La Promesa del Moncada by Cuban Artist Antonio Caret Hernandez Photo: Richmond Confidential

There are plenty of tobacco fragrances that can evoke light cigarette smoke, or a slightly cigar-like aroma -just a hint, say, of a café doorway or a nightclub late at night.  They strive for refinement, taste and sophistication, and are formulated with just enough leafy scent to rough things up a bit for a night out. Then there’s Nicolai Parfumeur Cuir Cuba Intense– an outright take-it- to-the streets island revolution in a bottle. It is an unlikely perfume from Independent Niche Perfumer Patricia de Nicolai whose fragrances are influenced by great French classics; she has fashioned a down-and-dirty call to arms.

Diego Rivera Glorious Victory

Cuir Cuba Intense is an immediate and drastic perfume that travels far from polite society and drops you into the gritty dark corners of a country under siege. It riles you up, challenges and incites you, and there’s nothing soft about it.  This perfume comes on like a swarthy, sweat-drenched man wielding a machete, screaming at you to stay indoors in a language you don’t speak.  And, like all revolutions, it begins with a soft murmur of sweet lime, mint and licorice, so you’d think this would be a cool, refreshing beginning.  Maybe calmer heads will prevail.

Fidel Castro in New York , 1959

Wrong.  Somehow this scent warps the calmness of the top notes into a riotous heat-shimmer of spiky aromatic essences that leap out at you from the heart of the scent.  This isn’t perfume; it’s a tense street fight, as the emotional heat of coriander roars against the coldness and reserve of geranium.  Cuir Cuba Intense ramps up quickly into a rousing, tangled friction that never resolves, but instead stays rigidly taut and electric.  There’s a deep anguish and raw hunger embedded here, an inner tortured moment being expressed halfway between your emotional core and the intellect.  It’s Fidel Castro,  surrounded by a bevy of beauties who are completely caught off-guard and absolutely mesmerized by his dangerous charm.

Che Guevera smoking a Cuban Cigar

So forget what your nose tells you; you’ll feel this fragrance down deep in your gut.  The strength and sillage in Cuir Cuba Intense are definitely geared for confrontation with authority – this is a fragrance that has no business with diplomacy.  It shoves you in the chest, slaps you around a little and wants to know which side you’re on.  The spices are heavy and thick, with an urgent animalic tang that doesn’t allow for fence-sitters. This is no scent for wearing at work, unless you work for the Revolution (or the CIA) and your office is in a warehouse late at night. The base notes offer no quarter, either. They enter the fray wielding dry wooden cudgels of cedar and dusty patchouli, with a one-two back-alley sucker punch of sage and civet close behind.  There’s a sharp tobacco note mixed in as well, a faint reminder of the politico who knocked you to the ground and walks away, muttering “Don’t bother getting up, kid.  I know where you live.”

Official Notes: Sicilian Lime Essence, Anise, Liquorices mint, Lavender essence, Geranium Essence, Magnolia Essence, Coriander essence, Patchouli essence, Cedar, Ylang Ylang, Tobacco absolute, hay essence, Liatrix (known as deer's tongue)  essence, Iris, sage, musk and civet

–Steve Johnson, Contributor

Disclosure: A sample was provided to me for promotional consideration; the opinions are my own

 Editor’s Note: As Mme di Nicolai wrote in my interview January 12, 2014, her love of home fragrances inspires many of her personal perfumes. The starting point for Cuir Cuba Intense was Havane. Cuir Cuba Intense and Musc Monoi  (review by Tama Blough) are the two new original personal perfumes that debuted this year to celebrate Nicolai Parfumeur's 25th Anniversary-Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief and Art Director

Photo Cuir Cuba Intense bottle and Nicolai parfumeur-createur, un metier d'artiste book page 49  by MCamen

Thanks to the generosity of Patricia de Nicolaï and Nicolai Parfumeur we have a 30 ml bottle of Cuir Cuba Intense for any reader in the world. To be eligible, please leave a comment with what you think you will enjoy about Cuir Cuba Intense, how the review made you feel, your favorite Nicolaï Perfume and where you live by November 15, 2014.

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