What does Habanita Molinard smell like?
You could buy bags of Habanita to put in your cigarette cases (so that the scent would permeate into your cigarettes) or a tiny liquid vial with a glass rod to drip a little of the liquid directly into a cigarette and thus perfume the smoke that emanated. So when Habanita by Molinard was suggested to me, by a fragrance sister, I knew it would be hit or miss. I have a feeling the Habanita will be a different kind of beast altogether on warmer and more moist climate. On so many bottles, a tiny push gives a*squirt* which then drips, but with Habanita EDP a tiny push gives a
tiny*puff* of perfume.
And the magic operates again and again. Harmonious in its voluptuousness, Habanita leaves an impression of balance under the fiery fire. Its Eastern Wooded Background is an absolute delight for comfort for these gentlemen. Habanita on my skin fits like a leather glove, after the first hard wave of sharp and alchoholic smell begins a sweet journey into the flavor of classy pipe tobacco, vanilla cake, burnt sugar, burnt sugar, mellow cognitive, old-fashioned powder
.
Molinard introduced Habanita in 1921, not as a personal fragrance but as a product to scent cigarettes. A perfume that marks and invariably notice. Fragrance of transgression, a multi-faceted oriental woody. There is a lemon disguised as a licorice, a rose whose petals seem to cut from sheepskin, a vanilla that can come out of a cigar cellar, an amber worthy of an aphrodisiac potion of a
Byzantine apothecary and many others scents again.
I just wanted to give you guys the heads up on the official discontinuation of Habanita EdT – Molinard confirmed it in an email to me. Habanita Eau de Parfum – 75ml Habanita is a mix of temperatures just like a frozen magma on the mountain surface under the cold breezes. Habanita is complex, she doesn’t reveal her full face at once, you have to be patient and you will be patient
.
A real olfactory kaleidoscope, it transforms and enchants you over the hours. Habanita evolves towards powdery notes, very subtle, which often dedicate it to women, but many men have been able to appropriate it. Used Sparingly (A Little Goes a Long Loooooong Way), Habanita Takes Me Back to My Childhood, of My Mother. EDT splash) By way of introduction, Habanita landed a solid leather-gloved punch then handed me a rum-soaked
cigar.
What does Habanita Molinard smell like?
In my last wearing of Habanita the time that put me off it more or less for good I quickly sprayed some on my neck and on my sweater in a rush out the door. Habanita feels extremely old-fashioned while simultaneously and oddly seeming completely modern, and very much the sort of thing that a perfume house like Etat Libre d’Orange might put out. Growing up in France, there were a number of cigarette boxes whose silver paper lining I recall being scented with a powdered note. My experience with Habanita Eau de Toilette is limited, as I say I have never really got on with it, so this review will not serve as a comparison of the two versions, instead it will look at Habanita Eau de Parfum as a stand-alone fragrance, but please do feel free to chime in with your thoughts
if you have tried both versions.
If that post-box trip were to happen now, I would admit right away that Habanita is most definitely not for me, though I’d still respect and admire it for its history. I’ve never seen it in America, but I have seen similar sorts of boxes in India, the 1980s Soviet Union, Italy, and other parts of Europe. I think the best assessment of the Three Faces of Habanita comes from the perfume blog, I Smell Therefore I Am. It is entirely reminiscent of its time and one could almost mistake it for a Chanel, a house that is well known for their aldehydic florals, however Habanita is nowhere near refined enough to be a Chanel, it is much more of a
sensual perfume.
Regardless, as Habanita opens up and develops, it turns into a scent that is primarily raspberry-vanillic powder with amorphous florals, Play-Doh undertones, and a whisper of raw, black leather in the background. Making it all the more complicated for me is the fact that the raspberry in Habanita is not like the fresh, sweet, fruit of summer days. It’s a hard scent to describe if you’ve never encountered it because it doesn’t have the aroma of cigarette, nor stale ashtrays, but also not of paper or pure powder. Well, Habanita is certainly a powerhouse that may overwhelm those not used to perfume
in their vicinity.
Habanita is classified on Fragrantica as an “Oriental perfume, but I personally consider it more of a chypre-leather. BUT, let me repeat again, Habanita does not have the depth, body, complexity or richness of (vintage) Blonde Tobacco. Top notes are Mastic or Lentisk, Geranium and Petitgrain; middle notes are Nutmeg, Heliotrope, Vetiver, Ylang-Ylang, Taif Rose, Cedar, Mimosa, and Jasmine; base notes are Vanilla, Mimosa, and Jasmine; base notes are Vanilla, Amber, and Petitgrain; middle notes are Vanilla, Amber, and Petitgrain; middle notes are Vanilla, Amber, and Petitgrain; middle notes are Vanilla, Amber, and Petitgrain; middle notes are Vanilla, Amber, and Petitgrain; The interplay of the powder elements with the other notes in Habanita creates the overwhelming feel of powdered
tobacco paper.
There are synthetics in the reformulated Habanita EDT, and it gives me that telltale burning sensation high up in the bridge of my nose. There is something much more important underlying the powdered note, however, something that makes many people classify Habanita as a tobacco scent. In 1921, Molinard released Habanita as perfumed bags to enable those newly emancipated, modern women who smoked to do so with a perfumed cover to hide their habit. It is impossible to write about Habanita without bringing up the well-known perfume blogger, Denyse Beaulieu
of Grain de Musc.
What is the history of Habanita Molinard?
If Loulou is a youthful, aspiring Pandora in a modern day Pandora’s Box, then Habanita is the archetypal Louise Brooks. The top is a twin to Arpege but where Arpege goes horribly wrong and starts to sour, Habanita kicks her lovely feet and breaks through the surface with a rose colored clove that just gets better and better. I have forever been in love with Habanita, I have it in the sublime, and very true to the original, EdP recreation and in the newly imagined La Cologne as well. Habanita comes from the Grasse perfume house of Molinard, first established in 1849 and still run as an entirely family-owned
business to this day.
At that time, cigarettes were scented, much like Clove cigarettes and herbal cigarettes still are; a touch of refined elegance, which in the 1920s aimed at the ladies, who had been just started to smoke in public. Wearing Habanita, if it meshes with your chemistry, is a veiled, wafting fragrance that trails you rather than announces you. Depending on your tastes and sensory experience, Habanita will seem absurdly old-fashioned or intriguingly niche-like and modern to you. Habanita is an Oriental Cyprus leather fragrance featuring top notes of orange blossom, raspberry, peach, bergamot, and galbanum; middle notes of lilac, orris root, jasmine, heliotrope, ylang-ylang and rose; and base notes of leather, ylang-ylang and rose; and base notes of leather, amber, ylang ylang and rose; and base notes of leather, amber, musk, and rose; and base notes of leather, amber, musk, and rose; and base notes of leather, amber, musk, and rose; and base notes of leather, amber, musk, and rose; and base notes of leather, amber, musk, and rose; and base notes of leather, amber, musk, and rose; and base notes of leather,
amber
The sweater went off to the dry cleaner, and Habanita was permanently banished to the darkest recesses of my wardrobe. The most sumptuous packaging befitting Habanita, from the ‘roses on black’ gift wrapping paper, the gorgeous bows, the little ornamentation, the gilded envelope and golden seals, I only wish I could’ve done an unboxing for ya’ll because Hanna’s packaging was so big. When I read on Fragrantica that a reader thought Habanita had, on first spritz, the “strongest blast of baby powder, EVER, I felt pretty sure she was referring to Version 2.If Loulou is a youthful, aspiring Pandora in a modern day Pandora’s Box, then Habanita is the archetypal Louise Brooks. When I read on Fragrantica that a reader thought Habanita had, on first spritz, the “strongest blast of baby powder, EVER, I felt pretty sure she was referring to Version 2.To me, Molinard exemplified the true essence of French perfumery from Grasse, with Habanita boasting a supposed 600 ingredients in all, working to create a nuanced blend of
sultry, purring notes and chords.
In 1921, Maison Molinard created Habanita, the first feminine oriental perfume to glorify vetiver, until then an essence reserved for men. Its hairs are to be found everywhere in the house, just like the trail of Habanita is everywhere where it passes through. Although the fragrance first saw the light of day as a fine fragrance in 1921, as an extract of perfume and later in eau de toilette, it began its life as a scent to aromatize tobacco cigarettes with. In the early ’90s, when I still smoked cigarettes, I discovered Habanita, and it’s power to ‘take over’ and become
all you could smell once applied.
Habanita is one of my favorite vanilla perfumes, but I was a little put off by it the first few times I tried it. Henri Bénard, chemist and mayor of Grasse, this avant-garde perfumer is at the origin of the olfactory innovations which marked the history of French perfumery such as AshaBanita, the first female oriental in 1921or theConcreted in 1925, the first solid scent in the world, based on natural flower wax. They wore their hair shorts, bobbed and marcelled, and they wore their skirts and dresses short as well. I think his review is very interesting, and I agree on Habanita having a small similarity to the “cheapo
drugstore fragrances.
Is Habanita unisex?
Just a small remark for the current edition, it’s sharper, less hot, too bad I liked my Habanita from before. Habanita is a phenomenon in stultifying the lot of pretentious super-duper niche fragrances which ask for an arm and a leg to grant you the favor of having them. The perfume itself was an experience, like savoring a glass of wine — you smell it at intervals to let it open each note to you — and Molinard’s Habanita is like an elegant 1920’s lady giving you a tour into her mansion. Before I delve deep into the vintage, I must say that Habanita in EdP as it is now available remains a very successful reformulation and is oft praised by many a critic as being a very close approximation of the vintage EdT, which has been discontinued for a
while now.
But here the contrast between the dry powerful base and light fruity floral in ‘Habanita’ is not enough for Molinard. Habanita has the leathery tobacco of Tabac Blond, the powdery sex appeal of Nuit de Noel, and a metallic green note reminiscent of Bandit–of which, truthfully, I wish there, I wish there were a tad less. She was a real woman, barely stood 5ft tall and prided herself on being a rough and tumble type, but when she curled her long jet black hair (much like my own) with sock rolls, burnt a match to make her some eyebrows, rouged her cheeks and lips, rouged her cheeks and lips with some crabapple and lips with some crabapple or blackberry juice, but when she curled her long jet black hair (much like my own) with sock rolls, burnt a match to make her some eyebrows, rouged her cheeks and lips, rouged her cheeks and lips with some crabapple or blackberry juice, and put on a dab of that Habanita, she transformed from everyday woman to femme fatale. Habanita and myself are just getting to know each other, but already she has taken me
down memory lane.
RC has a sharp and enduring lavender note that Habanita clearly lacks, and Molinard’s composition is more complex and a smoother blend. Tried Habanita last fall, and I remember it being very distinctive (which is actually high praise, as I’m amazed at how many “just nice frags I’ve tried that I can’t remember how they smell if it wasn’t for the spreadsheet), though just not me. Habanita evolves towards powdery notes, very subtle, which often dedicate it to women, but many men have been able to
appropriate it.
