The Dark Heart of Old Havana

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• olorami

  September 26, 2014

  

  The Dark Heart of Old Havana is the name of this perfume and Old Havana is my home where I grew up and lived my entire life before becoming an exile. As I read it’s based on the 1998 tour Sarah McCartney took to Old Havana inspired by her memories of this wonderful city. I can’t help but link Old Havana to the scent of the perfume—that’s exactly what it’s about. Here’s my experience: it’s a truly unique olfactory journey. If there were a gourmand oriental category this would fit right in. It smells sweet sweet sweet to the point of exhaustion which is both good and bad; it’s adorned with other notes that make it a delight like coffee and tobacco which you can distinguish with a little effort. A single spray is all you need and its sweetness settles over time to reveal its oriental character. Despite that sweetness I visualize it much more as a man’s scent. On Obispo Street in Old Havana there’s a place called La Casa de la Natilla; add to that the aroma of flans their caramel and the smell of sugared coffee wafting from the hot kitchens of my Old Havana and that’s what this perfume smells like but it falls short I’m sorry. Old Havana isn’t just sweet; it’s dusty smoky from the old cars cruising its streets carrying the brine of the surrounding bay the scent of millennium-old leather and the musty smell of books in exclusive museums. I don’t feel the salty touch nor the leather and it’s not the dirty enigmatic dark perfume its name suggests—just as my Havana is. Is it a rich perfume? Yes it’s a delight but it represents only the sweet side tourists see in my Old Havana a millennial city with history etched into its bones. It should have been a dangerous perfume something deeper a perfume to love like Havana itself. I’m happy to wear it happy to own it happy it was inspired by my city and happy that wearing it puts me in a good mood; its sweetness is no more than that of its residents who forget their pain and offer the world nothing but a smile.