Cuban scent smacks of tobacco
IAN STALKER
Does Eduardo Guerra Hernandez’ choice of perfumes make him something of a Cuban chick magnet?
Well, he says that might be the case.
The Cuban tour guide says wearing a perfume called Vegueros — which has a distinctive cigar smell and comes in a container resembling a bunch of stogies — can lead to women in his homeland swooning around the man sporting it.
“Cuban women like the smell,” he reports.
A lot of Cuban men wear Vegueros or a similar product, says Guerra Hernandez, who suspects that Cuba — famed for its cigars — is likely the only country where tobacco-flavoured perfume is easily available.
One American reviewer of Cuban cigar-scented perfumes stated they have a “woody, musky scent,” while a Cuban review said Vegueros “represents the spirit of the workers of the tobacco fields of Pinar del Rio, zealous caretakers of the best tobacco leaf in the world… The Vegueros man is a virile, seductive, adventurous young man who likes to face the challenges of life.”
Vegueros — also the name of a line of cigars — and similar brands can be found in stores in the Varadero area, a mainstay of Cuban tourism.
Not all visiting foreign women are as taken with Vegueros as Cuban women apparently are, with two women in a Canadian tourism delegation that visited the tobacco community of San Juan y Martinez — found in the heart of Cuban tobacco country — and were exposed to the perfume while there saying they were less than wowed, with Sam Ion stating it “affected me negatively and that’s weird because I’m a smoker.”
Isabelle Chagnon in turn found it “too strong.”
Fellow group member Steve Gillick jokingly speculated use of the tobacco-themed product might lead to users becoming “addicted to the perfume.”
Guerra Hernandez acknowledges he isn’t a hardcore cigar smoker but does like to light one up when he’s “very happy and when I’m drinking and dancing.”
And he says even if some foreigners may find the Vegueros scent somewhat overpowering, it does catch their attention.
“They think it’s funny,” he reports of tourist reactions.
