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borsors – :
4160 Tuesdays The Dark Heart of Old Havana is a curious mix, one that certainly sounds appetizing its note listing, but not one of Sarah’s best executions, at least to my nose, as far as sweet fragrances go.
Fruits, sugar, tobacco, vanilla, pepper, tonka, jasmine, and musk should, in principle, create a very sweet, perhaps slightly spicy tobacco scent, but I tend to agree with many reviewers that it’s in the fruit mix, particularly during the opening, that I get a bit lost.
In fairness, the dry down is much more pleasant, the fruits more in harmony with tobacco and vanilla/sugar/tonka trio, but the opening is challenging to the point of being prohibitive, at least for me.
Sadly, probably the worst offering I’ve tried to date from 4160 Tuesdays, but that’s only because I’ve loved and bought so many of Sarah’s offerings that the bar is set very high.
6 out of 10
moumatveu – :
A sweet smelling tango dancer, around 33yo., picture a slender, fit latino man with shiny dark mane, wearing his tight black dancing trousers (strictly NO JEANS!!!), that drips a peachy sweat onto his cigar-smoke infused pinstripe silk waistcoat, chatting up a blonde girl (that works in a coffee shop) after a dance routine at the back of the old decrepit ball room…while his equally hot boyfriend looks on smiling and chewing on a toothpick.
…that about sums it up from my point of view…
Warm, sexy and addictive sweetness that won’t give you type 2 diabetes, but could get you into a trouble.
Totally unisex IMHO
sandoval-xxl – :
A no-go for me.
Smells like rotten fruit.
Please please don’t do a blind buy of this.
Try a sample first.
tolyn111 – :
It’s a no from me. A sugary mess with rotting fruits, but not of the pleasant type. I haven’t given a fragrance a dislike for awhile, but this is a no go. If you’re expecting tobacco you might have to search for it, I couldn’t find anything that resembles a note.
Thank god it was just a small sample. Don’t blind buy. I tried this on my partner and we both disliked it on either of us.
twitterzloy – :
Update:
I purchased a 30mL bottle of this and completely adore it. I said that I don’t think this would work and I take it back – 22 degrees celcius, and it’s magic.
Just a magical scent, really.
gubernator – :
A very Complex scent!
The opening is a sweet ashy bitter green. not just a little sweet, but VERY SWEET! A mix of sugar and overripe fruits that are beginning to rot, sitting out beside and overflowing ash tray. I have to admit that this is an off putting phase of this fragrance to me. Unfortunately this phase lasts for several hours. As THOOH begins to dry down, a Crème Brulee emerges, bringing with it a glass of rum and a cigar. While this is not near as off putting as the opening, I would prefer a lot more rum and cigar with less Crème Brulee.
I get good projection and longevity on my skin. I do find THOOH to be Unisex, but it leans more toward feminine than masculine. I see this as more of a casual scent, although I did wear THOOH in a sports coat today.
Bottom line: If you enjoy very complex and sweet scents, you should give this one a try.
vladigord25 – :
Dark Heart of Old Havana
This is the scent that actually took me into 4160, along with Captured by Candlelight. The Dark Heart of Old Havana seems to be going for an idea of dirtiness, grime and heat in a classy, strange way that can only be found in the heart of a Cuban city. Something that alludes to pipe tobacco, street vendors selling fruit that may have rotted. This all sounds rather disgusting, but I ask that you bare with me. It is stunning. It’s something that only needs to be tried two or three times before deciding whether or not one likes it. It’s a strange encounter. One that, if you aren’t used to it, you may not know if you want to encounter again. I figure, only having tried it twice now, that it’s something you’ll think of fondly and may even come to desire again and again. In that way, it’s kind of like Opium. Kind of offputting, but there’s something about it that leaves you wanting more and more until you’ve exhausted your savings and are lying in a ditch somewhere, wondering where you went wrong – it couldn’t have been old Havana, could it? No, certainly not. Havana was a comfort.
Now this was something I craved when I was on my ‘gourmand only’ kick, but I could never access it. Now that I have gained access to it… I’m no longer in that phase and it’s a warm Australian Spring. Not exactly the best time to be trying a scent like this, as it’s almost suffocating me. However, there is a comfort to it that just barely makes this alright. This is all a reflection of my current mood and weather, not on the actual scent. Sarah has created a strange and highly picturesque scent that can only be described as ‘intentionally dingy, but splattered with deep red colours and warmth’. I digress, as that description has all but been repeated over and over by both myself and other reviewers. It’s just the truth.
The sugar in this is indeed the most detectable note, however it’s more a fruity sugar. Like a strange alcoholic beverage mixed with a brown apple slice. It’s not something you’d drink if you had any other choice, but it makes you feel good so you do anyway. The vanilla in this confuses me, but I can understand it from the cigar perspective. The cigar that Sarah exposes us to is a very rich tobacco cigar, probably smoked by either a rich person with horrible hygiene and manners… or a not so wealthy person who opted for cigars over proper food. The tonka in this is actually what I have so much trouble with. Tonka is already a very aromatic ingredient and when used in too high a dosage, it can be bad. My threshold for tonka has greatly reduced so, while this may work for many others and may be just the right amount, it may be too much for me. I must try this in the cooler weather to properly understand it. Having never been to Cuba, I can never truly understand it anyway. This scent does really make me feel like I’m in such a landscape, though. It doesn’t have to be Havana. It can be anywhere, this just has a very personal concept that I don’t think I could completely get just because I’m not Sarah.
All over, this is just a very realistic scent that not every one will like. I do like it, quite a bit actually but I’m not sure if I could pull it off. I’d love to be able to but there’s a bit too much going on for me at the moment and the weather is just much too hot for this to properly work. Come Winter or Autumn, this baby will get a much deserved work out.
Skylamer – :
This is the ideal “bed frag”. So soft and beautiful. So comforting. When you invite your princess over, wear this. You can thank me later.
Update: Surprisingly, this is a passionate compliments getter!!! Think I’ll be buying a backup bottle soon.
Update: Just purchased the 100ml extrait.
валек – :
I get the jasmine, tobacco and vanilla. This is very interesting. I like it but I don’t like it. I will have to keep trying it out for a few days.
kupon77 – :
I have rewritten this review as there has been a change. The handful of times I tried this fragrance proved a disappointment. I didnt like it at all. Now here’s the weird part. I have allowed very little sugar into my diet for the past month which will continue. DHoOH now smells much better although more peppery. The moral of this story? Cut as much sugar from your diet as possible and the world will smell much sweeter for it!
Its sweet, fruity and tobaccoey. The coffee adds a bit of a stimulating twist. Perfectly unisex even with the sweetness. The tobacco and coffee offset that beautifully.
Decent sillage and lasts for many hours on me.
gorlum89 – :
Huh, what mixed reviews. I’ll be honest; I traded for a sample because I liked the name, & because the only 2 others by this house I’ve sampled were at least very interesting and different… which, once you’ve tried 1,000s of scents, is saying something.
This one immediately got a ‘love’ from me, and now 8hrs later I want more! I don’t want the sample to run out, I need at least 3 wears of this to be with it and watch it.
Anyway I get a big opening of GRAHAM CRACKER, slightly cinnamony and with a baked-to-a-sweet-caramlized-crisp breadiness that makes my mouth water, just like that thin crispy layer of cinnamon sugar on cinnamon graham crackers. Is that cardamom there too, just a pinch? Anyway it’s delightful. This begins to turn into a boozy bourbon vanilla and then on into a warm, spiced peach. There’s a hint of warm, amber-like powder around the peach edges, then it dries down further into a pleasant soft sweet spiciness.
I love it. And I need more. I don’t really get coffee, sugar, or tobacco, but I get the impression from the overall vibe they have going on here. Kinda along the lines of Jazz Club by MMM, where they say there’s ‘tobacco’ and ‘booze’ but I just get a warm aura that hints at those two? It’s like that, but 10x better, to me. The peach is actually really well done, too, which is another big compliment coming from me. Recommend sampling if you like sweet warm spices! No rotten banana on my skin 🙂
vasilyk-76 – :
@Readysniffer 1 – “the Rotten Banana of Old Havana” – you expressed my reaction exactly! LOL!
This is a complex and difficult scent. An acquired taste, not for regular consumption.
swasselof – :
It’s Unique and I do like the smell. But I would not wear it out, personally. Fermenting fruits with lots of sweetness, and a pinch of tobacco and coffee.
ФКЕУЬ – :
Opens with sweet neroli which matches the gorgeous color of this juice but lasts all of 5 seconds before turning into a fecal mess on my skin which lasts for hours before fading to nothing.
Please try before you get a full bottle.
slava56 – :
Sometimes this smells of ready-to-ferment plums, other times it becomes a ripe, almost filthily sexy scent. Its a thin line and, I suspect, entirely hormonal.
On a good day it conjures up a day fruit picking, then meeting a hot lover, sweat running down hot skin, next to the abandoned fruit baskets, some produce mistakenly left behind and past best, but he’s hot, and so are you, and you dont care.
Bojen – :
I once travelled around Cuba for a month, and this smells EXACTLY like old town Havana as I experienced it. Very sweet, fruit slowly decomposing in a gutter somewhere, fragrant flowers, cigar smoke and possibly a hint of rum (I don’t get coffee but booze). All mixed with something I can only describe as exotic, unusual and taking a while to get used to. Just like Cuba. Sorry I can’t be more specific – this is a scent you must try for yourself. Definitely not a blind buy in my opinion, but if you can appreciate it it’ll touch your soul.
I’m not sure I can wear this to work (likely not) but I got a full bottle nevertheless and enjoy it when I feel like it. The first time I sprayed it I actually had tears in my eyes, this is how much it reminded me of Havana.
Magical.
Smeameknimi – :
pink gomme balloon!!!! that’s a great 1
smell 9,5 /10
Quortiptroura – :
A psychotically sweet syrupy citrus scent. There’s little in the way of tobacco, but I detect a generous serving of a pencil eraser note that’s as weirdly pleasing as the pencil eraser note in Tokyo Milk’s Dead Sexy (it’s a kind of wood that’s doing this — mahogany?). I could see this scent working as a comfort scent because it’s big and fuzzy, but I’m not sure it’d be polite to wear it in close proximity to others as I imagine it’d cause headaches. Fun, playful, perhaps not the most believable perfume as far as an environment goes (not that I’ve been to Havana, but I can’t imagine anywhere smells this sweet) — it’s certainly not unpleasant, but you’ll need to have your dentist on speed dial if you’re going to wear this one often.
arok – :
Extremely sweet, orangey opening which dries to an even sweeter jasmine and peach over tobacco ending. I am not sure about this as anything too sweet I find cloying and prone to give me a headache. Very syrupy gourmandish floral. Will have to test again to be sure. It is not an unpleasant scent, just a little too sweet. I don’t get any hint of coffee at all either. Lots of jasmine on the dry down though. The perfume is dark like maple syrup in colour too. I can smell candyfloss now, like someone is breathing candyfloss breaths at me. Interesting. I actually like this more than Mugler’s Pure Havane.
rfj509Negeltzex – :
Love love it . Great Tabacco scent .
danilka_26 – :
The Dark Heart of Old Havana is sweet sugary, tobacco and vanilla goodness. Smells like “Crema Catalana” also known as “Crème Brulee” with a hint of tobacco. I love it! I also detect coconut and coffee. Longevity is 7-8 hours on me.
kks532speagoessenda – :
I have never experienced Old Havana the place, but my father’s side of the family is German and right out of the bottle I realized The Heart Of Old Havana smells like Christmas stollen to me. This frag is delectable!
The sugar notes are exactly like the sugar icing that tops the candied fruit studded bread. I detect rum-soaked raisins, cardamom, an almond-y accord, milk and honey. The tobacco aspect of this fragrance is faintly sweet and my skin aquires a light smoke note, peeking through all the sugar, after about an hour.
Even if I have no scope to compare it to Old Havana, this fragrance reminds me of my family, and for that I cherish it and will be investing in a full bottle.
Мишаня :) – :
Very sultry, sweet, and pleasantly unnerving. I find the notes pretty much as described by voters, with the sugar rather brulee and the vanilla and peach really as one with the tobacco. One exception was the coffee – it’s barely detectable on me! Nevertheless, this is a sexy, decadent blend and i’ll add it to my rotation, particularly for tropical travel.
tyn620intitytek – :
Old Havana is my home , the city where I grew up in. this perfume smells sweet, sweet and sweet, it reminds me of a place located in Obispo street:” LA CASA DE LA NATILLA “, in english means “the custard house”, the aroma also brings memories of the Flan and puddings with caramel on it, the sugary and strong cuban coffee smell coming out of the hot kitchens of my Havana. you also can smell in the fragrance a little bit of tobacco. That’s the smell of this perfume, but my Old havana is more than that, I am sorry but something is missing here, my Old Havana does not just smell sweet, it is also smells dusty, the smoke that come from old cars,smell of salt from the bay, the smell of unique museums with leather and old books, this perfume is delicious but does not have the enigma,the beautiful history, the danger, the dirtiness and the Darkness of old Havana. However, it still has the longevity of old havana 😉
Did I like it? Yes I did. But it represents only the sweet side that tourists want to see, not the whole story and not the whole smell of an Ancient city with a history in its ribs, I’m glad to have it, and I am glad it has been inspired by my city. Thank you 4160 Tuesday.
Gorgonzolla – :
Sweet, boozy, fruity, syrup.
Intensely sugary, great for a sweet tooth! (Like me) I feel this would wear better on the skin in autumn as the heat seems to make it sour.
Thanks again to Mary-Jayne for the sample!
nomidon – :
I guess I never imagined Havana would smell so fruity and sweet. That’s really what I get form this perfume. A fruity vanilla gourmand. But there is a plastic note in it too. I definitely would not call it animalic, garbage, or any other foul odor–just plastic, a note that I have also smelled in other perfumes and which I am fine with. If pressed, I might say I can smell some extremely subtle nuance of coffee, but it’s really more of a vanilla scent. I like the perfume. The name might be better suited for Tobacco Vanille or Volutes. I expected something a lot darker and more complex with a name like The Dark Heart of Old Havana. The name of this perfume could be Havana Sweets.
P.S. to the nose behind this perfume, there is nothing stupid about the House’s name, I think it is thought-provoking.
kinoray.tv – :
Wearing this perfume feel like doing something wrong, something dirty, something forbidden but yet oh so enjoyable. The overwhelming sweetness was a bit too much in the beginning, but I soon developed a kind of stockholm syndrome to it and kept sniffing all day and reapplying when it began to fade after 5-6 hours. All day at the office it kept giving me flashbacks from good one night stands I had forgotten. In a good way. This is a dirty scent, like “watching True Blood and getting surprisingly turned on by vampire sex”-dirty. I love it.
Natalia Hey – :
I’ve spent the last few weeks slowly testing my way through a sampler selection of the entire 4160 Tuesdays collection.
Whilst there were a couple I personally couldn’t appreciate, (Shazam, The Lion Cupboard and the one about Raffles), The Dark Heart of Old Havana has jumped out at me as one of the best of the entire collection, and most assuredly my personal favourite.
I can see why this would get mixed reviews. This is not a ‘safe’ frag. This is dark, dirty, sweaty, sweet and nasty – in the sexiest possible way. This fragrance is fighting and fucking and laughing and fighting again, without showering. The sugar here is almost black. It’s crude, unrefined, boiled until it’s a black, smoky syrup. The tobacco is smoky and hot. The fruits, those glorious fruits!, are overripe to the point of rot. Sitting in the hot sun, beginning to ferment in the heavy, still miasma.
I agree there is an undercurrent of rotting sweet flesh here, but to my nose it makes it all the sexier. The rotten thread adds a beautiful counterpoint to the unrelenting, burnt-honey sweetness that pervades this.
I am in love.
Longevity on me is long-to-very long lasting. Sillage is at the upper end of moderate.
Edit: Now to get myself a bottle down here in Australia. Le sigh.
jursky – :
Hello, I got a Google alert that brought me here. Thing is, I was in Old Havana at night in 1998 and that’s what it smelled like. Rotting fruit, and boiling pans of sugar, cigars and coffee. I was quite pleased with it. I wasn’t expecting many people to like it that much, but if 0.1% of perfume lovers like it, it makes me happy. I just want not to be bland, so I accept with good grace that some of you will hate it.
Likewise the company name.
Oh yes, I am duty bound to explain that I make the stuff.
pdx398InsuffBooni – :
the opening was EXTREMELY promising as i thought i would love it from the first sniff. but later on it begun forming into different shapes and colors as it turned right after the tobacco and dried delicious fruits to a mouth that smells like tobacco for few minutes rather than tobacco leaves. then the coffee raised a bit with the sugar note, as the coffee begun to withdraw nice and slow leaving the suger as the dominant note then the tobacco arise at the back lowering the sugar note effect domination, later i realized that the dried fruit had vanished to nowhere and already forgot about it!!
then the scent remains sugary with a background of coffee note and a hint of tobacco, but mainly sugary smell.
it’s quite challenging and i guess i should give it a bit more time before i decide because the mix between these notes is quite weird to me as the sugar cubes is mixed with the modern coffee bean (aka dunkin donuts) and with mouth smell of a smoker rather than tobacco essence, im stating this cause honestly i’ve witnessed some relative smokers who smells like this added to them sweet coffee smell & it’s not a pleasing smell.
Edit (25th Sept 2016) After 2+ years and here i’m testing it again.
My nose developed quite big. & This fragrance tells a story, it has that amazing sweet tobacco that mingles first with dried bitter fruits and later with soured sugar, and banana vanilla mix. It still has that saliva disturbing whiffs at the top but if you stand still for a little while you will reach the point of captivation that will last till this fragrance last on your skin. Admirable and quite captivating.
coxMosork – :
I was excited to try this new fragrance since the notes sounded very inviting. The topnotes were good, sugary softness and then some sweet fragrant tobacco. Then it all went pear-shaped. Some serious funk entered into the equation. I got this weird rotten fruit, trash bin that needs to be emptied smell with a coffee overlay. I waited for it to get better and it never did.
The Dark Heart of old Havana ended up smelling like a dirty ashtray, the bottom of a glass of rum that was drunk last night, trash bin stink and bad coffee wafting through the air. It was like a movie where the main character wakes up after a hard night of drinking and finds himself sleeping next to a dumpster with stale cold coffee being poured on him by a shopowner who orders him to get lost or he will call the cops. I love most tobacco fragrances but this definitely did not work on my skin. After 6 hours the trash smell was gone, but there was nothing good left.
Crebrawem – :
I only recently discovered 4160Tuesdays, and am currently sampling my way through their collection – The Sexiest Scent on the Planet. Ever. IMHO., I really love, it is delightful. I also have a mini of Gin Garden, one not in the database [Lady Rose Lion (Monkey Unicorn)if you were wondering], plus I have samples of a few others.
So I thought I have a good idea what to expect from this – I have enjoyed each one I have sampled so far, some loves, some likes, so I was excited to test this one, which according to 4160Tuesdays website is:
“A walk through the hot streets, smelling cigars, sugar, fruit, coffee and an edgy atmosphere Dark by name, dark by nature. I went to Havana. Everywhere smells of tobacco, fruit, sugar, rum and something smouldering that you can’t quite put your finger on. That’s what I was aiming for.”
Sounds good, right? Well in the sample bottle it smelled amazing. I thought, judging by the scent in the bottle, that this would be amazing. It smelled rich, dark, smoky, warm, and slightly sweet.
Unfortunately this did not react well on my skin. It was overpoweringly, sickeningly sweet on me. I didn’t get coffee, or tobacco, nor rum. I certainly got the fruit and sugar but they were on the point of over ripeness and the “something you can’t quite put your finger on” was not working for me.
Such a shame, I so wanted this to work, and I highly recommend the others I have tried from this house. I would say that some of those I have tried would be pretty safe blind buys or samples, but this is definitely one to try before you buy.
In fairness, I think, in the bottle and on paper this scent does capture what it sets out to. But it does not work on me. On my husband it smelled much truer to the bottle scent although was sweeter and fruitier than he likes.
If your skin likes this it is a winner. For me, no.
Lasted well, about 6 hours, and some projection from sample dabs.
I prefer others from this house but will continue happily sampling for now.
FlikZiS – :
Really good! Smells like its name. The sugar doesn’t smell too sugary. It’s actually very pretty and definitely unisex.