Tabak Kretek

Anaïs Nin, check my Scented Snippets column. I reviewed and compared there...

I wanted to love this scent, but sadly I was left disappointed. I love all the notes listed. Especially tobacco is a BIG favourite of mine so I had my hopes up. When I received the sample, I immediately discovered it doesn’t really smell like tobacco at all. It wasn’t what I expected, but I did wear the sample anyway. It is an interesting fragrance nevertheless. According to Fragrantica Tabak Kretek is “warm spicy”. I must disagree with that. The spices are prominent, it’s all about cloves, but I find the scent rather cold and metallic. I can also detect a peppermint type of a note reminiscent of toothpaste. It’s rather pleasant actually, but the dry down is too sweet for me - to the point it makes me slightly nauseous. Somehow Tabak Kretek feels very young. It reminds me of a teenage girl barely old enough to smoke clove cigarettes. However it isn’t a typical juvenile candy scent by any means. Underneath that cloying sweetness there is a certain sense of seriousness. I keep coming back to the sample every now and then only to discover it doesn’t work for me, as much as I would want to like it.

I smoked kreteks ( clove cigarettes ) for 22 years until I finally quit smoking all together a couple of years ago .... but I still miss them. if anyone kows whether this really smells like those and where I can find them in Canada please pm me....

This is more like a metallic cloves with that cardamom and cinnamon haze, but more of a metallic as i can sense some amber and i can't sense any tobacco as for now (0 to 4 minutes of spraying).

I used to own Kretek (from 2006) The note list for both looks the same... Can anyone compare between this version and the older version? Thanks.