A Cuban entrepreneur believes she’s invented a formula for a unique homegrown perfume that she’ll someday sell globally.

What is her hidden component? Valuable tobacco leaf from Cuba.

One of Cuba‘s most important and well-known exports is tobacco, which grows abundantly throughout the western portion of the Caribbean island, particularly in the province of Pinar del Rio, which produces the greatest tobacco and cigars in the world.

In her little laboratory next to her family home, 53-year-old Clara Camalleri, told Newsmen that she crushed the green, veiny cigar leaves and combined their fragrant fluids with alcohol and other essences. “It accentuates its fragrance and gives it a unique touch,” she remarked. She calls the tobacco-based perfume “Vitola Cubana” and says it smells “exotic” with notes of “wood and acid that confer a seductive and distinctive character.”

According to Camalleri, she started producing perfumes at home in 2018. She had just recently founded the company when the communist-run government of Cuba relaxed the prohibition on private businesses that had been in place since shortly after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

According to Camalleri, who recently worked through a blackout, entrepreneurs in Cuba, who are experiencing the greatest economic crisis in decades, have unique difficulties.

“Perfume production is difficult everywhere, not alone in Cuba. We have a lot more challenges here,” she continued. She also mentioned how difficult it may be to obtain imports, raw materials, and even necessities like packing and energy.

Notwithstanding these challenges, Camalleri continues to create further fragrances, antimicrobial gels, and colognes using the essences of sunflower, chocolate, coffee, and cinnamon fragrance.

She claimed that although she works with her parents, mother, and two kids, she has discovered a sizable domestic market and expects to export her goods in the future.

“In Cuba, there’s a shortage of perfumes…and so we’re trying to meet that demand,” Camalleri stated.

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