده نمیکشد
———–
Scent & Qualiy: 7/10
Longevity: 8/10
Sillage: 7/10
Creativity & Uniqueness: 10/10
Affordability: 4/10
———–
Overall: 7.2/10

brabglotthouh – 2022-07-02:

5 out of 5

Reflections on my first proper wear of Cuir Cuba Intense. It opens in a cloud of minty tobacco with a twist of lemon. To me the smell was very similar to someone, wearing a nice citrus scent, having gone out for a cheap smoke in damp weather and coming back indoors again. Assuming the person had a menthol cigarette, that’s how I read the opening of this scent. A very very dry mist of menthol tobacco and citrus. There is something in the opening that does not fully agree with me, and I was well on my way to wash off and add another frag before I left the house.
A few moments later a spicy accord joins in and with it, a hint of licorice. The smell is to me sweet, bordering on a tad too cloyingly sweet. The spicy aromatic middle notes hum better and, I’d say, more sophisticated than the opening. It smells of an old-school gentleman and for a few moments it reminded me of my late father, an avid smoker. By now the tobacco note takes on more of a freshly cut pipe tobacco than any other kind of tobacco due to the sweetness, hay, and lavender is my guess.
Once Cuir Cuba Intense reaches its end game it is a very different smell than it was in the opening. It smells of very classy and sophisticated (pipe)tobacco with faint hints of sweet licorice and nice spices. The cedar note is faint and I’d describe the scent as more spicy aromatic than woodsy, all the while being sweet. The sweetness is by now far more agreeable and inviting.
Patricia de Nicolai invites us to a very nice journey and while the first steps are less refined than the dry down it is a remarkable orchestration indeed. Quality of ingredients seem triple A and the fragrance truly shape-shifts during the first hour, ever evolving into a more accomplished state. I find myself sniffing the back of my hand (where I put a spritz) quite often which is a good sign. Not a frag I’d make a habit to use but certainly a very nice acquaintance!

nicolette359 – 2022-07-02:

3 out of 5

I really can’t understand the negative votes about this fragrance. So many dislikes? Really?!! Something is going wrong here. IMHO, Cuir Cuba Intense is extremely refined and elegant fragrance. It is very well blended with high-quality materials. The opening is nice, actually during this stage it reminds me of a smoother (much more unisex and slightly floral) version of Creed Tabarome. A few minutes later it changes a lot and from that point, Cuir Cuba is a totally different story than Tabarome. It has very sexy and seductive base part, I like it a lot.
Thumbs up!

Bogdan767 – 2022-07-02:

4 out of 5

This one didn’t smell like I expected it to. I am in fact getting a clear marine note, somewhat similar to Maison Incens Tabac Licorii, but I actually find that one more agreeable. I can’t even put my finger on what it is in this composition that doesn’t resonate with me, so this review is certainly not very helpful. It’s like there are two distinct layers to it and they don’t intermingle.

krotik – 2022-07-02:

4 out of 5

I used to dislike this fragrance when i sniffed it using a 0.7 vial sample, but when i used the spray head sample and sprayed it on my skin i realized that it was not what i have sniffed before! it is not as harsh as what Cuba should smell like, and not that soft or mild, it is a soapy licorice with a mild hidden tobacco but above that the wood shaving conquer all and back and forth with the licorice. The only note that i dislike in this fragrance which i personally see is ruining the whole juice is the soapy note, the clean note of soap, like the foamy soap on licorice and wood shavings.
Clean soapy notes shouldn’t be in a Cuba based fragrances even if you’re not planning to make an animalic tobacco dirt fragrance.

Leospartas – 2022-07-02:

3 out of 5

Jtd’s article below is excellent. Well written, fun, and informative. It brings up something key: Cuir Cuba is, despite what you may think, a fougere.
Any web/blog search will tell you the classic structure of the fougere is composed of lavander, oakmoss and coumarin (tonka bean). This classic structure has been… updated? re-imagined? by Parfums de Nicolai with magnolia, tobacco and licorice.
The opening is my least favorite part of Cuir Cuba. It is waay to sweet for my taste. Suddenly, the tobacco and licorice begins to emerge. Initially, the tobacco in Cuir reminded me of another favorite of mine, Creed’s Tabarome (two completely different juices). And it is the middle and the drydown where this perfume becomes the beautiful creation it is. It is a beautiful, soft tobacco enveloped by a beautiful aura of florals and a bitterish spice provided by the licorice. Beautifully executed, ideal for a hot summer day, Cuir Cuba makes an statement without being overwhelming.
Smell great my friends.

gejman.n – 2022-07-02:

5 out of 5

A different point of view, third or fourth take into my 30ml bottle.
Maybe the less immediately likable perfume I own.
The attractive salty licorice is what lured me at first, then I got lost in the woods. You start playing with the Rubik cube (very good simile, for sure) because of its fun colors, and then the game gets much more challenging than you expected. You need time and memory to work it out, to disentangle a hint of coriander from the milky magnolia, to catch the lavender whiff underneath the tobacco. Will I ever solve the puzzle? Or see the point of it? The jury is still out – good news is, the juice will – hopefully – wait for me till I reach the desired maturity.

deni102 – 2022-07-02:

3 out of 5

I applaud PR wing of Parfums de Nicolai. Coordinating the release of Cuir Cuba Intense with the US administration’s plans to normalize relations with Cuba? Brilliant!
Cuir Cuba Intense is a tobacco perfume. No surprise, given the locale in the name, but Patricia de Nicolai creates the notes the way a stage magician plays with your focus. I recognize the tobacco. I smell it as an arpeggio of floral, woody and herbal tones, but he tobacco takes two forms: the humidor and the fresh tobacco leaf. A humidor’s richness is a result of both the container and the contents. Fresh tobacco leaf is filled with resinous juice and its fragrance is more characteristically floral than leafy.
De Nicolai uses the tobacco note to focus your attention, but it’s a ruse. As with any good magic act, the real action takes place right in front of you without your notice.
Ta da! Cuir Cuba Intense is a fougère!
Granted, it’s an impressionistic one, but an effective one. The classical fougère is typically described as soapy, but from Houbigant Fougère Royale to Caron Troisième Homme to YSL Rive Gauche pour Homme, the coumarin in a fougère smells of hay and tobacco. In Cuir Cuba Intense, de Nicolai uses all the tricks the fougère has to offer. It plays the cool, and anisic tones of coumarin against warmer woody hues. It balances delectable, caramelized qualities with soapy inedibility, suggesting forbidden fruit. And wrapping identifiably masculine aroma (tobacco, leather, rumbly woods) up in a pretty bow, it is a classical dandy. Also in classically Victorian dandy fashion, and epitomizing the early generations of the fougère, Cuir Cuba Intense opens with a generous, expansive geranium note.
Prestidigitation works best on the suggestible and Cuir Cuba Intense is highly suggestive perfume. The fougère is there, but so is the leather. A citrus note ties to a dry smokiness and the heartnotes hint at citrus-leathers like Hermès Bel Ami and Estée Lauder Azurée. The combination of botanical references alongside undisguised chemical qualities reminds me of Robert Piguet Bandit. There is a sweet, caramel-patchouli inflection to the quiet but durable basenotes that is the balanced, pleasant version of Thierry Mugler A*Men’s hangover of a drydown. Cuir Cuba Intense isn’t derivative, it’s just composed of a lot of moving parts.
My strongest association between Cuir Cuba Intense and tobacco is not the way it smells, but the tone of voice and the synesthesia it triggers. It smells like Betty Bacall’s gorgeous, cigarette-raspy voice sounds. Her husky feminine voice was exotic yet she was forthright and plain-spoken. This same duality runs through the perfume.
Classical perfumery’s forté is orchestration, the ability to build notes and accords and swing them around with flourish. Contemporary perfumery, from about the mid-90s forward, used the tools of postmodernism, focussing on deconstruction and recontextualization to make perfume. De Nicolai’s Guerlain heritage is often cited in order to emphasize her traditionalism. Cuir Cuba Intense shows that she is as contemporary as she is classical and that first and foremost she is an expert structuralist.
from scenthurdle.com

pahomow.alek – 2022-07-02:

5 out of 5

Solid as a battleship and fascinating as a Rubik’s cube, Cuir Cuba opens with minty lavender, noticeable licorice and layer upon layer of various spices. Quite aromatic in its richness but not fully; it’s comfortable and controversial with patchouli and animals to prove what I say is true. The ingredients are mega ripe and rich, emphasizing the lemon from the citrus and geranium, the soft peel of ylang ylang and a tobacco note that’s ongoing. Yet at the same time, this is an ethereal scent, the epitome of contrariant elegance and a real fragrant mullet; business in the front and party in the back.

3,75293E+11 – 2022-07-02:

5 out of 5

Cuir Cuba Intense is exquisite to say the least. The magnolia note with the tobacco and licorice make this fragrance very interesting. I applied it in the morning and I could still smell it in the evening. After it dries down I could smell some civet with leather but not in a strong way. It was sweet as a matter of fact. I think it can be worn both day or night. Another great fragrance from the house of Nicolai Parfumeur.

epixSweetabip – 2022-07-02:

3 out of 5

On first application I get a soft haze of a aromatic smell of licorice and lemon with slight hints of mint. After a short while the tobacco can be smelled mixed in with other notes.
The opening does not last long and the Magnolia soon takes over and it dominates the composition from here on out. As you smell the Magnolia there are a lot of other notes that are dancing and interweaving through this main accord.
We have a light smell of tobacco on top of the magnolia almost like it has been sprinkled on top. There are hints of Ylang Ylang and other notes but the fragrance is so complex I just cannot pick them out to Id them.
Underneath the magnolia I can smell a warm emerging leather note and sometimes a hint of civet. This is what I believe is given the scent it’s warmth under the magnolia accord.
As we move into the basenotes when the Magnolia has faded you are left with leather, hay and a hint of civet on your skin. Though the scent has pretty much lost it’s power at this stage and is pretty muted on the skin.
I have to say the quality and complexity is top notch and very impressive. The scent is definitely unisex as the contrast of the floral and warm tobacco and other notes make it ideal for men or women.
The only thing that I’m not totally taken with and it’s just a taste thing is the dominance of the Magnolia note. It’s nice but a bit too much, I think I would rather the tobacco to be dominant. What I’m liking is the complexity and how the other notes interplay with the floral note, I like how the leathery warmth seems to be at the base of the Magnolia note.
All in all a very good complex fragrance that is very well crafted, I’m impressed!