Habanita

Habanita was born in 1921 at Molinard, a Grasse house founded in 1849. It was first sold in sachets to slip into cigarette packs, or as an extract in which cigarettes were steeped, to soften the smell of tobacco for women who smoked.

The Roaring Twenties

The fragrance went hand in hand with the emancipation of the garçonnes, who smoked, danced and wore their hair short. Molinard presents it as a fragrance of transgression, daring to put in a feminine scent the vetiver until then reserved for men.

In 1924, Habanita reached perfumeries as an extract, in an ornate bottle. The range grew with a concreta, a solid perfume, in 1925, and, in 1929, an eau de Cologne, an eau de toilette, a brilliantine, a lotion and a face powder.

A family affair

Molinard remains a family house. For the centenary in 2021, its managing director, Célia Lerouge-Bénard, said she was paying tribute to the fragrance composed by her grandfather, without reinterpreting it: the current formula was kept, and the bottle turned red.

The versions

The formula was reworked in the 1980s. In 2012, Molinard launched an eau de parfum that Blakemag calls more intense, in a new bottle; the house sees it as a fragrance at once modern and historic, rich in some 600 essences.