Cuba Gold
by Cuba Paris

For the price, an excellent LeMale clone. Now, whether or not you like LeMale will determine if you like this scent from Cuba Paris.

I actually get decent performance from this, probably in the 4-5 hour range. It does project nicely and can fill a room upon application but does fade after the first hour. After that, it sits close to the skin

It's not offensive in any way and can get you compliments. Also, because of the price and type of scent, this is one of the safest blind buys in the fragrance game.

This is le male in a cigar shaped bottle. Some say it's a clone of le male, but this precedes le male, so I believe it served as an inspiration for le male. Save your money and get this if you planned on buying le male because since le male's reformulation, you get similar longetivity and sillage in a 100ml bottle for $8. Can't beat the bang for your buck with this one.

An unimpressive but admittedly cheap (typically $7-10 for 100ml) JPG Le Male clone, but significant harsher and more winter-leaning than Le Male. At least on my skin, it's hard to regard this as desirable at any stage---the punchy opening or slightly more subtle yet still somewhat nasty drydown. It's poor enough that I have a difficult time detecting the notes, even. The psuedo woods notes are probably the clear wrong turn, as the attempt at creating a cuban cigar falls flat on its face without a reliable base (actual tobacco, oud, patchouli, etc.), though it was unpromising enough at its opening to make the base a moot point. I'd recommend skipping this one in favor of Cuba Prestige, which is great, if you're looking for a cold weather cheapie from Cuba.

2 out of 10

I bought Cuba Gold at Ross last month after seeing it on the frag shelf for $7.99 and researching it on this web-site. Seemed like a good blind-buy, and I am not disappointed. I had never even heard of Le Male, much less tested it.

I work in a very casual engineering environment. Meaning no suits, jackets, ties, but typically casual slacks, sports or polo shirts and often t-shirts and jeans. I'm wearing CG daily now, one light spray to the chest, just because I REALLY like it and no one comments about " Who's Trolling ? ". One colleague asked what I was wearing and that it smelled pretty good, and I told him it's Old Spice body wash...Ha, ha, I'm not giving away the 'secret'. I wear it for myself, cause it smells great and isn't a real forward, assaulting fragrance towards others. It lasts all day and I get the nice scent lightly coming up through my shirt collar throughout the day. I suppose I could have the same thing in my work area with a very good air freshener on my desk, but I couldn't take it with me.

I bought this because of recommendations online saying it smelled like Le Male. I've never smelled Le Male and I figured I'd give this a try to get an idea.

The closest thing I've smelled to this--and had and loved--is Givenchy Pi. I'm sure it's just the sweet vanilla, powdery smell to it that draws that comparison from me, but that's all I have to relate it to.

I like it a lot. I don't see the point of buying Le Male or Pi now. I bought a Cuba variety pack consisting of this one as well as the Blue, Orange, and Red. This is the only one I could see myself actually wearing frequently. It definitely has a sweet tobacco undertone that I can appreciate to go along with the creamy vanilla powdery smell.