Tinukai'i

“...to travel is to Dream, and to dream is to Travel...” I highlighted this part of the verse from the official page of this very discreet Croatian brand because this fragrance truly takes you on a journey. In my case — a journey back to childhood. Nothing here is a lie or marketing embellishment. All the listed notes can truly be felt; the description is accurate. So here, I can freely copy the listed notes: Tobacco leaf, propolis, bushman candle, liatris, rum, honey, wooden barrel, incense, hay, forest leaves, musk, vanilla, muscovado, cedarwood. And I can guarantee that everything is truly in there — magically, masterfully blended, and absolutely convincing. From the very first sniff, a vivid image appeared — a short period of early childhood that had been buried until that moment. I am 7 years old, staying at my grandmother’s in the countryside. A Herzegovinian summer. I’m sitting on the veranda with my cousins — stringing heart-shaped elongated or oval golden tobacco leaves onto a thick rope, piercing the base of each leaf with a long, heavy needle... we laugh, the whole world is bright and sunny, and the scent of tobacco leaves enveloping us has forever imprinted itself onto the memory chip that produces happiness. That is what my first breath of Tinukaia evoked. We strung garlands of that gold and hung them on wooden rods, and with childlike hope — hope so pure it didn’t even require prayer — we unconsciously protected them from wind and summer rains. And of course, this summer, when I visited the cemeteries with my family, we also went to that ancient, long-abandoned house (the one in the photo), in front of which I used to string tobacco, and where the drying shed once stood. Naturally, I had a bottle of Tinukaia in my bag — a practical 30 ml — and used it for this special moment. I sprayed my 25-year-old son as well, and he, though entirely outside the world of perfume, fell in love with this scent and, for the first time, wanted a bottle of a fragrance. To avoid confusion — this is not at all the scent of tobacco or ashtrays we often encounter in the niche world. Tobacco leaf before drying is something completely different. Warm and soft, gently aromatic. And perfectly intertwined and enriched by honey, wax, hay, forest leaves, and — in my opinion the most prominent — the scent of a wooden barrel. A clean one. Freshly carved. All these notes are exceptionally well-balanced, and the overall mood of the perfume is sweetly melancholic. Unobtrusive, yet long-lasting. Many famed “noses” should tip their hats to this small masterpiece. And the bottles of this brand are beautifully designed.

One of the finest tobacco perfumes in my opinion, a sweet, cosy tobacco.